Archive for April, 2008
April 30, 2008 at 3:16 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
68. The Call of Earth by Orson Scott Card (Science fiction) 332 p.
This is the second volume of Card’s Homecoming, and it takes up right where The Memory of Earth leaves off. Wetchik and his sons are still in the desert, but another dream sent from the Oversoul sends them back to the city for something else they need: women. Specifically, wives for each of them. Meanwhile, the general of a great empire is eyeing Basilica, and it may not be possible to stop his plans for the city.
I liked this book better than its prequel, mostly because the main protagonist, Nafai, started to grow up and develop as a character, and so became far more likable. Luet and her sister also became more prominent, and they, along with Nafai and Isseb, are my favourite characters.
I’m always impressed at how Card, even when he’s telling a story that carries a message, never reduces it to a mere vehicle for that message. His characters may be prophets, maybe be moral failures or moral heroes, but they’re always human beings first. My absolute favourite scene in the book is the wedding night, because whatever else Nafai is, he’s still a fourteen-year-old virgin. One with a good sense of humour.
I’m glad I bought the first three volumes of the series at once, and now I only wish I had all five!
Pages read: 19,635
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, A ~ Z Reading Challenge, Cardathon Challenge Redux, Homecoming, Orson Scott Card
April 30, 2008 at 3:02 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror
67. The Memory of Earth by Orson Scott Card (Science fiction) 330 p.
After falling in love with the Ender series this year, I decided to get to know some of Card’s other series. I had never read a review of the Homecoming series, but I knew from reading his open letter (addressing concerns about plagiarism in The Memory of Earth) that it’s based on the story of the Book of Mormon. I was interested to see what Card would do with a sacred story from his own religion, in giving it a science fiction setting and thus opening it to a wider audience.
For forty million years, the world of Harmony has been a world without large-scale conflict. The Oversoul, an artificial intelligence satellite system revered as a god, has suppressed any thoughts that would lead to such conflicts. While some technologies have flourished, mechanical transportation and anything large than hand weapons have not been invented. Now a crisis has come: the Oversoul, designed by humans fleeing the destruction of Earth, has far outlasted its intended lifespan, but humanity has not yet learned how to live in peace. Despite its best efforts, the Oversoul is breaking down.
How closely the story of The Memory of Earth follows the Book of Mormon is impossible for me to tell, since I’m totally unfamiliar with the latter. I do know that Card, as usual, tells a brilliant and engaging tale, one which left me thoughtful and eager for the next in the series.
I had some of the same problems with this book that I had with Xenocide, namely that I found many of the characters annoying and unsympathetic. The fact that Card clearly intends them to be so didn’t stop them from diminishing my enjoyment of the book somewhat, but I wouldn’t say that the story itself suffers for their presence. Quite the contrary, since they all have a role to play in its moral framework.
And that’s important, because Homecoming, even more than the Ender saga, has a point to make, and it isn’t really possibly to evaluate the books individually, except as entertainment. In that context, The Memory of Earth is a success: I couldn’t put it down.
Pages read: 19,303
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, A ~ Z Reading Challenge, Cardathon Challenge Redux, Homecoming, Orson Scott Card
April 29, 2008 at 4:47 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Favourite Books, Historical Fiction, Mystery and Suspense
66. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, or On the Segregation of the Queen by Laurie R. King (Historical mystery) 405 p.
I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him. In my defence I must say it was an engrossing book, and it was very rare to come across another person in that particular part of the world in that war year of 1915. (5)
And so begins one of the most magical books I’ve ever encountered. I was eleven or twelve when my mother first put a copy of The Beekeeper’s Apprentice into my hands. Although we both liked mystery novels, we didn’t really share the same taste, so I knew that anything she thought I’d like was sure to be something special.
At the time, I’d never read any Sherlock Holmes pastiches, so my immediate instinct, on encountering him in a story not written by Conan Doyle, was not to run screaming from the room. A lucky chance, because The Beekeeper’s Apprentice is not like any other Holmes story. For a start, it isn’t really about Holmes at all.
The narrator and protagonist is one Mary Russell, a young Jewish-American feminist who, after the death of her family, is placed in the guardianship of her aunt, and goes to live with her on the Sussex Downs. A chance meeting with Holmes leads to a kind of informal apprenticeship when the great detective realizes that here, at last, is someone with an intellect to match his own.
Although ostensibly retired, Holmes is far from abandoning cases altogether. When Mrs. Barker, a neighbour, brings Holmes a problem, Russell gets her first chance to see her mentor in action, and manages a few deductions of her own. The case is classic Holmes, with government secrets and mysterious poisonings.
Russell’s next case is far humbler; as she herself remarks, the theft of “thirty guineas and four hams, even in those days of chronic food shortages, were hardly the stuff of Times headlines” (103). Despite the affair’s relative unimportance, she acquits herself with credit, and it isn’t long before a genuinely noteworthy case comes along. The six-year-old daughter of an American senator is kidnapped for ransom, and although her parents are willing and able (barely) to meet the kidnappers’ demands, what guarantee do they have that she will be returned alive once the ransom is paid?
That case, although critical in itself, is also a turning point for Holmes and Russell’s partnership. It gives both Russell and Holmes and new confidence in Russell’s judgement and abilities—something they desperately need when it is revealed that Holmes has a new and deadly foe.
I’ve re-read this book a dozen times or more, and I’ve always found something new to enjoy about it. It’s one of those few, perfect books to which I would unhesitatingly award a rating of 10/10, or would automatically place at the top of my list of favourites in its genre. Mary Russell’s voice is unique, and Laurie R. King uses her pitch-perfect ear for dialect and vocabulary to make her sound like a WWI-era Oxbridge intellectual. And I know I’m not the only reader who has been completely charmed by the English settings of the book, particularly King’s descriptions of Oxford. She has a real gift for making a place come vividly to life with history and atmosphere.
There’s so much more I could say about this book, but I’ll confine myself to this: I have rarely enjoyed any book as much as this one, there is no mystery novel I like better, and if you haven’t read this yet, you’re missing something special.
I’m going to be re-reading all eight Mary Russell novels this year, in preparation for the release of the ninth, The Language of Bees, in 2009.
Pages read: 18,973
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, 888 Challenge, A ~ Z Reading Challenge, Decades Challenge 2008, Laurie R. King, Mary Russell
April 26, 2008 at 11:47 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Mystery and Suspense
65. The Second Confession by Rex Stout (Mystery) 256 p.
This book is the second Nero Wolfe story featuring an encounter with arch-nemesis Arnold Zeck. In And Be a Villain, Zeck was merely a threatening voice over the phone, but in this book, he takes direct action against Wolfe. Still, the book ends with the status quo between the two restored, without Wolfe having to pull out all the stops and expose or destroy his enemy.
The case itself is a complex one, involving several real or suspected communists, a false confession, a love affair, the destruction of $40,000 worth of property, and a murder disguised as an accident. It’s a very good mystery—maybe my favourite Nero Wolfe mystery so far. I’m excited to read about Wolfe’s final showdown with Zeck in In the Best Families.
Pages read: 18,568
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, Nero Wolfe, Rex Stout
April 26, 2008 at 10:22 pm · Filed under Books Etc
It seems like the past few days have been a series of annoyances.
First, jury duty, Canada’s dullest civic obligation. Then, last night, food poisoning. I didn’t think I even knew how to throw up, but as it turned out it happened without any effort on my part. Anyway, now I can cross food poisoning off my list of New Experiences I Never Want to Try.
This morning, I woke up half an hour before I had to leave for work, to be greeted by the news that the TTC (Toronto’s public transit) had gone on strike at midnight, leaving me stranded. The TTC kindly gave its riders one hour’s notice before walking off the job. Luckily, I was able to get a ride to work, but I chose to walk home. It took me exactly an hour and a half, walking downhill.
I could have got a ride home, but I chose instead to visit some bookstores, and picked up a few books. Nine, in fact. And also stopped at the grocery store for a roast chicken. I reached home more dead than alive, but now that I’ve had a chance to revive, I’m excited about my purchases. Mostly Orson Scott Card novels (although not the ones I most wanted, namely Children of the Mind and Ender’s Shadow), but I also found Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov, which I’ve looked for in every other used bookstore I frequent, with no luck until now. So I’ve got plenty of books to fill a relaxing Sunday, which is what I intend to have tomorrow.
I hope the past few days have been more fun for you than they have for me!
April 25, 2008 at 4:20 pm · Filed under Books Etc
As I mentioned, I’m in need of some new challenges, so since I enjoyed my personal Sci-fi Classics Challenge so much, I decided to renew it in a slightly different format.
My goal remains the same: to enjoy some classic works of science fiction. This time, I’m going to read by subgenre, to get an idea of the range of stories that come under the heading “science fiction”!
I picked subgenres more-or-less at random from Wikipedia:
- Hard science fiction: Red Mars » Kim Stanley Robinson
- Social science fiction: Foundation and Empire » Isaac Asimov
- Space opera: Hyperion » Dan Simmons
- Military science fiction: The Forever War » Joe Haldeman
- Planetary romance: Dune Messiah » Frank Herbert
- Alternate history: The Man in the High Castle » Philip K. Dick
- Post-apocalyptic: A Canticle for Leibowitz » Walter M. Miller, Jr.
- Mundane science fiction: Air » Geoff Ryman
- Time travel: To Say Nothing of the Dog » Connie Willis
- Dying Earth: The City and the Stars » Arthur C. Clarke
The list is still tentative, so some of my choices may change, but I will read one book from each of ten different sci-fi subgenres during 2008.
If you have any suggestions for alternate titles, I’d love to hear them!
Tags: Book Lists, SF Subgenre Challenge
April 25, 2008 at 3:10 pm · Filed under Books Etc
I am in desperate need of more challenges, and this one sounded interesting: read a book from each of (at least) 8 consecutive decades (prior to the 21st century) by the end of 2008.
Since I only want to inspire myself without being terribly ambitious, I’m choosing to read ten 20th-century books (although I haven’t got them all picked out yet):
- 1900s: The Man Who Was Thursday » G.K. Chesterton (1908)
- 1910s:
- 1920s:
- 1930s:
- 1940s: And Be a Villain » Rex Stout (1948)
- 1950s: Palace of Desire » Naguib Mahfouz (1957)
- 1960s: The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress » Robert A. Heinlein (1966)
- 1970s: Gateway » Frank Pohl (1976)
- 1980s: Hyperion » Dan Simmons (1989)
- 1990s: The Beekeeper’s Apprentice » Laurie R. King (1994)
Tags: Book Lists, Decades Challenge 2008
April 25, 2008 at 2:54 pm · Filed under Book Reviews, Mystery and Suspense
64. And Be a Villain by Rex Stout (Mystery) 156 p.
A&E’s Nero Wolfe has long been one of my favourite television shows, but I’ve actually read only five or six of the novels by Rex Stout, on which the show is more-or-less faithfully based. I do enjoy the books, though, and this one is no exception.
And Be a Villain (a.k.a. More Deaths Than One) features eccentric genius Nero Wolfe’s investigation into the murder of Cyril Orchard, who died by poisoning while a guest on a popular radio programme—while the show was on the air. This book also marks the first appearance of Wolfe’s arch-nemesis, Arnold Zeck.
The mystery was a good one, and as usual, Wolfe’s antics were entertaining, as was Archie Goodwin’s narration. I’m going to go on to read the two other Zeck novels, The Second Confession and In the Best Families.
Pages read: 18,312
Tags: 50 Book Challenge 2008, A ~ Z Reading Challenge, Arnold Zeck, Nero Wolfe, Rex Stout
April 24, 2008 at 10:00 pm · Filed under Books Etc
The Sci-fi Classics Challenge was a personal challenge I started July 1, 2007, to broaden my knowledge of the best-known (and best-loved) works of science fiction. I’d just realized that, although I love the genre, I didn’t know much about its roots, or have more than sketchy knowledge of its most influential writers.
A year later, I feel like I have a much richer understanding of the genre. Of course, the ten books I read are only a fraction of all the complex, rewarding, challenging works of science fiction out there, but they are some of the best.
I now know that I love Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game more than any sci-fi novel I’ve ever read, and that it and its sequel, Speaker for the Dead, fully deserved to win both the Hugo and Nebula awards in consecutive years. I’ve discovered that although I don’t agree that Dune, by Frank Herbert, is the best SF novel around, it is definitely among the best of the genre, as are Ursula K. Le Guin’s [review: The Left Hand of Darkness] and Foundation by Isaac Asimov.
I’ve read and enjoyed The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester, who I’d never even heard of before I started the challenge. I finally got around to Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, and realized that although it’s an interesting and inventive novel, Dick’s novels will probably never be among my favourites. I’ve sampled The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which I didn’t enjoy, but at least now I can recognize the myriad references to it that pop up in so many other books!
I even went back to the 19th century, and read some of the earliest works of science fiction. I wasn’t thrilled with either The Time Machine or Frankenstein, but they were worth reading just to experience the roots of the genre.
All in all, I read ten books, some great and some not so great, and had a wonderful time doing it!
Tags: Sci-Fi Classics Challenge
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