books from 2001
Dec. 31st, 2001 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishMoorcock, Michael. The Sleeping Sorceress
The title that I first read this under was The Vanishing Tower. The Sleeping Sorceress makes more sense, since the Vanishing Tower only appears in the last story, while Myshella (the sorceress) appears in the first and last. Although she's not sleeping in the last story. Oh well. Pretty good stuff, nonetheless, as far as sword-and-sorcery goes.
Moorcock, Michael. The Weird of the White Wolf
This was the first batch of Elric stories to be written. It shows, a bit. "While the Gods Laugh" is one of the better Elric stories that Moorcock has written, but the rest... ehh. Fairly standard stuff.
Moorcock, Michael. The Sailor on the Seas of Fate
Not too bad. The stories were a lot more connected to each other than I'd remembered. "Sailing to the Past" is still the best of them. "Sailing to the Future" was rather confusing, and "Sailing to the Present" felt like filler. Still worth reading, though.
Bellairs, John. The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring
Better that Figure, I think. Bits of it weren't so good, but the overall story was great. Rose Rita is a fun character, too-- maybe better than Lewis Barnavelt. I missed seeing Jonathan as much, though.
Bellairs, John. The Figure in the Shadows
Not as good as House, but still worth the read. Rose Rita starts getting developed as a character, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, Gorey only illustrated the first one. Oh well.
Bellairs, John. The House With a Clock in its Walls
I picked up a Bellairs 3-in-1 omnibus at Barnes and Noble, and figured I might as well reread them. They're some of the better young adult horror out there. Illustrations by Edward Gorey, too.
Moorcock, Michael. The Fortress of the Pearl
They could make a movie out of Fortress, but I'm not sure it would be as good as the book. One of the better Elric books, in my opinion. It's a self-contained story that is sustained for the entire book. Stormbringer is pretty notably absent, as well.
Moorcock, Michael. Elric of Melniboné
The first Elric book, chronologically at least. It's been several years since I read these, but they're still pretty good fantasy books. Not really on par with Tolkien, but who is? This one at least ends happily, too.
Carpenter, Humphrey. Tolkien: A Biography
It's a biography of JRR Tolkien. What more do you want? It was a pretty good read, and gave some insight into Tolkien's character, as well as some amusing bits about LOTR. Enjoyable.
Shetterly, Will and Emma Bull (ed). Liavek: Festival Week
Spells of Binding is still the best of the Liavek books. This one was rather hit-or-miss. The first story is only so-so. The Brust story is excellent, as is Patricia Wrede's. The rest... ehh. I'm glad I finally got around to reading these, though.
Dick, Philip K. Martian Time-Slip
Okay, but Palmer Eldritch was better.They're both set on a Mars that has just been colonized by humans. Time-Slip deals with entropy, and a young boy who can see the future but can't communicate with anyone. A good development of the theme, but I enjoyed Palmer Eldritch's theme better.
Dick, Philip K. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
This book is really quite good. It's much deeper than I remember it being-- lots of stuff about Catholicism kind of hidden just under the surface. It's not nearly as completely insane as I'd thought, either.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved
Pretty good. Better than I'd really expected. It's kind of a ghost story, and more a story of a 'family' of ex-slaves from 1855 or so to 1873. It kept me interested all the way through.
Shetterly, Will and Emma Bull (ed). Liavek: Spells of Binding
Quite good. The best of the Liavek books so far. It wraps up Kaloo and Dashif nicely, and even brings some sort of closure to the Benedictis. I'm not sure what they'll do with the last book.
Schulz, Charles M. Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz
Peanuts has always had a special place in my heart. Dilbert may be funnier at times, and Calvin & Hobbes may touch more deeply on occasion, but Peanuts is just the greatest. A complete collection of the strips would be incredibly cool; until then, there's this book with a lot of older ones.
Shetterly, Will and Emma Bull (ed). Liavek: Wizard's Row
Number three. They got ALAN MOORE to do a story for this one. (It's a pretty good story, but it felt out of place in Liavek, which I'd been regarding as light-to-middling fantasy.) I felt like this book was a bit of a let-down after the first two.
Shetterly, Will and Emma Bull (ed). Liavek: The Players of Luck
Book two of five. Still quite enjoyable... possibly better than the first one. Not to sound like a drooling fanboy, but Steven Brust's stories really are the best thing about these books. Although Kara Dalkey's are quite good as well.
Shetterly, Will and Emma Bull (ed). Liavek
A fantasy shared-world anthology, like Thieves' World, but with better writers. How they got Charles de Lint and Barry Longyear in on this I'll never know, but their stories are pretty good. Gene Wolfe's is only okay, but then I've never gushed over him as much as some others have.
Zelazny, Roger. Madwand
A sequel to Changeling. My response: ehh. Changeling was better. There were some interesting bits, but overall it was only so-so. (How the hell did Spier get over to the magic world in the first place?) Much like the dichotomy between the first and second Amber series.
Doolittle, Hilda (H.D.). The Walls Do Not Fall
Very classy Imagist poetry from World War II. I'd forgotten how much I like the Imagists (H.D., William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound...). Quite good.
Quinn, Daniel and Tim Eldred. The Man Who Grew Young
A fairly neat graphic novel. The basic premise (time is running backwards) is very cool, and handled very, very well. The ending is sort of ehh, but in keeping with the theme of the book, and the art is actually pretty good-- not great, but pretty good.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands / La Frontera
The first half of the book is a collection of essays on how straight white men are responsible for all of the problems facing lesbian Chicanas. Bah. The second half is poetry, and some of it is actually rather good, but my enjoyment was rather spoiled by the foul taste left in my mouth from the first half.
Zelazny, Roger. Changeling
The parallels between this and Jack of Shadows are unmistakeable, but they're still quite different stories. I liked Jack better. Changeling actually explains why wizards have to wave their hands around, though.
Zelazny, Roger. Jack of Shadows
This is fairly early Zelazny. It's still quite good... a little rough around the edges, but the ideas are all excellent. There's this planet, see, and it rotates once a revolution, so there's a Dayside and a Darkside, and the Dayside has science while the Darkside has magic. World upheaval and personal growth, and one of the better endings of any book I've read. The plot could make a passable computer game, too.
Zelazny, Roger. This Immortal
This book made very little sense the first time I read it. Typical early Zelazny, it packs a lot of information into the early pages and expects you to digest it all and have it available to be called up at a moment's notice. (The obvious mythical overtones of Conrad's wife's name being Cassandra also completely bypassed me in ninth grade.) Regardless, it's a great story, and Hasan the Assassin is an excellent character.
Delany, Samuel R. The Einstein Intersection
An earlier work than Triton, and a lot more accessible, too. Well, mostly. It's still fairly weird and somewhat incomprehensible. It's got a coherent plot, though, involving the people who replace humans on a destroyed Earth, living among their memories, dreams, and myths...
Stackpole, Michael A. Talion: Revenant
I've generally had the misfortune of reading Stackpole's books immediately after reading a really, really good book, so Stackpole's seem only decent in comparison. Revenant was his first novel, written some fifteen years ago. It's still pretty good, but a bit melodramatic in places. Lots of setups for future novels, which have yet to materialize (although he's seriously considering writing another one Real Soon Now).
Herbert, Frank. Dune
A lot better than I'd thought when I was in eighth grade. I am duly impressed by Herbert's ability to weave galactic politics, planetary ecology, and messianic religion into one moderate-length novel. I'll have to go find copies of the rest of the books now.
Delany, Samuel R. Trouble on Triton
A very dense book. I'm not sure whether I liked it or not. I think I did, though. I'll be writing a paper on it shortly. It revolves around the society on the moon of Triton, in the fairly-distant future. Delany's writing style is good, but his ideas are very, very packed into the book, making it a challenge to extract them whole without having them fragment into several smaller partial concepts.
McCormick, Malachi. A Decent Cup of Tea
I think my mother gave me this for Christmas several years ago. It's a cute book about tea. The author despises tea bags with a passion, and lukewarm tea even more so. A fun little book. And now I know what 'orange pekoe' tea is-- it's tea made from the largest tea leaves. Also, oolong tea is a partially fermented tea; black tea is completely fermented, and green tea is unfermented.
Heller, Joseph. Portrait of the Artist, as an Old Man
If you liked Closing Time, you might like this book. It's Heller's last, and available for cheap at Barnes & Noble and Borders everywhere. Funny in bits, poignant in bits, a decent story, but pretty light on the plot. It's about an author who had one incredible success when he was younger and has spent a lot of time since then trying to write a book that does as well as that first one... now he's getting old, and ideas aren't coming as fast as they used to... I liked it. But it's not to everyone's taste.
Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia
This is much, much funnier than I remember it being from the first time I read it. Much better, too. It waffles back and forth between modern-day and the early 1800s, in the same manor house. Bits are absolutely hilarious ("Carnal embrace is the act of throwing one's arms around a side of beef"). Highly, highly recommended.
Stoppard, Tom. Hapgood
This is sort of a retreading of Stoppard's radio play, The Dog It Was That Died... double agents who can't remember which side they're supposed to be working for, that sort of thing. It adds in some stuff on quantum physics, and also a plot. After Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and The Real Inspector Hound, this is my favorite Stoppard play.
O'Brien, Tim. Going After Cacciato
This is a novel about the Vietnam war, mostly. Kind of. It's definitely set in Nam. I didn't enjoy it as much as The Things They Carried; I didn't feel like the gimmick in Cacciato was enough to sustain the book the whole way through. I hear Nick Cassavettes is making a movie out of it; that should be interesting.
Carroll, Lewis and Martin Gardner. The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition
Everyone who's ever read the Alice books should read this, because there's just so much that the modern reader will miss in them. Gardner's annotations are almost as much fun as the books themselves.
Frayn, Michael. Copenhagen
I picked up this play in the bookstore when I was buying books for class, on the basis of Frayn's other famous play (Noises Off) and the fact that it's about physicists. It's a really good read, and I'd love to see it performed at some point. It's about Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, and how they found themselves on opposite sides in World War II. An excellent work.
More, Thomas. Utopia
Let's get this straight right now: 'Utopia' comes from the Greek for 'No Place', not 'Good Place.' All those happy idealized utopias of other writers are not what More was writing about. Utopia is his ideal society, but it's not a happy one. Everyone is the same, and there's no time for goofing off. It's an easier read than John Locke, but still not terribly fun.
O'Rourke, P.J. The CEO of the Sofa
A new collection of P.J. O'Rourke's writings. Funny, but not as good as Eat the Rich or Parliament of Whores. Recommended for his analysis of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and also for the bit where he and Christopher Buckley go on a blind (drunk) wine tasting.
Stephenson, Neal. In the Beginning...Was the Command Line
Partly a history of operating systems, partly a chronicle of Stephenson's experiences with Windows, Linux, and BeOS, and a pretty good read. It's short, and probably available online.
Moore, Alan and Eddie Campbell. From Hell
Alan Moore's take on the Jack the Ripper killings, soon to be a major motion picture. Very creepy, and without a real sense of closure. Like life. Personally I'll be interested to see how they manage to do this, considering a) it's very gory and b) there are large chunks that are nigh-unfilmable. I'm told they combined Lees (the psychic) and Abberline (the detective) into one character. Gah.
Campbell, Bruce. If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor
I got to see Bruce Campbell last November, and he's a really great speaker. So I picked up his new book, figuring it would be pretty much the same. It was. I was happy.
Nelson, Graham. The Inform Designer's Manual
I didn't read it quite cover-to-cover, but I came pretty close. Inform is a language for writing interactive fiction (think 'Infocom games'). The manual is very well-written, and even fun to read at times (discussing whether certain routines ever get run: 'Thus we see that Rosencrantz is executed, while Hamlet is not.').
Zelazny, Roger and Jane Lindskold. Lord Demon
Unlike Donnerjack, the other unfinished Zelazny work completed by Lindskold, Lord Demon doesn't suck. In fact it's a really good story of gods and demons and universes in bottles. It's not as good as I'd thought on my first read, but it's still well worth looking into.
Eco, Umberto. Foucault's Pendulum
This really is the last word in contemporary conspiracy literature. It takes awhile to really get going, but once it does it's incredibly cool. I almost feel gypped by the ending, but not quite. (The framing device within a framing device is kind of neat, too.)
Ellis, Warren and Darick Robertson. Transmetropolitan: Lonely City
Issues twenty-five through thirty. The first half is kind of disconnected from the rest of the plot; the last half is a good look at life under the Smiler. Spider's column gets D-noticed at the end, which sets the stage for Things To Come. I love this book.
Stackpole, Michael A. Once a Hero
I really don't know why it took me so long (close to a month) to finish this. Stackpole is an excellent writer, and the plot back-and-forthed between the two timelines really well. Maybe I thought I could get some work done instead.
Gaiman, Neil. Neverwhere
An excellent book. It goes into more detail than the miniseries could, and lets you empathise a lot more with some of the characters (like Anaesthesia, for instance, or Old Bailey). I liked it a lot.
Gaiman, Neil. American Gods
Shadow doesn't have much characterization to him. Other than that this book rocked. Neil Gaiman may deserve a place among the Big Four (Powers, Brust, Zelazny, Stoppard). I had Wednesday cold from "How'd you lose your eye?" but most of the rest of it was a surprise. Sheesh... after this I can't go back to The Sword of Shannara. I just can't.
Brust, Steven, PJF. Issola
It's finally here. And maybe even worth the wait... it's certainly damned good, and it reveals more about the world in the second chapter than the previous books combined. Gods, demons, Jenoine, the Necromancer, Drien, Remover-of-aspects-of-deity, Morrolan's younger days, the whole nine yards. Now as long as it's not a two-and-a-half-year wait for the next one...
Russell, Mary Doria. The Sparrow
Um. I seem to remember this as being quite good. Jesuits in space, and a more forgiving look at Columbus than the liberals usually give him. At one point it was going to be a movie with Antonio Banderas. I'll hunt up the sequel (to the book) eventually.
Lethem, Jonathan. This Shape We're In
It's a short little book; less than a hundred pages. I think it's probably technically a novelette or novella. It's still classic Lethem: it never quite lets you stand on solid ground, until the very end when you stand there going "Whoa."
Myers, John Myers. Silverlock
This is, quite simply, the most fun book I have ever read. The whole book is a literary game of hunt-the-reference... at the very beginning, the hero is shipwrecked and washed ashore on an island. After wandering through a veritable menagerie (pigs, wolves, lions) he encounters a woman living alone in a cottage. What's her name? This kind of thing is all throughout the book. If you can fund a copy, it's required reading. (It's sadly out of print.)
Card, Orson Scott. Shadow of the Hegemon
Much like Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow was great. Much like Speaker for the Dead, Shadow of the Hegemon was pretty good. Then I read in the afterword that Card is planning on writing two more books featuring Bean. Is the pattern beginning to sound familiar to anyone else? (sigh)
Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Shadow
This book is proof that Orson Scott Card can in fact still write... I stopped reading his stuff when he got obsessed with Alvin Maker and when Xenocide / Children of the Mind sucked. But this Ender's Game parallel is quite good. I highly recommend it.
Pullman, Phillip. The Amber Spyglass
It's over. That is really the only good thing I can say about this series. I am completely unable to empathize at all with Mrs. Coulter, and the separation thing didn't feel tragic so much as irritatingly contrived. Bah. Anyone want a hardback collection of this trilogy for ten bucks?
Azzarello, Brian and Eduardo Risso. 100 Bullets: 15-24
I actually don't have issues 18 and 19, which is too bad, since 18 is the end of a four-part arc. Grr. Oh well... no resolution yet, naturally, but more hints about the Minutemen, and things seem to be shaping up for a showdown.
Azzarello, Brian and Eduardo Risso. 100 Bullets: Split Second Chance
Issues six through fourteen. Six and seven were more of the same, but then suddenly in issue eight the comic got focus and direction, and just took off. Graves and Shepherd are fascinating characters (especially Shepherd), and the plot is developing nicely.
Azzarello, Brian and Eduardo Risso. 100 Bullets: First Shot, Last Call
The first five issues of 100 Bullets were pretty good, but not quite great. Compelling reading, and a pretty cool concept, though. What would you do if someone gave you incontrovertible evidence that someone had ruined your life... and then gave you a gun, a hundred untraceable bullets, and guaranteed immunity from prosecution?
Various. The Book of Lost Houses: The Second Coming
It's refreshing to read a book for Changeling that isn't utter crap. BoLH actually has some pretty cool bits in it. There's drek as well, but what do you want-- perfection? It's got French seers, Norse warriors, Irish warrior/herbalists, and Russian... somethings. Plus an extended look at the Scathach, who still kick much ass.
Ellis, Warren and Darick Robertson. Transmetropolitan: The New Scum
Issues nineteen through twenty-four: interviews with the Beast and the Smiler, and a conclusion to the election. This is perhaps the most intelligent comic I've ever read, and that's counting Sandman. Plus the art is generally better (Kindly Ones, anyone?).
Ellis, Warren and Darick Robertson. Transmetropolitan: Year of the Bastard
Transmet finally found some direction with issues thirteen through eighteen, when Spider starts covering the forthcoming presidential election. In a race between the Beast and the Smiler, who do you vote for?
Ellis, Warren and Darick Robertson. Transmetropolitan: Lust for Life
Issues four through twelve, in which a lot of random stuff happens. Among other things, Spider watches television for twenty-four hours, meets a 'revival' from the 20th century who'd been frozen and revived in a century that's got enough of its own problems and doesn't want to take care of her, visits cultural reservations, and has his ex-wife's head stolen.
Ellis, Warren and Darick Robertson. Transmetropolitan: Back on the Street
Issues one through three of Transmetropolitan, an excellent comic book. Spider Jerusalem is essentially Hunter S. Thompson in a horribly/amusingly dystopian future. His bumper sticker reads "Jesus is my best friend, but he won't loan me money." Comics rarely get any better than this.
Pullman, Phillip. The Subtle Knife
Better than The Golden Compass, but parts of it (like Grumman) are still a bit too pat for my tastes. And I've come to the conclusion that I don't like Good Versus Evil in my stories. Where's the fun in always knowing who to root for and not knowing who's got their own agenda? (This may be part of why I preferred The Dark Project to The Metal Age.) Us Versus Them (especially if there are several of Them and Us is loosely defined) makes for a much more engaging backdrop.
Powers, Tim. Last Call
I just couldn't make myself keep reading the Pullman drek without some sort of a buffer, so I dug out Tim Powers's classic Last Call. Between this, The Anubis Gates, and Declare, Tim Powers is one of the best writers on the planet. Read his stuff. At least twice. I think I'll reread Declare when I'm done with Pullman.
Pullman, Phillip. The Golden Compass
So many people were calling Phillip Pullman the next big children's author that I decided I ought to read the His Dark Materials trilogy. The first volume didn't get off to a very auspicious start, but improbable coincidences that are Fated To Be always piss me off. "Oh, look-- the small child happened to see one character poison another, and happened to be able to stop it, and was believed because the other character happened to be her uncle..." Gah. I can plot better than this on the toilet.
Forsyth, Frederick. Icon
Most people know Forsyth for The Day of the Jackal. Icon is at least as good, if not better. The ending's a tad weak, but other than that it's an excellent story, and Jason Monk is Forsyth's best character since Sam MacReady from The Deceiver.
Wright, Peter. Spycatcher
Memoir of a counterespionage agent in MI5 during the Cold War. Decent reading. Banned in Britain for awhile under the Official Secrets Act.
Cuppy, Will. How to Tell Your Friends From the Apes
Cute, and fun in places. In the end, not as good as the other book I've read from the same era, the classic 1066 and All That. It's got some good bits on canaries, though.
Pinkwater, Daniel. The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death
What a great book. The Snark Theatre is brilliant, as is Lower North Aufzoo Street ("I think the Underworld's got him"). Essentially, two high-school boys go looking for their friend Rat's uncle, Flipping Hades Terwilliger. It's a lot of fun.
Pinkwater, Daniel. Slaves of Spiegel
Not as good as Alan Mendelsohn. Still kind of fun, though.
Cooper, Susan. Seaward
This is my favorite of Susan Cooper's books. It's not part of the Dark is Rising sequence, which is fine by me. Rather, it's a journey through the Otherland. "Why aren't the pieces black and white?" "Nothing is black and white in this long game we play, Westerly."
Cooper, Susan. Silver on the Tree
There is so much going on here that I missed when I read this before. Owain Glyndwr, for Pete's sake. The salmon crest. It still didn't carry as much weight as The Grey King, though. (Side note: except for the Lady, the Stantons, and Jane, all the women in these books are evil.)
Cooper, Susan. The Grey King
This one has dethroned The Dark is Rising as my favorite of the series. There's actual genuine pathos with Cafall; something that Hawkin never really managed to evoke. Plus it's set in Wales.
Cooper, Susan. Greenwitch
I never liked this one as much as the rest. I still don't. I understand what happened better now, though.
Cooper, Susan. The Dark is Rising
This was one of my favorite books when I was in elementary school. It's still pretty darn good, although the plot is a bit flimsy in places.
Cooper, Susan. Over Sea, Under Stone
This was written eight years before The Dark is Rising, and it shows. It's got a decidedly different feel to it than the others. Partly that's due to the lack of Will Stanton, but part of it is a maturation of style.
Brust, Steven, PJF. Dragon
Morrolan feels different in the pre-Jhereg books... more aloof, I guess. Maybe the incident in the tower where he loses Blackwand occurs between Yendi and Jhereg. Anyway, Brust is back on his game here... good stuff.
Brust, Steven, PJF. Orca
I liked this one better than the previous two, but that's not saying much. Big huge plot points at the end, so don't read it out of order. Maybe I'll like it better next time through.
Brust, Steven, PJF. Athyra
The nadir of the Taltos books. The lack of Loiosh's commentary is a huge void, as are the absences of Morrolan and (to a lesser extent) Sethra. On the other hand, it shows quite well what life is like for the rest of the Empire.
Brust, Steven, PJF. Phoenix
Ehh. I'm not sold on the kinder, gentler Vlad. Parts of Phoenix were better than Teckla, but parts weren't. It's a strong story-- just not one of my faves. (Although the indictment of several publishing companies on pp. 96-97 is hilarious.)
Brust, Steven, PJF. Taltos
This is still my favorite of the series. It's the story of how Vlad first got involved with Sethra, Morrolan, and Aliera, and it's got a lot of Vlad's backstory as well. The three (yes, three) timelines are interwoven brilliantly, and the characterizations are excellent.
Brust, Steven, PJF. Teckla
What do I do when I get off work at 3:30, when I'm used to coming home at 8:30? Sit around and read three of the Vlad Taltos novels, that's what. Kelly and the other revolutionaries are insufferable, but they're meant to be, and there's a good deal of pathos here. It's not as good a story as the first two, but that's okay.
Brust, Steven, PJF. Yendi
Brust apparently doesn't really like Yendi, but I think he's selling it short-- it's a pretty good story, even though bits of the plot are weak. I liked it better than I remembered liking it.
Brust, Steven, PJF. Jhereg
Jhereg was Brust's first novel. It shows its age in a couple places, where there's some narration telling you what the heck's going on, in the form of Vlad telling it to someone who already knows. Other than that it's still a great read, and one of the best of the bunch.
Murakami, Haruki. The Elephant Vanishes
A collection of short stories. A lot more hit-and-miss than I'd really expected. On the other hand, while I fell in love with Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World the first time I read it, I was fairly sure that lightning couldn't strike twice there. Kind of like how I loved "Once in a Lifetime" by Talking Heads and avoided listening to the rest of their stuff for ages afterwards because there was no way it'd be the same.
Brust, Steven, PJF. Agyar
I was in a bad mood last night, so I pulled out one of the best books I've ever read to calm me down. Agyar is... what is it? It's a modern horror novel without any real angst, it's a love story, it's a redemption saga... it's a great book. It recently replaced The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars as my favorite Brust book, and that's saying a lot. If you read nothing else on this page, read Agyar. Then read it again, and realise how much you missed the first time.
Skarka, Gareth-Michael. Underworld
Underworld is an RPG that draws heavily from Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. GMS developed it in a year-long weekly column on RPG.net last year (well, August to August, roughly), which was very very cool. Essentially, it's about the magical world that exists beneath New York City (and, one presumes, other cities as well). Very rules-light. A fun read, and it looks like it'd be a joy to play.
Ende, Michael. The Night of Wishes
Subtitled The Anarchaeolidealcohellish Notion Potion. A very cute children's book, by the author of The Neverending Story. I'm glad I read this one.
Appignanesi, Richard and Chris Garratt. Postmodernism for Beginners
This was in Barnes & Noble for four bucks, so I figured, why not? The first third or so (on art) is excellent, but I got lost somewhere in the middle when they started dealing with language. I managed to rally and get a grip on the history section, though. Good stuff.
Barnes, Julian. Flaubert's Parrot
My first impression was that Flaubert's Parrot was a rotten novel. Then I realised about halfway through that I should stop reading it as a novel and instead read it as a series of loosely connected vignettes, and I started enjoying it a whole lot more-- Julian Barnes's sentences flow beautifully. I'll probably have to read it two or three more times before I feel like I've really grasped it, though. (It reminded me of The Things They Carried.)
Pinkwater, Daniel. Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars
Woozy from headaches and Flaubert's Parrot, I took a break to read the first part of a Pinkwater omnibus I picked up in Richmond. Pinkwater writes the most ridiculous things and makes them perfectly sane. The best comparison I can think to make is to The Phantom Tollbooth. He's easily the best children's author writing today.
Powers, Tim. Declare
"Here's a list: Roger Zelazny. Steven Brust. Tom Stoppard. Tim Powers--"
"Ah, yes, Powers; his latest novel, Declare, is about the peculiar actions of the great British traitor Kim Philby."
"But isn't it really about Mount Ararat, and djinni?"
"It's not really about Ararat; it's more that all the action happens up there."
"I see. Anyway, Declare is an excellent book, although it's not as good as The Anubis Gates, and I highly highly recommend you pick up the nearest copy."
Hobb, Robin. Ship of Destiny
Liveship Traders volume three. It's over. The problem I had with these was that instead of the characters discovering cool things about the world, the author told the reader cool things about the world via the characters. An important distinction, because you can feel things being held back and you get irritated. (Assassin's Quest had some of the same problem.) But I'm still curious about the Rooster Crown. (Side note: was Amber present in the Farseer trilogy?)
Hobb, Robin. Mad Ship
Liveship Traders volume two. Under NO circumstances should you read this book before reading the Assassins trilogy. Gott in Himmel. Between the "dragons" and She Who Remembers, I'm still all shook up. I wonder about the significance of the Crowned Rooster / Rooster Crown, though.
Hobb, Robin. Ship of Magic
Liveship Traders volume one. Set in the same world as her Farseer trilogy (Apprentice Assassin, Royal Assassin, Assassin's Quest). The Farseer books were better-- in places this reads like one of Mercedes Lackey's soap operas.
Eddings, David and Leigh Eddings. The Redemption of Althalus
The first half of this book is business as usual for the Eddingses; it's funny and it moves along well. The second half feels rushed and cramped, and the "let's go back in time and steal the Book" plot at the end didn't really feel right. Mostly because it basically said "All this other stuff that's happened was worthless, because we could have just picked up the Book and destroyed it." Still a worthwhile read, but probably not worth buying in hardback. Unless you've got the soul of a collector.
Zelazny, Roger. Roadmarks
Semi-vintage Zelazny, before he began his slide into awful collaborations in the late eighties. Time travel via a Road. Good stuff.
Morressy, John. Kedrigern in Wanderland
Morressy is getting better at this. Wanderland is easily the best of the series so far (there are two more I don't have). "Ah yes, the hermit Goode, who lives in the wood that slopes down to the sea..."
Morressy, John. The Questing of Kedrigern
The second Kedrigern book. This one has a semicoherent plot. Better than the first one.
Morressy, John. A Voice For Princess
The first of Morressy's Kedrigern books. Light, fluffy, reads more like a collection of stories than a novel. It was okay. Cute, but by no means great reading.
The title that I first read this under was The Vanishing Tower. The Sleeping Sorceress makes more sense, since the Vanishing Tower only appears in the last story, while Myshella (the sorceress) appears in the first and last. Although she's not sleeping in the last story. Oh well. Pretty good stuff, nonetheless, as far as sword-and-sorcery goes.
Moorcock, Michael. The Weird of the White Wolf
This was the first batch of Elric stories to be written. It shows, a bit. "While the Gods Laugh" is one of the better Elric stories that Moorcock has written, but the rest... ehh. Fairly standard stuff.
Moorcock, Michael. The Sailor on the Seas of Fate
Not too bad. The stories were a lot more connected to each other than I'd remembered. "Sailing to the Past" is still the best of them. "Sailing to the Future" was rather confusing, and "Sailing to the Present" felt like filler. Still worth reading, though.
Bellairs, John. The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring
Better that Figure, I think. Bits of it weren't so good, but the overall story was great. Rose Rita is a fun character, too-- maybe better than Lewis Barnavelt. I missed seeing Jonathan as much, though.
Bellairs, John. The Figure in the Shadows
Not as good as House, but still worth the read. Rose Rita starts getting developed as a character, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, Gorey only illustrated the first one. Oh well.
Bellairs, John. The House With a Clock in its Walls
I picked up a Bellairs 3-in-1 omnibus at Barnes and Noble, and figured I might as well reread them. They're some of the better young adult horror out there. Illustrations by Edward Gorey, too.
Moorcock, Michael. The Fortress of the Pearl
They could make a movie out of Fortress, but I'm not sure it would be as good as the book. One of the better Elric books, in my opinion. It's a self-contained story that is sustained for the entire book. Stormbringer is pretty notably absent, as well.
Moorcock, Michael. Elric of Melniboné
The first Elric book, chronologically at least. It's been several years since I read these, but they're still pretty good fantasy books. Not really on par with Tolkien, but who is? This one at least ends happily, too.
Carpenter, Humphrey. Tolkien: A Biography
It's a biography of JRR Tolkien. What more do you want? It was a pretty good read, and gave some insight into Tolkien's character, as well as some amusing bits about LOTR. Enjoyable.
Shetterly, Will and Emma Bull (ed). Liavek: Festival Week
Spells of Binding is still the best of the Liavek books. This one was rather hit-or-miss. The first story is only so-so. The Brust story is excellent, as is Patricia Wrede's. The rest... ehh. I'm glad I finally got around to reading these, though.
Dick, Philip K. Martian Time-Slip
Okay, but Palmer Eldritch was better.They're both set on a Mars that has just been colonized by humans. Time-Slip deals with entropy, and a young boy who can see the future but can't communicate with anyone. A good development of the theme, but I enjoyed Palmer Eldritch's theme better.
Dick, Philip K. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
This book is really quite good. It's much deeper than I remember it being-- lots of stuff about Catholicism kind of hidden just under the surface. It's not nearly as completely insane as I'd thought, either.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved
Pretty good. Better than I'd really expected. It's kind of a ghost story, and more a story of a 'family' of ex-slaves from 1855 or so to 1873. It kept me interested all the way through.
Shetterly, Will and Emma Bull (ed). Liavek: Spells of Binding
Quite good. The best of the Liavek books so far. It wraps up Kaloo and Dashif nicely, and even brings some sort of closure to the Benedictis. I'm not sure what they'll do with the last book.
Schulz, Charles M. Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz
Peanuts has always had a special place in my heart. Dilbert may be funnier at times, and Calvin & Hobbes may touch more deeply on occasion, but Peanuts is just the greatest. A complete collection of the strips would be incredibly cool; until then, there's this book with a lot of older ones.
Shetterly, Will and Emma Bull (ed). Liavek: Wizard's Row
Number three. They got ALAN MOORE to do a story for this one. (It's a pretty good story, but it felt out of place in Liavek, which I'd been regarding as light-to-middling fantasy.) I felt like this book was a bit of a let-down after the first two.
Shetterly, Will and Emma Bull (ed). Liavek: The Players of Luck
Book two of five. Still quite enjoyable... possibly better than the first one. Not to sound like a drooling fanboy, but Steven Brust's stories really are the best thing about these books. Although Kara Dalkey's are quite good as well.
Shetterly, Will and Emma Bull (ed). Liavek
A fantasy shared-world anthology, like Thieves' World, but with better writers. How they got Charles de Lint and Barry Longyear in on this I'll never know, but their stories are pretty good. Gene Wolfe's is only okay, but then I've never gushed over him as much as some others have.
Zelazny, Roger. Madwand
A sequel to Changeling. My response: ehh. Changeling was better. There were some interesting bits, but overall it was only so-so. (How the hell did Spier get over to the magic world in the first place?) Much like the dichotomy between the first and second Amber series.
Doolittle, Hilda (H.D.). The Walls Do Not Fall
Very classy Imagist poetry from World War II. I'd forgotten how much I like the Imagists (H.D., William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound...). Quite good.
Quinn, Daniel and Tim Eldred. The Man Who Grew Young
A fairly neat graphic novel. The basic premise (time is running backwards) is very cool, and handled very, very well. The ending is sort of ehh, but in keeping with the theme of the book, and the art is actually pretty good-- not great, but pretty good.
Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands / La Frontera
The first half of the book is a collection of essays on how straight white men are responsible for all of the problems facing lesbian Chicanas. Bah. The second half is poetry, and some of it is actually rather good, but my enjoyment was rather spoiled by the foul taste left in my mouth from the first half.
Zelazny, Roger. Changeling
The parallels between this and Jack of Shadows are unmistakeable, but they're still quite different stories. I liked Jack better. Changeling actually explains why wizards have to wave their hands around, though.
Zelazny, Roger. Jack of Shadows
This is fairly early Zelazny. It's still quite good... a little rough around the edges, but the ideas are all excellent. There's this planet, see, and it rotates once a revolution, so there's a Dayside and a Darkside, and the Dayside has science while the Darkside has magic. World upheaval and personal growth, and one of the better endings of any book I've read. The plot could make a passable computer game, too.
Zelazny, Roger. This Immortal
This book made very little sense the first time I read it. Typical early Zelazny, it packs a lot of information into the early pages and expects you to digest it all and have it available to be called up at a moment's notice. (The obvious mythical overtones of Conrad's wife's name being Cassandra also completely bypassed me in ninth grade.) Regardless, it's a great story, and Hasan the Assassin is an excellent character.
Delany, Samuel R. The Einstein Intersection
An earlier work than Triton, and a lot more accessible, too. Well, mostly. It's still fairly weird and somewhat incomprehensible. It's got a coherent plot, though, involving the people who replace humans on a destroyed Earth, living among their memories, dreams, and myths...
Stackpole, Michael A. Talion: Revenant
I've generally had the misfortune of reading Stackpole's books immediately after reading a really, really good book, so Stackpole's seem only decent in comparison. Revenant was his first novel, written some fifteen years ago. It's still pretty good, but a bit melodramatic in places. Lots of setups for future novels, which have yet to materialize (although he's seriously considering writing another one Real Soon Now).
Herbert, Frank. Dune
A lot better than I'd thought when I was in eighth grade. I am duly impressed by Herbert's ability to weave galactic politics, planetary ecology, and messianic religion into one moderate-length novel. I'll have to go find copies of the rest of the books now.
Delany, Samuel R. Trouble on Triton
A very dense book. I'm not sure whether I liked it or not. I think I did, though. I'll be writing a paper on it shortly. It revolves around the society on the moon of Triton, in the fairly-distant future. Delany's writing style is good, but his ideas are very, very packed into the book, making it a challenge to extract them whole without having them fragment into several smaller partial concepts.
McCormick, Malachi. A Decent Cup of Tea
I think my mother gave me this for Christmas several years ago. It's a cute book about tea. The author despises tea bags with a passion, and lukewarm tea even more so. A fun little book. And now I know what 'orange pekoe' tea is-- it's tea made from the largest tea leaves. Also, oolong tea is a partially fermented tea; black tea is completely fermented, and green tea is unfermented.
Heller, Joseph. Portrait of the Artist, as an Old Man
If you liked Closing Time, you might like this book. It's Heller's last, and available for cheap at Barnes & Noble and Borders everywhere. Funny in bits, poignant in bits, a decent story, but pretty light on the plot. It's about an author who had one incredible success when he was younger and has spent a lot of time since then trying to write a book that does as well as that first one... now he's getting old, and ideas aren't coming as fast as they used to... I liked it. But it's not to everyone's taste.
Stoppard, Tom. Arcadia
This is much, much funnier than I remember it being from the first time I read it. Much better, too. It waffles back and forth between modern-day and the early 1800s, in the same manor house. Bits are absolutely hilarious ("Carnal embrace is the act of throwing one's arms around a side of beef"). Highly, highly recommended.
Stoppard, Tom. Hapgood
This is sort of a retreading of Stoppard's radio play, The Dog It Was That Died... double agents who can't remember which side they're supposed to be working for, that sort of thing. It adds in some stuff on quantum physics, and also a plot. After Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and The Real Inspector Hound, this is my favorite Stoppard play.
O'Brien, Tim. Going After Cacciato
This is a novel about the Vietnam war, mostly. Kind of. It's definitely set in Nam. I didn't enjoy it as much as The Things They Carried; I didn't feel like the gimmick in Cacciato was enough to sustain the book the whole way through. I hear Nick Cassavettes is making a movie out of it; that should be interesting.
Carroll, Lewis and Martin Gardner. The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition
Everyone who's ever read the Alice books should read this, because there's just so much that the modern reader will miss in them. Gardner's annotations are almost as much fun as the books themselves.
Frayn, Michael. Copenhagen
I picked up this play in the bookstore when I was buying books for class, on the basis of Frayn's other famous play (Noises Off) and the fact that it's about physicists. It's a really good read, and I'd love to see it performed at some point. It's about Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, and how they found themselves on opposite sides in World War II. An excellent work.
More, Thomas. Utopia
Let's get this straight right now: 'Utopia' comes from the Greek for 'No Place', not 'Good Place.' All those happy idealized utopias of other writers are not what More was writing about. Utopia is his ideal society, but it's not a happy one. Everyone is the same, and there's no time for goofing off. It's an easier read than John Locke, but still not terribly fun.
O'Rourke, P.J. The CEO of the Sofa
A new collection of P.J. O'Rourke's writings. Funny, but not as good as Eat the Rich or Parliament of Whores. Recommended for his analysis of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and also for the bit where he and Christopher Buckley go on a blind (drunk) wine tasting.
Stephenson, Neal. In the Beginning...Was the Command Line
Partly a history of operating systems, partly a chronicle of Stephenson's experiences with Windows, Linux, and BeOS, and a pretty good read. It's short, and probably available online.
Moore, Alan and Eddie Campbell. From Hell
Alan Moore's take on the Jack the Ripper killings, soon to be a major motion picture. Very creepy, and without a real sense of closure. Like life. Personally I'll be interested to see how they manage to do this, considering a) it's very gory and b) there are large chunks that are nigh-unfilmable. I'm told they combined Lees (the psychic) and Abberline (the detective) into one character. Gah.
Campbell, Bruce. If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor
I got to see Bruce Campbell last November, and he's a really great speaker. So I picked up his new book, figuring it would be pretty much the same. It was. I was happy.
Nelson, Graham. The Inform Designer's Manual
I didn't read it quite cover-to-cover, but I came pretty close. Inform is a language for writing interactive fiction (think 'Infocom games'). The manual is very well-written, and even fun to read at times (discussing whether certain routines ever get run: 'Thus we see that Rosencrantz is executed, while Hamlet is not.').
Zelazny, Roger and Jane Lindskold. Lord Demon
Unlike Donnerjack, the other unfinished Zelazny work completed by Lindskold, Lord Demon doesn't suck. In fact it's a really good story of gods and demons and universes in bottles. It's not as good as I'd thought on my first read, but it's still well worth looking into.
Eco, Umberto. Foucault's Pendulum
This really is the last word in contemporary conspiracy literature. It takes awhile to really get going, but once it does it's incredibly cool. I almost feel gypped by the ending, but not quite. (The framing device within a framing device is kind of neat, too.)
Ellis, Warren and Darick Robertson. Transmetropolitan: Lonely City
Issues twenty-five through thirty. The first half is kind of disconnected from the rest of the plot; the last half is a good look at life under the Smiler. Spider's column gets D-noticed at the end, which sets the stage for Things To Come. I love this book.
Stackpole, Michael A. Once a Hero
I really don't know why it took me so long (close to a month) to finish this. Stackpole is an excellent writer, and the plot back-and-forthed between the two timelines really well. Maybe I thought I could get some work done instead.
Gaiman, Neil. Neverwhere
An excellent book. It goes into more detail than the miniseries could, and lets you empathise a lot more with some of the characters (like Anaesthesia, for instance, or Old Bailey). I liked it a lot.
Gaiman, Neil. American Gods
Shadow doesn't have much characterization to him. Other than that this book rocked. Neil Gaiman may deserve a place among the Big Four (Powers, Brust, Zelazny, Stoppard). I had Wednesday cold from "How'd you lose your eye?" but most of the rest of it was a surprise. Sheesh... after this I can't go back to The Sword of Shannara. I just can't.
Brust, Steven, PJF. Issola
It's finally here. And maybe even worth the wait... it's certainly damned good, and it reveals more about the world in the second chapter than the previous books combined. Gods, demons, Jenoine, the Necromancer, Drien, Remover-of-aspects-of-deity, Morrolan's younger days, the whole nine yards. Now as long as it's not a two-and-a-half-year wait for the next one...
Russell, Mary Doria. The Sparrow
Um. I seem to remember this as being quite good. Jesuits in space, and a more forgiving look at Columbus than the liberals usually give him. At one point it was going to be a movie with Antonio Banderas. I'll hunt up the sequel (to the book) eventually.
Lethem, Jonathan. This Shape We're In
It's a short little book; less than a hundred pages. I think it's probably technically a novelette or novella. It's still classic Lethem: it never quite lets you stand on solid ground, until the very end when you stand there going "Whoa."
Myers, John Myers. Silverlock
This is, quite simply, the most fun book I have ever read. The whole book is a literary game of hunt-the-reference... at the very beginning, the hero is shipwrecked and washed ashore on an island. After wandering through a veritable menagerie (pigs, wolves, lions) he encounters a woman living alone in a cottage. What's her name? This kind of thing is all throughout the book. If you can fund a copy, it's required reading. (It's sadly out of print.)
Card, Orson Scott. Shadow of the Hegemon
Much like Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow was great. Much like Speaker for the Dead, Shadow of the Hegemon was pretty good. Then I read in the afterword that Card is planning on writing two more books featuring Bean. Is the pattern beginning to sound familiar to anyone else? (sigh)
Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Shadow
This book is proof that Orson Scott Card can in fact still write... I stopped reading his stuff when he got obsessed with Alvin Maker and when Xenocide / Children of the Mind sucked. But this Ender's Game parallel is quite good. I highly recommend it.
Pullman, Phillip. The Amber Spyglass
It's over. That is really the only good thing I can say about this series. I am completely unable to empathize at all with Mrs. Coulter, and the separation thing didn't feel tragic so much as irritatingly contrived. Bah. Anyone want a hardback collection of this trilogy for ten bucks?
Azzarello, Brian and Eduardo Risso. 100 Bullets: 15-24
I actually don't have issues 18 and 19, which is too bad, since 18 is the end of a four-part arc. Grr. Oh well... no resolution yet, naturally, but more hints about the Minutemen, and things seem to be shaping up for a showdown.
Azzarello, Brian and Eduardo Risso. 100 Bullets: Split Second Chance
Issues six through fourteen. Six and seven were more of the same, but then suddenly in issue eight the comic got focus and direction, and just took off. Graves and Shepherd are fascinating characters (especially Shepherd), and the plot is developing nicely.
Azzarello, Brian and Eduardo Risso. 100 Bullets: First Shot, Last Call
The first five issues of 100 Bullets were pretty good, but not quite great. Compelling reading, and a pretty cool concept, though. What would you do if someone gave you incontrovertible evidence that someone had ruined your life... and then gave you a gun, a hundred untraceable bullets, and guaranteed immunity from prosecution?
Various. The Book of Lost Houses: The Second Coming
It's refreshing to read a book for Changeling that isn't utter crap. BoLH actually has some pretty cool bits in it. There's drek as well, but what do you want-- perfection? It's got French seers, Norse warriors, Irish warrior/herbalists, and Russian... somethings. Plus an extended look at the Scathach, who still kick much ass.
Ellis, Warren and Darick Robertson. Transmetropolitan: The New Scum
Issues nineteen through twenty-four: interviews with the Beast and the Smiler, and a conclusion to the election. This is perhaps the most intelligent comic I've ever read, and that's counting Sandman. Plus the art is generally better (Kindly Ones, anyone?).
Ellis, Warren and Darick Robertson. Transmetropolitan: Year of the Bastard
Transmet finally found some direction with issues thirteen through eighteen, when Spider starts covering the forthcoming presidential election. In a race between the Beast and the Smiler, who do you vote for?
Ellis, Warren and Darick Robertson. Transmetropolitan: Lust for Life
Issues four through twelve, in which a lot of random stuff happens. Among other things, Spider watches television for twenty-four hours, meets a 'revival' from the 20th century who'd been frozen and revived in a century that's got enough of its own problems and doesn't want to take care of her, visits cultural reservations, and has his ex-wife's head stolen.
Ellis, Warren and Darick Robertson. Transmetropolitan: Back on the Street
Issues one through three of Transmetropolitan, an excellent comic book. Spider Jerusalem is essentially Hunter S. Thompson in a horribly/amusingly dystopian future. His bumper sticker reads "Jesus is my best friend, but he won't loan me money." Comics rarely get any better than this.
Pullman, Phillip. The Subtle Knife
Better than The Golden Compass, but parts of it (like Grumman) are still a bit too pat for my tastes. And I've come to the conclusion that I don't like Good Versus Evil in my stories. Where's the fun in always knowing who to root for and not knowing who's got their own agenda? (This may be part of why I preferred The Dark Project to The Metal Age.) Us Versus Them (especially if there are several of Them and Us is loosely defined) makes for a much more engaging backdrop.
Powers, Tim. Last Call
I just couldn't make myself keep reading the Pullman drek without some sort of a buffer, so I dug out Tim Powers's classic Last Call. Between this, The Anubis Gates, and Declare, Tim Powers is one of the best writers on the planet. Read his stuff. At least twice. I think I'll reread Declare when I'm done with Pullman.
Pullman, Phillip. The Golden Compass
So many people were calling Phillip Pullman the next big children's author that I decided I ought to read the His Dark Materials trilogy. The first volume didn't get off to a very auspicious start, but improbable coincidences that are Fated To Be always piss me off. "Oh, look-- the small child happened to see one character poison another, and happened to be able to stop it, and was believed because the other character happened to be her uncle..." Gah. I can plot better than this on the toilet.
Forsyth, Frederick. Icon
Most people know Forsyth for The Day of the Jackal. Icon is at least as good, if not better. The ending's a tad weak, but other than that it's an excellent story, and Jason Monk is Forsyth's best character since Sam MacReady from The Deceiver.
Wright, Peter. Spycatcher
Memoir of a counterespionage agent in MI5 during the Cold War. Decent reading. Banned in Britain for awhile under the Official Secrets Act.
Cuppy, Will. How to Tell Your Friends From the Apes
Cute, and fun in places. In the end, not as good as the other book I've read from the same era, the classic 1066 and All That. It's got some good bits on canaries, though.
Pinkwater, Daniel. The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death
What a great book. The Snark Theatre is brilliant, as is Lower North Aufzoo Street ("I think the Underworld's got him"). Essentially, two high-school boys go looking for their friend Rat's uncle, Flipping Hades Terwilliger. It's a lot of fun.
Pinkwater, Daniel. Slaves of Spiegel
Not as good as Alan Mendelsohn. Still kind of fun, though.
Cooper, Susan. Seaward
This is my favorite of Susan Cooper's books. It's not part of the Dark is Rising sequence, which is fine by me. Rather, it's a journey through the Otherland. "Why aren't the pieces black and white?" "Nothing is black and white in this long game we play, Westerly."
Cooper, Susan. Silver on the Tree
There is so much going on here that I missed when I read this before. Owain Glyndwr, for Pete's sake. The salmon crest. It still didn't carry as much weight as The Grey King, though. (Side note: except for the Lady, the Stantons, and Jane, all the women in these books are evil.)
Cooper, Susan. The Grey King
This one has dethroned The Dark is Rising as my favorite of the series. There's actual genuine pathos with Cafall; something that Hawkin never really managed to evoke. Plus it's set in Wales.
Cooper, Susan. Greenwitch
I never liked this one as much as the rest. I still don't. I understand what happened better now, though.
Cooper, Susan. The Dark is Rising
This was one of my favorite books when I was in elementary school. It's still pretty darn good, although the plot is a bit flimsy in places.
Cooper, Susan. Over Sea, Under Stone
This was written eight years before The Dark is Rising, and it shows. It's got a decidedly different feel to it than the others. Partly that's due to the lack of Will Stanton, but part of it is a maturation of style.
Brust, Steven, PJF. Dragon
Morrolan feels different in the pre-Jhereg books... more aloof, I guess. Maybe the incident in the tower where he loses Blackwand occurs between Yendi and Jhereg. Anyway, Brust is back on his game here... good stuff.
Brust, Steven, PJF. Orca
I liked this one better than the previous two, but that's not saying much. Big huge plot points at the end, so don't read it out of order. Maybe I'll like it better next time through.
Brust, Steven, PJF. Athyra
The nadir of the Taltos books. The lack of Loiosh's commentary is a huge void, as are the absences of Morrolan and (to a lesser extent) Sethra. On the other hand, it shows quite well what life is like for the rest of the Empire.
Brust, Steven, PJF. Phoenix
Ehh. I'm not sold on the kinder, gentler Vlad. Parts of Phoenix were better than Teckla, but parts weren't. It's a strong story-- just not one of my faves. (Although the indictment of several publishing companies on pp. 96-97 is hilarious.)
Brust, Steven, PJF. Taltos
This is still my favorite of the series. It's the story of how Vlad first got involved with Sethra, Morrolan, and Aliera, and it's got a lot of Vlad's backstory as well. The three (yes, three) timelines are interwoven brilliantly, and the characterizations are excellent.
Brust, Steven, PJF. Teckla
What do I do when I get off work at 3:30, when I'm used to coming home at 8:30? Sit around and read three of the Vlad Taltos novels, that's what. Kelly and the other revolutionaries are insufferable, but they're meant to be, and there's a good deal of pathos here. It's not as good a story as the first two, but that's okay.
Brust, Steven, PJF. Yendi
Brust apparently doesn't really like Yendi, but I think he's selling it short-- it's a pretty good story, even though bits of the plot are weak. I liked it better than I remembered liking it.
Brust, Steven, PJF. Jhereg
Jhereg was Brust's first novel. It shows its age in a couple places, where there's some narration telling you what the heck's going on, in the form of Vlad telling it to someone who already knows. Other than that it's still a great read, and one of the best of the bunch.
Murakami, Haruki. The Elephant Vanishes
A collection of short stories. A lot more hit-and-miss than I'd really expected. On the other hand, while I fell in love with Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World the first time I read it, I was fairly sure that lightning couldn't strike twice there. Kind of like how I loved "Once in a Lifetime" by Talking Heads and avoided listening to the rest of their stuff for ages afterwards because there was no way it'd be the same.
Brust, Steven, PJF. Agyar
I was in a bad mood last night, so I pulled out one of the best books I've ever read to calm me down. Agyar is... what is it? It's a modern horror novel without any real angst, it's a love story, it's a redemption saga... it's a great book. It recently replaced The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars as my favorite Brust book, and that's saying a lot. If you read nothing else on this page, read Agyar. Then read it again, and realise how much you missed the first time.
Skarka, Gareth-Michael. Underworld
Underworld is an RPG that draws heavily from Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. GMS developed it in a year-long weekly column on RPG.net last year (well, August to August, roughly), which was very very cool. Essentially, it's about the magical world that exists beneath New York City (and, one presumes, other cities as well). Very rules-light. A fun read, and it looks like it'd be a joy to play.
Ende, Michael. The Night of Wishes
Subtitled The Anarchaeolidealcohellish Notion Potion. A very cute children's book, by the author of The Neverending Story. I'm glad I read this one.
Appignanesi, Richard and Chris Garratt. Postmodernism for Beginners
This was in Barnes & Noble for four bucks, so I figured, why not? The first third or so (on art) is excellent, but I got lost somewhere in the middle when they started dealing with language. I managed to rally and get a grip on the history section, though. Good stuff.
Barnes, Julian. Flaubert's Parrot
My first impression was that Flaubert's Parrot was a rotten novel. Then I realised about halfway through that I should stop reading it as a novel and instead read it as a series of loosely connected vignettes, and I started enjoying it a whole lot more-- Julian Barnes's sentences flow beautifully. I'll probably have to read it two or three more times before I feel like I've really grasped it, though. (It reminded me of The Things They Carried.)
Pinkwater, Daniel. Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars
Woozy from headaches and Flaubert's Parrot, I took a break to read the first part of a Pinkwater omnibus I picked up in Richmond. Pinkwater writes the most ridiculous things and makes them perfectly sane. The best comparison I can think to make is to The Phantom Tollbooth. He's easily the best children's author writing today.
Powers, Tim. Declare
"Here's a list: Roger Zelazny. Steven Brust. Tom Stoppard. Tim Powers--"
"Ah, yes, Powers; his latest novel, Declare, is about the peculiar actions of the great British traitor Kim Philby."
"But isn't it really about Mount Ararat, and djinni?"
"It's not really about Ararat; it's more that all the action happens up there."
"I see. Anyway, Declare is an excellent book, although it's not as good as The Anubis Gates, and I highly highly recommend you pick up the nearest copy."
Hobb, Robin. Ship of Destiny
Liveship Traders volume three. It's over. The problem I had with these was that instead of the characters discovering cool things about the world, the author told the reader cool things about the world via the characters. An important distinction, because you can feel things being held back and you get irritated. (Assassin's Quest had some of the same problem.) But I'm still curious about the Rooster Crown. (Side note: was Amber present in the Farseer trilogy?)
Hobb, Robin. Mad Ship
Liveship Traders volume two. Under NO circumstances should you read this book before reading the Assassins trilogy. Gott in Himmel. Between the "dragons" and She Who Remembers, I'm still all shook up. I wonder about the significance of the Crowned Rooster / Rooster Crown, though.
Hobb, Robin. Ship of Magic
Liveship Traders volume one. Set in the same world as her Farseer trilogy (Apprentice Assassin, Royal Assassin, Assassin's Quest). The Farseer books were better-- in places this reads like one of Mercedes Lackey's soap operas.
Eddings, David and Leigh Eddings. The Redemption of Althalus
The first half of this book is business as usual for the Eddingses; it's funny and it moves along well. The second half feels rushed and cramped, and the "let's go back in time and steal the Book" plot at the end didn't really feel right. Mostly because it basically said "All this other stuff that's happened was worthless, because we could have just picked up the Book and destroyed it." Still a worthwhile read, but probably not worth buying in hardback. Unless you've got the soul of a collector.
Zelazny, Roger. Roadmarks
Semi-vintage Zelazny, before he began his slide into awful collaborations in the late eighties. Time travel via a Road. Good stuff.
Morressy, John. Kedrigern in Wanderland
Morressy is getting better at this. Wanderland is easily the best of the series so far (there are two more I don't have). "Ah yes, the hermit Goode, who lives in the wood that slopes down to the sea..."
Morressy, John. The Questing of Kedrigern
The second Kedrigern book. This one has a semicoherent plot. Better than the first one.
Morressy, John. A Voice For Princess
The first of Morressy's Kedrigern books. Light, fluffy, reads more like a collection of stories than a novel. It was okay. Cute, but by no means great reading.