Category: Books

(I had to check three times to make sure I spelled his name right.)

When I picked this up to read, I couldn’t remember why I’d checked it out from the library–I’d renewed it a bunch of times–and at first, I wasn’t sure if I’d like it. Sure, it has time travel (which I love, unreservedly) but it seemed to drift almost immediately into a crime procedural sort of thing (which I don’t love, even reservedly, usually). I’m glad I stuck with it, because this story got far weirder and more interesting than I had initially expected.

This book’s about as delightfully strange and creepy as only a good science fiction time travel story can be. I’d totally recommend it, if you’re into that kind of thing.

I might not have read this one, except that the author left a kind comment on here offering to send me a copy of the book. Instead, I got my own copy and read it.

Somehow, I missed that this was a Dr. Who tie-in novel!

It’s all about this space archaeologist named Bernice Summerfield. She’s pretty great, as characters go. I can see why they did a whole series of SF/Dr. Who tie-in books about her. I can really see the Douglas Adams/Terry Pratchett influence here. I dug it. It was a fun read.

Check it out, especially if you like your SF with a generous helping of wacky hijinks and a nice side of interesting ideas.

Monstress v.2: The Blood by Marjorie Liu: Incredibly rich world-building and the art is beautiful. Unfortunately, it’s very exposition heavy. I kept sort of dozing off while reading it–probably shouldn’t have tried to read it at the end of a long day…

X-Men: Grand Design by Ed Piskor: Summarizes about 30 years of X-Men comics. A love letter to the X-Men, basically. I was delighted by it, but then… I’ve been an X-Men fan for about 30 years. If you’re there too, this book’s for you. I’m very much looking forward to v.2.

All Star Batman: First Ally by Scott Snyder: Exploring the relationship between Bruce Wayne and Alfred. Some good stuff there, about fathers and sons.

Manga set in feudal Japan. Most of the men have died from some kind of plague and the remaining dudes are a hot commodity. It was… sort of interesting, I guess? The ways in which the author explores how certain power structures seem to encourage certain types of, what I might think of as, specifically gendered behavior. (For example, the protagonist can’t marry the woman he loves, because she’s not rich enough, and he needs to support his parents. So he goes to join the shogun’s harem, for lack of a better word, because it’s financially lucrative.) I feel like I was missing a lot, culturally, reading this.

The first in a series. I probably won’t read the others.

A book well worth reading. Still timely and relevant after almost 100 years. Unlike 1984, this one makes its point in a more understated way: poverty isn’t a moral failing. I feel like we’re (I’m talking about our culture here in the west) still afflicted with this idea that people find themselves in poverty because of some moral failing, such as, laziness or… I think it comes down to that. The flip side of this, of course, is that we tend to equate wealth with virtue. We’re all walking around with this unspoken notion that we’re all getting our just deserts. Even though, really, it comes down to what kind of parental lottery you happened to win. How else to explain people who inherit squillions of dollars and then feel like it’s all due to the sweat of their brow or their uncanny ingenuity. Orwell works real hard to puncture that balloon by showing the humanity and variety of human beings stuck in the poverty trap.

Exactly what it says on the tin. Greek gods slumming it in modern day London. A modern retelling of the Orpheus/Eurydice myth, basically. The gods are atrocious. The protagonists are sort of sweet and charming. It’s a fun, quick read. Apparently, they made it into a film starring Alicia Silverstone, Sharon Stone, Christopher Walked and others, but it was never released.

The author wrote an article about her experience.

I love a good heist story. Especially of the break-in/break-out variety. The interpersonal drama between some of the characters has been dialed up to 11, but it works because they’re all teenagers. This one was quite a page turner. I zoomed through it in just a couple of days. Extremely readable. It’s part 1 of 2 and I’ll definitely be following up with its sequel. The author does nice things with POV characters to up the suspense by concealing and then revealing information.

(This reminded me very much of Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora. If you liked that one, you’ll probably like this one. And vice versa, probably.)

I just realized that I’ve read nearly 20 of Steven Brust’s books. I guess I must like them, huh?

A story about a team of magical investigators looking into a series of magical murders. I think, for me, I like how stripped down Brust’s writing is, how restrained. It’s dialogue-heavy and there’s much that’s implied, rather than explicitly stated. I’m kind of surprised one of his books hasn’t been turned into a movie or tv series at this point.

I read this one entirely because of the title. I didn’t even know what it was about. It’s about time travel to Mesopotamia. It’s a fun, short read. Much of the conflict in the story revolves around generational misunderstanding. Sometimes, you just love horses, you know?

Related: The Mesopotamians by They Might Be Giants.

Really gets at the heart of why Americans are so bad at foreign affairs. You could swap out the American, Pyle, for any number of well-meaning idiots stomping around the globe these days. The protagonist’s voice is so seductive in its jaded, cynical wit–papering over the gaping, roaring hole of want and need and jealousy.