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I've made a bit of a genre shift into science fiction/fantasy. I had some ebooks from Tor's big giveaway last summer that I hadn't picked up and wanted to clear out the hard drive a bit by finally reading them. It was a good change for me--I have been reading fewer books because it's been hard for me to find things I can get into. While I didn't necessarily like these books, they were captivating. Or maybe because I had no tv or internet I was the captive audience. Either or.
Orphans of Chaos—John C. Wright
I thought this was going to be sort of fun, steampunky and mysterious, but no, it's more of straight fantasy but there's lots of blather about science and physics and oh, nobody cares if you do good characters as Wright mostly did. And some really creepy scenes. Eh. I'm not getting the next one in the series.
Spin—Robert Charles Wilson
The author really got drunk on his cool idea and put his tale in the hands of a very static and personally dull narrator. One night the stars and moon vanish, and Earth finds it has been put in sort of a big plastic bag to keep it safe. Tyler Dupree is a teenager when this happens; he grows up to be a doctor with his life still entwined with his best friends Jake and Diane Lawton. Diane becomes involved in an end time cult and pressed by his father Jake is the scientist/businessman whose attempts to figure out and fix the situation leads to the development of life on Mars.
The book succeeds when it looks at how people living in catastrophic times react to uncertainty and the changes that occur in societal makeup. Oh, and the Martian science bits are fun too. But Tyler is so dull and I really don't care about the twins. This book would have worked better as a thriller and less of a sprawling personal epic.
Starfish—Peter Watts
Creep me out, why not? So in order to harvest energy coming from the Earth's core out of those hot vents in the deep sea floor, we build some power generators down there and hire up people to live in stations to run things. And to live down in the deep dark it helps if you are seriously messed in the head from personal trauma. I was creeped by the descriptions of the sea creatures (gah, I am cringing just to think of them) and though the characters were a bit thin. It's definitely a novel that packages a lot of ideas and strings them together in interesting ways.
Victory of Eagles—Naomi Novik
This is the 5th in the Temeraire series. Everyone's favorite brilliant dragon and his captain are back dealing with the moral implications of committing treason in the previous novel. Oopsie. No seriously, it's a well-written entry into the series but I like these books more when Laurence and Temeraire stretch Novik's world-building skills.
Farthing & Ha'penny—Jo Walton
Holy cow. These books were masterful. I am going to write a full review once I've finished the third book in this trilogy.
Old Man's War--John Scalzi
You know how Starship Troopers is actually a pretty fun film where everyone is just killing left right and center and horrible stuff happens but after a while all the characters are just numb? That's what reading this book reminded me of. In the future, when you are 75 you can sign up to go off and fight in a war to defend Earth's colonies on other planets. John Perry signs up because he's got nothing better to do. His wife was the one who was gung ho on it, but Kathy died of a stroke and John figures why not go have an adventure? It's a leap of faith because no one knows exactly how they manage to get 75 year old recruits in fighting shape. No honestly, this is a very well balanced book with cool ideas and some great character development. A fun read, and I will be keeping an eye out for Scalzi's other books on the library shelves.
Four and Twenty Blackbirds—Cherie Priest
This was fascinating. Eden Moore has had visions of a severed hand, three sisters and a man involved with them all since she was a child. It's as much a part of her as her mysterious history--dead mother, unknown father and being raised by her her bohemian aunt and uncle in small town Georgia. In her early teens, an older boy tries to kill her and ten years later he shoots someone else trying again. This murder sends Eden into an exploration of her recent and ancient family history. Priest has written an excellently crazy Southern gothic fairy tale that's unusual in its mining of regional American history and culture to create a suspenseful mystery in the modern day with overlays of ancient human evil.
Then having watched Someone Like You I went to the original source material, Animal Husbandry by Laura Zigman. Conclusions: even though it's dull, watch the movie. It has a scene of Hugh Jackman walking around in his underwear, which livens things up a bit. And I can finally articulate what it is that annoys me so much about light literature aimed at women--it trivializes women. I'm pretty serious in my factory setting, and so are most of the women I know. This chick lit stuff really assumes that women don't have a serious thought in our heads and what's more, it's female authors writing it as such. That's the problem. It also denies a sense of moral sensibility--I am pretty sure that if some guy seemed to be interested in me but whined about HIS FIANCEE who he has nothing in common with and who doesn't understand him my response would be, "Hmmmm. Well, you know where I live. Why don't you break things off with the fiance and then give me a call?" as opposed to 1) sleeping with him, 2) falling in love with him, and 3) giving up my apartment to move in with him only to have him then back out. Inside of 3 months. Yes, really.
But hey, maybe that's why I am still single.
Anyway, I am torn between writing up more bits for our audit work and settling down with Rob Thurman's Deathwish, which I found on the shelf at Borders 4 days before its release date. Decisions, decisions.
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