28th November, 2008
3 Tales for the Price of 2. Black Friday Edition.
Three new books for you today. Going from worst to best (and the last one is really, really good).
Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi.
I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series. I find the writing overly simplistic and a bit lacking in depth, however, The Android’s Dream was decent enough and his blog Whatever is often times amusing and even, gasp, insightful, so I figured I’d give his third installment in the OMW universe a shot.
As expected, it pretty much follows the same style as the rest of the OMW series, with the story expanding upon some goings-on between the 2nd and 3rd OMW books. At this point, I’d be happy to say this is classic Scalzi and if you like that kind of thing, good, but otherwise I’m giving it a 3.5/5 gogs and leave it at that. BUT, there is one big issue I have with this book: he framed it from the point-of-view of a teenage girl, which makes sense since it turns out that he and his publisher have decided that this book should be targeted at the young adult audience. “OK, so it’s a YA novel”, you say, “that’s no biggie.” Well, this would be true if it weren’t for a couple of things, namely, that they use the same cover artist for this book as in previous OMW covers and I didn’t find this book in the YA section, I found it in the (adult) Sci-Fi section. These two things make it seem like the book would be intended for an “adult” audience and if you picked it up expecting just such a thing, you’d be in for a disappointing surprise. I’m not perusing books in SF/F looking for tales of omg, like, so cute boys and the, like, total unfairness of adults and how they so don’t understand things.
Skip it unless you’re a die-hard Scalzi fan or you have a YA reader in your life – they’d probably enjoy it quite a bit.
2.5/5 gogs.
The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson.
“What, what??”, you’re saying, “another Sanderson book even though you tarred and feathered his last one?” Well, yes. Mostly because my reading stack is growing precipitously small, but also because he did have a couple of winners in Mistborn and Elantris. Mr. Sanderson wraps up the Mistborn trilogy in this third installment and manages to redeem himself as a worthwhile fantasy writer. Endless rambling was truncated or even non-existent. The book was fairly fast paced with a lot going on and he neatly tied up the loose ends in unexpected, yet plausible, ways. Even the ending was better than average. If you made it through book 2, you should definitely reward yourself by checking out the third.
4/5 gogs.
Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie.
Hmm, how to describe this one. I’ve been very positive with Mr. Abercrombie’s books in the past so let’s not downplay things and just call the ending of The First Law trilogy as EPIC. Seriously, if you enjoyed the first two books at all, this one will make you mess your pants. My wife even had to remind me a couple of times to turn out the damn light and go to bed if I know what’s good for me; that’s how engrossing Last Argument of Kings is. I think one of the reasons I like Abercrombie’s characters so much is because they aren’t black and white. They all have flaws and can flow from good to neutral to evil and back again and despite this, they’re still very likeable. Also, the siege that takes takes place in the latter half of the book is truly marvelous. Peter Jackson would have a ball translating this to film. Very much recommended.
4.5/5 gogs.
Posted at 5:58 am | Comments (2)
7th November, 2008
A Man with a Plan
I just ran across Change.gov from the Office of the President-Elect. Among other information, the Obama/Biden team lay out their ambitious agenda for the next four years (jebus, we have that much shit to fix from the start? thanks, dubya!). I’m a bit saddened to see Science and Arts relegated to the Other Issues section as I believe these things are core for a productive, content society, but I understand that these are also long-term things and there are many “quicker-to-fix” problems that need immediate attention. They also have provided ample opportunities for anyone to give feedback and suggestions. I wonder who will see this feedback and how much weight it will hold in policy creation.
The cynic in me is still wondering how many promises will be broken and how many voices will be swept under the rug, but the dreamer in me is shouting “wow, wouldn’t this be great..!” Only time will tell.
[update] Hmm. Seems they’ve removed all the content from the Agenda section. Not sure what this means…
Posted at 5:50 am | Comment (0)
6th November, 2008
Go Away
“Make it eye-catching”, the marketing people at Knopf probably said about the cover of Nick Harkaway’s book, The Gone-Away World. “Like something straight from the late ’80s. And add some fake velvet, too. That would be totally rad, dude.” Then again, maybe they had some budget constraints and all they could come up with was a good deal on hot pink and neon green ink.
Whatever the case, the novel tucked within was well worth reading, but, before I expand on this, let me preface things with this caveat: I’m not sure how serious Harkaway was when writing this book. There are some very serious parts inside, but they are nestled amongst hundreds of pages of dryly witty, sardonic and ofttimes humorous prose. Think Douglas Adams but only darker. I can’t talk much about the plot because there is a huge twist about midway through the book that really changes everything you already thought you knew about the story. I think Mr. Harkaway had a lot of fun writing this novel and I quite enjoyed reading it, even if it did suffer from some largish plot holes. If you don’t go into this novel expecting a literary masterpiece and just go along with the ride, I think you’ll enjoy it as well.
4.2/5 gogs.
Posted at 5:35 am | Comment (0)
5th November, 2008
Yes We Did
Finally, sanity has prevailed.
Posted at 5:05 am | Comments (4)
4th November, 2008
Vote
There was already a line at the polls 15 minutes before they opened, but I was happy to wait. Why? Because for the first time, I’m actually voting for someone at the Presidential level instead of simply voting against someone else.
I believe that Obama will work hard for change. I hope that he can bring change because this country is in definite need of a new direction.
Please remember to vote today.
Posted at 5:03 pm | Comment (0)
