books from 2002
Dec. 31st, 2002 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishBrust, Steven. Five Hundred Years After
Forthcoming.
Brust, Steven and Emma Bull. Freedom and Necessity
Forthcoming.
Brust, Steven. The Phoenix Guards
Forthcoming.
Brust, Steven. Agyar
Forthcoming.
Brust, Steven. Brokedown Palace
Forthcoming.
Brust, Steven. The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars
For a book about painting, there's a lot of good Art Theory in here. It's also got a story featuring the three gypsies from The Gypsy, which is cool. Anyone with interest in Art (or Creating) should probably read this.
Brust, Steven and Megan Lindholm. The Gypsy
Not nearly as much of a confusing mess as I remembered it being. Two good authors (Megan Lindholm is also known as Robin Hobb) have put out a pretty good book that you get the impression that they understand completely, and you mostly understand.
Vinge, Vernor. The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge
Hard SF short stories. Vinge is good, in places very good, but hard SF is a style that I haven't read much lately (looks like about eight books this year). So I wasn't impressed, but that's more my fault than his. If I reread the stories I'll probably like most of them better.
Spolsky, Joel. User Interface Design for Programmers
Joel can write, which is the main reason I read his book. Also so that, were I to get a job doing software testing again, I'd be able to talk about usability and know what I was talking about.
Card, Orson Scott. Speaker For the Dead
I think it's better than Ender's Game at this point. There's more going on, certainly, and it gives Card more of a chance to develop real, believable characters. I will not reread Xenocide and spoil my current feeling of goodwill towards Orson Scott Card. I will not reread...
Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game
It's still very very good. I can understand why this book had such an effect on me in seventh grade. Everyone with any interest in sci-fi should read this book. Now.
Mezrich, Ben. Bringing Down the House
Brilliant. The adventures of several MIT students as they bilk various casinos for several gazillion dollars. A very fast read, and well-written.
Betancourt, John Gregory. The Dawn of Amber
Ehh. It's an Amber book by someone other then Roger Zelazny. Betancourt tries, but the magic just isn't there-- Oberon's siblings come off as much more childish than Corwin's. And the cosmology is all wonky. I'm not a fan. Although I'll probably read the next two anyway, at least once.
Brust, Steven. Issola
Still very good. I don't fully understand the Jenoine's concept of 'place' but that's probably just me. I'm very interested to see what happens to Vlad next, because the ending is the sort of cliffhanger that Brust mostly avoids.
Egan, Greg. Permutation City
How weird. The first third of this book is "I've got this wacky idea, even though I'm crazy." The middle is "Let's perform an experiment that I say will test my theory, even though it will have no effect on the real world." And the end is "Here's what happened when my wacky theory was right." I liked the last bit a lot more than the first two-thirds.
O'Rourke, P.J. The CEO of the Sofa
The blind (drunk) wine tasting is still brilliant, but P.J. is starting to slide into generic conservatism. He says he's against the war on drugs and gives half-assed rationalizations for it (and admits that they're half-assed). It's pretty good, but not as good as his earlier stuff.
Delany, Samuel. Neveryóna
Huh. Very dense, not much 'plot' to speak of. It's fantasy-- you can tell by the dragon in the first sentence. But other than the dragon it feels like a Clan of the Cave Bear genre novel. (I actually liked this a lot more than it sounds like I did, but I don't know that I'll read it 'for fun.')
Eliot, T.S. The Waste Land
The last word in poetry that requires you to have a doctorate to fully enjoy. I loved it five years ago, and I still love it. Anyone who includes lines like "Twit twit twit jug jug" in his over-serious poem is okay in my book.
Gaiman, Neil. Coraline
A children's book. Not as deep as American Gods, not as solid as Neverwhere. Inventive and funny and clever, but short and clearly meant for a younger audience. Read it anyway-- Gaiman is Good Stuff.
Pullman, Philip. The Golden Compass
It still sucks. The writing is Not Bad, but the main driving force in the plot is coincidence, and the characters tend to be two-dimensional. Read Prydain or The Dark Is Rising instead. Or Westmark, if you really want Ambiguous Morality in your children's tales.
Cadre, Adam. Ready, Okay!
It's a novel about high school. Oh joy. Except that it actually is a joy to read-- Cadre's gigantic cast of characters comes alive in a way that Joseph Heller's never did, and you actually care about them by the end of the book. Plus I like his sense of humor. I eagerly await his next book.
Stoppard, Tom. The Invention of Love
A play about Victorian homosexuality and the difficulties of translating Latin poetry that has almost certainly not been preserved as it was originally written. Very clever, very thoughtful. Not as good as Arcadia, but still good.
Budrys, Algis. Hard Landing
Four aliens crash-land on Earth, and proceed to blend into society, because they aren't supposed to advance us beyond what we would get to normally. An interesting story, but the actual plot plot is a little weak.
Ennis, Garth and Will Simpson. Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits
Forty-one through forty-six, in which John Constantine contracts lung cancer, meets a beautiful Irish lass, and flips off the Devil. Good stuff. Garth Ennis's writing is definitely more to my taste than Jamie Delano's.
Delano, Jamie et al. Hellblazer: 33-40
In which Jamie Delano wraps up his tenure on Hellblazer. I don't remember much about these, although none of them were as irritatingly eco-preachy as earlier issues. And exactly what the hell happened at the end of issue #40?
Delano, Jamie et al. Hellblazer: The Family Man
Twenty-four through thirty-two, with issues by Grant Morrison (ehh...) and Neil Gaiman (very cool). "Killing is wrong, period" is not really an ethic I'd thought Constantine would hold, but since most of my exposure to Hellblazer has been Garth Ennis's run that's not really surprising. Like much of Delano's run, this was okay.
Delano, Jamie et al. Hellblazer: The Fear Machine
Issues fourteen through twenty-three. Constantine joins a commune, of all things. The Women's Magick started to get to me pretty quickly, and if Delano didn't write as good as he does I'd have thrown the whole thing down in disgust.
Delano, Jamie et al. Hellblazer: 1-13
In which John Constantine wanders around various places getting his character established as a Right Bastard. Delano's got a bit too much eco-weenie-ness in his stories for me to fully enjoy them, but Constantine's good stuff nonetheless.
Alexander, Lloyd. The Beggar Queen
These are not children's books. They are Young Adult, most certainly. Major characters die in this book-- some rather unpleasantly. There is no Happy Ending, not really. Everyone should read these at least once.
Alexander, Lloyd. The Kestrel
Talk about brutal. It's not as bad as I remembered it, but the last time I read it was in elementary school. Theo continues to be a real character, and Mickle does some growing up as well.
Alexander, Lloyd. Westmark
Alexander's Westmark trilogy is probably the harshest set of books he's ever written. They're very good, but somewhat brutal. Also, they don't contain the Stock Alexander Female (being an incarnation of Eilonwy of the red-gold hair). Theo is one of Alexander's best-developed characters.
Knight, Damon. A For Anything
Ehh. The science fictiony aspects of the novel are drowned in the psychological commentary. Which is okay if the psychological commentary is interesting (as with Delany). It wasn't. (Two months later: the psychological commentary actually is interesting, but doesn't go anywhere.)
Azzarello, Brian and Eduardo Risso. 100 Bullets: Hang Up On the Hang Low
Everything in 100 Bullets will eventually be tied together. This story resolves the Christmas special and answers the all-important question of "What the hell happened to Lono?" It's probably not really necessary to the series as a whole, but it gives more insight into Graves's character.
Azzarello, Brian and Eduardo Risso. 100 Bullets: The Counterfifth Detective
Weird. It's similar to Cole Burns's story, only with a wildly different lead character, a wildly different ending, and stretched out over six issues. Enjoyable, although it left a foul taste in my mouth. I'm very curious to see what actually went down in Atlantic City, now.
Ellis, Warren and Darick Robertson. Transmetropolitan: 52-58
Wow. It's hard to believe that Transmet will be finished in just two more issues. It's been a good run. Oddly enough, not much bad happens to Spider and his Filthy Assistants in these two stories, although plenty bad happens to just about everyone else. Mary (the Revival from the first year) shows back up again, and is still my favorite minor character in the series.
Knight, Damon. The Dying Man
Knight seems to be big into this whole devolution of technology concept (cf. Wells's Eloi). The Dying Man is about an immortal in a world of immortals, who's dying, and rediscovers the passion of life in the process. Worthwhile for the fairly creepy last couple of paragraphs alone.
Knight, Damon. Natural State
Not as good as Rule Golden, but that might be because the premise is a bit much. Cities versus 'uncivilized' countryfolk, and the countryfolk are kicking butt. Still a pretty good read.
Knight, Damon. Rule Golden
A short 'novel' about what happens when the Golden Rule gets enforced the hard way. Knight's characterizations are only okay, but he's got wonderful ideas, and his prose is very readable.
Azzarello, Brian and Eduardo Risso. 100 Bullets: Split Second Chance
I reread this trade paperback because, hey, it was lying around when everything else was packed up. It's still some excellent stuff. Cole Burns, the first 'reactivated' Minuteman that we've seen, is a great character, and "Parlez Kung Vous" implies some... interesting... history for Dizzy.
Stolze, Greg and John Tynes. Unknown Armies Second Edition
They've cleaned UA up a lot from its first release. The clear divisions of knowledge between player power levels are very nice, as are the new skill rules (in general, unless you're under a LOT of stress/time crunch, you can succeed at anything you're skilled in; the only question is how fast/well) and initiative (instead of rolling, it's a Speed-based skill that starts at half your Speed). Still one of the best modern-day RPGs on the market.
Borgstrom, R. Sean. Nobilis
A gorgeous, genre-shattering RPG. The cute little sidebars are brilliant, and the mechanic is wonderful. I doubt I'll ever be able to run this, but it's still very very cool.
Gaiman, Neil and P. Craig Russell. Murder Mysteries
A pretty good comic adaptation of an excellent short story about the first murder in Heaven and some weirdness on Earth. I liked this one a lot. It's a gorgeous hardback, too.
Laws, Robin D. Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering
This was worth maybe five bucks, hardly the ten I spent on it. A useful typology of players, some decent advice on building scenarios and campaigns, but there's just not that much to it. Hite's Nightmares of Mine was infinitely more useful.
Laws, Robin D. The Rough and the Smooth
A political fantasy novel, about a mole man who's learned human politics and thinks they can apply to the mole men as well. Very Machiavellian (more so than the Martin books, I think), and good writing. Laws has an annoying tendency to tell not show in dialog, though, of the "X explained why that would be a bad idea. Y insisted on doing it anyway" style. On the other hand, the characterizations are very realistic.
Effinger, George Alec. Irrational Numbers
A short story collection by the author of When Gravity Fails. I really really like Effinger's prose style, and the stories were all suitably weird, but the ending of each felt like just a bit of a let-down. Still a good read.
Purcell, Steve. The Collected Sam and Max: Surfing the Highway
A comic that manages to be hilarious, somewhat random, and a bit dark all at the same time. "I can't think of anything to say in this panel. Go ahead and pummel him, Max." The LucasArts adventure game based on the comic is also very cool.
Brooks, Frederick P, Jr. The Mythical Man-Month
Kind of dry, but worthwhile reading. It's a bunch of essays on how to actually do software development on larger products. Brooks's main theories are that 1) adding more people to a late project will make it later, and 2) a project should be designed by only one person.
Stackpole, Michael. Fortress Draconis
Better than DGW, although that might be just because it's less dark. Resolute still eludes me, and I feel like I've almost totally missed twenty years of history (the occasional references aren't quite enough for me to figure out what all happened). I eagerly await the next one in December.
Stackpole, Michael. The Dark Glory War
Not as good as Eyes of Silver, but still not bad. Good character development of the main character, and some for his best friend, but not enough for the other characters. Resolute in particular I couldn't really get a handle on. Near as I can tell the book is mostly useful as a lead-in to the following series. Which is okay
Lee, Stan and George Mair. Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee
Very cool. I like Lee's conversational writing style a lot, as well as his descriptions of what went into the making of Marvel Comics. A bit short, but well worth reading for anyone with an interest in the history of comics.
Teller, Astro. Exegesis
An email conversation between a grad student and an AI that she's created. Lots of good stuff about ethics/morals, and the 'right' to create AIs simply to have them do scutwork. Recommended.
Shakespeare, William. Henry IV Part 1
In which Bullingbrook from Richard II beats up on people who are trying to do to him what he did to Richard II, "Owen Glendower" appears as a Welsh idiot, Falstaff gets drunk and lies a lot, and the future Henry V acts like a jackass. One of Shakespeare's best plays.
Hite, Kenneth. Nightmares of Mine
The definitive guide to horror gaming, both playing and running. It's a bit dry, but still a must-read for anyone involved with horror gaming. Or horror in general, since it breaks down "what makes horror work" quite nicely.
Hite, Kenneth. GURPS Cabal
Conspiracy theory and secret history at their finest. The Cabal is a group of sorcerers that's been around since ancient Egypt trying to run the world / keep the world in the dark about magic / not get killed by normal people. A complex Hermetic magic system and cosmology plus a complex history make this one of the better conspiracy gaming books I've seen. Even though it's for GURPS.
Stackpole, Michael. Eyes of Silver
Now we're talking. Sure, it's just post-Napoleonic Europe with the names and geography changed and magic added in (with appropriate changes to the religions), but it's good. Nice thick plot, characters with motivations, typically excellent Stackpole prose... a shame it's out of print. I'll have to get him to sign it at Origins.
Stackpole, Michael and William F. Wu. An Enemy Reborn
See A Hero Born for abuses of Chaos/Plot. This book also commits the sin of pulling a guy out of the Real World into the Fantasy World, where he discovers that he's extra-cool and there to Save The Day. (I make it sound like I didn't like these much; that's not really true, they just didn't stand out all that well from generic fantasy. Reading them after coming down off of A Song of Ice and Fire doesn't help, either.)
Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night, or What You Will
This is actually one of Shakespeare's better comedies, in that it doesn't have people acting like idiots for no reason. Lots of homoerotic undertones, too. I maintain that Malvolio's exit spoils the tone of the 'comic' ending, but that's just me.
Stackpole, Michael. A Hero Born
You can replace the word "Chaos" in this book with the word "Plot." 'The Ward Walls keep Plot out of the Empire.' 'I want to be a Plot Rider, and defeat the forces of Plot.' 'Things are different in Plot.' In any event, this was pretty good fantasy, but something was missing. The characters just weren't all they could have been, I think.
Shakespeare, William. Richard II
It's still Shakespeare, so it's not bad per se... just not terribly interesting. Very formal, and none of the characters really stand out as much as Richard III or Iago or Aaron the Moor.
Le Carre, John. The Spy Who Came In From the Cold
Cold War espionage... late '60s, I think. I'm pretty sure this was Le Carre's first book. Fairly short, but quite good. Killer ending. It's been awhile since I read a good spy story.
Beckett, Samuel. Endgame
Kind of short, but very good. Beckett has a great grasp of language ("If I don't kill that rat, he'll die" et cetera), and Endgame manages to simultaneously be a very contrived situation with very real characters. Quite possibly my favorite overly-existential play.
Martin, George R.R. A Storm of Swords
Wow. Red Wedding. Tyrion's marriage. All the crap that goes down around Joffrey. Catelyn bloody Stark. Plus tons of fun with Night's Watch. I want more, dammit. I want to see Stannis's reaction to Jon Snow. I want to see Jaime's reaction to Tyrion. I want to see Faceless Men on Braavos.
Martin, George R.R. A Clash of Kings
Not quite as good as the first one. This focuses more on a couple of military campaigns, rather than the out-and-out intrigue of the first book. The Daenerys and Night's Watch segments are still excellent (as is the rest of the book, really; just not as excellent), and I get the feeling that the real story here is about the conflict between the dragons and the Others.
Martin, George R.R. A Game of Thrones
Excellent. Very, very, very good epic fantasy. Two wholly unexpected deaths (plus the king's death, but you can't really have a Game of Thrones if the throne is occupied, you know). Martin has created a pretty good world, and incredible characters to people it. About the only thing I have issue with is the idea of 'seasons' that last for years.
Powers, Tim. Declare
A re-read from last year. The first half wasn't really as good as I remembered, but the second half (once we get some kind of explanation about the djinn) stands up pretty darn well. This ranks with The Anubis Gates and Last Call as some of Powers's best work.
Donaldson, Stephen R. A Man Rides Through
Ah, here we are. The villains in Mordant start to seem more like Angus and Nick from the Gap, and Joyse starts to resemble Warden Dios. It's still quite good, but despite really liking the Gap a lot I think I preferred the first book. Orison makes a better setting than "the rest of the world," too.
Webster, John. The Duchess of Malfi
After Titus, this just isn't all that shocking. The poetry is uneven as well, and although the basic plot is okay the characters are a bit iffy. Not really impressive, overall.
Ibsen, Henrik. Hedda Gabler
Better than Chekov. I'd like to see it in performance sometime. Apparently there was all kinds of stuff relating to Naturalism in the play, but I missed it due to skipping class the week we were discussing it. This probably contributed to my getting a B in the class. Life goes on.
Donaldson, Stephen R. The Mirror of Her Dreams
This isn't nearly as much like Donaldson's Gap series as I remembered. It's quite good, though, and there are lots of little things to pick up on if you've read it before... like Havelock saying "Joyse, it's your move" when it looks like Joyse is about to do something stupid.
Shakespeare, William. Titus Andronicus
Mmm. Gore. Plus the best stage direction ever, "Enter a Messenger with two heads and a hand." It's got some very good bits, too. Like Aaron's "Ay, that I had not done a thousand more" monologue.
Strindberg, August. Miss Julie
Class struggles, gender struggles, and above all power struggles. A play about a French aristocrat and a French servant by a Swede. It's very good, but I'm not really sure if I liked it.
Daniel, Estelle. The Art of Gormenghast
Very pretty, and the interviews with all the people involved are neat as well. What do you want? I read this one mostly for the pictures.
Pinkwater, D. Manus. Lizard Music
This was the first Pinkwater book I ever read. It's still one of my faves. The little pebbles that the lizards wear on their wrists are really cool.
Perez-Reverte, Arturo. The Club Dumas
Ah. Good stuff here. Plus one of the rare books that gets mentioned in passing is "the Astarloa treatise on fencing," which is the kind of self-referential humour I've come to love. I've read this three or four times and it's still a lot of fun.
Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus
Marlowe writes good poetry, and good characters, but the plot of Faustus is a little weak... a good concept, but not really enough to sustain a five-act play.
Adams, Richard. Tales from Watership Down
Ehh. A bunch of short stories, two-thirds of which are tales of El-ahrairah (the rabbit equivalent of Coyote) and one-third of which is a continuation of Watership Down. They were okay, but not as good as the source material. Which is to be expected, really.
Adams, Richard. Watership Down
Also known as The Aeneid starring rabbits. This really is one of those books with just about everything... epic journey, character growth and development, big battle scenes... the only thing it's really missing is a romantic subplot.
Perez-Reverte, Arturo. The Fencing Master
It's not as good as The Club Dumas, but then what is? Don Jaime Astarloa is a better character than Lucas Corso, but he's also a dupe for most of the book, and the ending is a tad weak.
Chabon, Michael. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Quite good. A story about two comic-book creators in the thirties, forties, and fifties. Plus a golem, escape artistry, and McCarthyism. I enjoyed this one a lot.
Churchill, Caryl. Top Girls
Feminism. Rah. An interesting play nonetheless. The device of having all the historical women at the beginning and then using their actresses to portray similar modern-day women is very cool.
Wagner, Matt. Mage: The Hero Defined
Ah. The search for the Fisher King is going to be an on-going thing. I liked this series more, but mostly because I felt like the characters were done better. The story wasn't quite as good, and it didn't end very conclusively (or well) at all.
Wagner, Matt. Mage: The Hero Discovered
A fairly interesting comic about the modern-day Pendragon. It seemed a little off in places, and the Fisher King didn't get much play at all, but well worth the read.
O'Conner, Patricia T. Woe is I
A cute grammar book, explaining some of the more common pitfalls (it's and its get plenty of play, as do your and you're). Also, a list of cliches that should be avoided like the plague, and some mistakes that aren't really mistakes (ending a sentence with a preposition, splitting infinitives, etc). I still maintain that data are plural, though.
Dürrenmatt, Friedrich. The Visit
How odd. I wasn't sure whether I'd like this or not. It's a pretty good play, though. It makes you think, which Brecht tries hard to do and doesn't quite (in my opinion) succeed in. An old lady offers a town a million dollars if they'll kill one of their inhabitants...
Tolkien, J.R.R. Farmer Giles of Ham
Probably my favorite Tolkien work. It's a linguistic shaggy-dog story explaining the origin of the names of Thame and Wunnle (small towns in England), but also a pretty fun adventure, and a chance for Tolkien to show off his sense of humour.
Beard, Henry N. and Douglas C. Kenney. Bored of the Rings
Heh. Funny. I'd forgotten how cool this parody is. Ballhogs and "It's a pity I've run out of bullets" and Minas Troney...
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Return of the King
Excellent epic fantasy, even though the story actually ends halfway through the book and the rest is wrap-up (well, plus the Scouring of the Shire). The Appendices have lots of tasty information, too. "It was a purely [Battle of] Bywater joke to refer to [the street where Saruman was killed] as Sharkey's End."
Brecht, Bertold. The Good Person of Setzuan
I was expecting not to like this very much... I couldn't stand The Threepenny Opera when Tech performed it a couple years ago. Regardless, this turned out to be well-written and funny, and while it does beat you over the head with its concept, it manages to be engaging even so. Bonus points for the water seller standing in the rain and ranting.
Shepard, Sam. True West
It's quite a relief to be back to reading something with a recognizable plot and characters. This is partly a retelling of Cain and Abel, and partly a play about reality versus facade. Enjoyable. Some very funny bits involving toasters.
Büchner, Georg. Woyjeck
Confusing. The play was unfinished when the author died, so all we really have is fragments, in some semblance of order, and questions about madness that were covered better by Franz Kafka and Luigi Pirandello. But it was short, so I can't really complain too much.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Two Towers
This was the first Tolkien I ever read, and it's still a really good story. He takes three separate tales and manages to entwine them quite well. I remember being really impressed by little things, like the chapter title "The Window on the West" referring to Henneth Annûn as well as to Frodo getting details of what was going on in the West, too. Good stuff.
Pinter, Harold. The Homecoming
What the hell was going on here? This is the weirdest thing I've read since Ionesco. It makes absolutely no sense, but really desperately wants you to think it does.
Kreutz, Franz Xaver. Michi's Blood: A Requiem
Powerful. A one-act in fifteen scenes, about a poor couple... the woman gets pregnant, the man gives her an abortion, and she dies. All the dialog is in short, clipped sentences, and you have to read it at least twice to really understand it, but I can imagine that seeing it onstage... wow.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Fellowship of the Ring
It starts off reading about like The Hobbit, and then takes a much darker tone. Frodo angsts a lot, not that I can really blame him. The Nazgûl are less scary than I remember them being, although the Balrog is more so. And Lothlórien really was just lame in the movie.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit
Reads kind of like a children's book, although I imagine the goblins would scare small children to death, and there are too many dwarves without personalities. Still a good fantasy story.
Chekov, Anton. The Sea Gull
Ehh. Slow moving, filled with characters that don't really talk to each other, and without much of a "plot" per se. Chekov doesn't really impress me much, and the symbol of the seagull was much like the symbolism in The Scarlet Letter in that it beat you about the head and shoulders. But I don't have to write about it.
Moorcock, Michael. Stormbringer
The last of the Elric books. This one felt a lot more like a coherent narrative than any of the other short-story collections. Zarozinia's death scene seemed fairly contrived; Moonglum's, on the other hand, was very well done. I'm glad I reread the Elric books, in all.
Büchner, Georg. Leonce and Lena
Fascinating. A comedy (mostly) from the 1830s. It doesn't feel like it hung together very well, and the ending was kind of creepy, but I think I enjoyed it. Maybe the other plays for the Modern Drama course will be better.
Moorcock, Michael. The Bane of the Black Sword
This is actually just three stories that happened to be published together. The first is fairly unremarkable, except that in it Theleb K'aarna finally dies. It also features Moorcock's strongest female character (except for the Rose): Queen Yishana. The second story is fairly blah (I can't stand Zarozinia), and the third is nifty in its presentation of a wizard whose soul is trapped in a kitten. Not bad, just not great.
Moorcock, Michael. The Revenge of the Rose
Ehh. It's got a better plot that many of the Elric books, but it hops hither and yon and never lets you catch your breath, or get to know any of the characters all that well (like Esbern Snare, whose valiant sacrifice just wasn't all that effective for me). Still enjoyable, but there are better books.
Forthcoming.
Brust, Steven and Emma Bull. Freedom and Necessity
Forthcoming.
Brust, Steven. The Phoenix Guards
Forthcoming.
Brust, Steven. Agyar
Forthcoming.
Brust, Steven. Brokedown Palace
Forthcoming.
Brust, Steven. The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars
For a book about painting, there's a lot of good Art Theory in here. It's also got a story featuring the three gypsies from The Gypsy, which is cool. Anyone with interest in Art (or Creating) should probably read this.
Brust, Steven and Megan Lindholm. The Gypsy
Not nearly as much of a confusing mess as I remembered it being. Two good authors (Megan Lindholm is also known as Robin Hobb) have put out a pretty good book that you get the impression that they understand completely, and you mostly understand.
Vinge, Vernor. The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge
Hard SF short stories. Vinge is good, in places very good, but hard SF is a style that I haven't read much lately (looks like about eight books this year). So I wasn't impressed, but that's more my fault than his. If I reread the stories I'll probably like most of them better.
Spolsky, Joel. User Interface Design for Programmers
Joel can write, which is the main reason I read his book. Also so that, were I to get a job doing software testing again, I'd be able to talk about usability and know what I was talking about.
Card, Orson Scott. Speaker For the Dead
I think it's better than Ender's Game at this point. There's more going on, certainly, and it gives Card more of a chance to develop real, believable characters. I will not reread Xenocide and spoil my current feeling of goodwill towards Orson Scott Card. I will not reread...
Card, Orson Scott. Ender's Game
It's still very very good. I can understand why this book had such an effect on me in seventh grade. Everyone with any interest in sci-fi should read this book. Now.
Mezrich, Ben. Bringing Down the House
Brilliant. The adventures of several MIT students as they bilk various casinos for several gazillion dollars. A very fast read, and well-written.
Betancourt, John Gregory. The Dawn of Amber
Ehh. It's an Amber book by someone other then Roger Zelazny. Betancourt tries, but the magic just isn't there-- Oberon's siblings come off as much more childish than Corwin's. And the cosmology is all wonky. I'm not a fan. Although I'll probably read the next two anyway, at least once.
Brust, Steven. Issola
Still very good. I don't fully understand the Jenoine's concept of 'place' but that's probably just me. I'm very interested to see what happens to Vlad next, because the ending is the sort of cliffhanger that Brust mostly avoids.
Egan, Greg. Permutation City
How weird. The first third of this book is "I've got this wacky idea, even though I'm crazy." The middle is "Let's perform an experiment that I say will test my theory, even though it will have no effect on the real world." And the end is "Here's what happened when my wacky theory was right." I liked the last bit a lot more than the first two-thirds.
O'Rourke, P.J. The CEO of the Sofa
The blind (drunk) wine tasting is still brilliant, but P.J. is starting to slide into generic conservatism. He says he's against the war on drugs and gives half-assed rationalizations for it (and admits that they're half-assed). It's pretty good, but not as good as his earlier stuff.
Delany, Samuel. Neveryóna
Huh. Very dense, not much 'plot' to speak of. It's fantasy-- you can tell by the dragon in the first sentence. But other than the dragon it feels like a Clan of the Cave Bear genre novel. (I actually liked this a lot more than it sounds like I did, but I don't know that I'll read it 'for fun.')
Eliot, T.S. The Waste Land
The last word in poetry that requires you to have a doctorate to fully enjoy. I loved it five years ago, and I still love it. Anyone who includes lines like "Twit twit twit jug jug" in his over-serious poem is okay in my book.
Gaiman, Neil. Coraline
A children's book. Not as deep as American Gods, not as solid as Neverwhere. Inventive and funny and clever, but short and clearly meant for a younger audience. Read it anyway-- Gaiman is Good Stuff.
Pullman, Philip. The Golden Compass
It still sucks. The writing is Not Bad, but the main driving force in the plot is coincidence, and the characters tend to be two-dimensional. Read Prydain or The Dark Is Rising instead. Or Westmark, if you really want Ambiguous Morality in your children's tales.
Cadre, Adam. Ready, Okay!
It's a novel about high school. Oh joy. Except that it actually is a joy to read-- Cadre's gigantic cast of characters comes alive in a way that Joseph Heller's never did, and you actually care about them by the end of the book. Plus I like his sense of humor. I eagerly await his next book.
Stoppard, Tom. The Invention of Love
A play about Victorian homosexuality and the difficulties of translating Latin poetry that has almost certainly not been preserved as it was originally written. Very clever, very thoughtful. Not as good as Arcadia, but still good.
Budrys, Algis. Hard Landing
Four aliens crash-land on Earth, and proceed to blend into society, because they aren't supposed to advance us beyond what we would get to normally. An interesting story, but the actual plot plot is a little weak.
Ennis, Garth and Will Simpson. Hellblazer: Dangerous Habits
Forty-one through forty-six, in which John Constantine contracts lung cancer, meets a beautiful Irish lass, and flips off the Devil. Good stuff. Garth Ennis's writing is definitely more to my taste than Jamie Delano's.
Delano, Jamie et al. Hellblazer: 33-40
In which Jamie Delano wraps up his tenure on Hellblazer. I don't remember much about these, although none of them were as irritatingly eco-preachy as earlier issues. And exactly what the hell happened at the end of issue #40?
Delano, Jamie et al. Hellblazer: The Family Man
Twenty-four through thirty-two, with issues by Grant Morrison (ehh...) and Neil Gaiman (very cool). "Killing is wrong, period" is not really an ethic I'd thought Constantine would hold, but since most of my exposure to Hellblazer has been Garth Ennis's run that's not really surprising. Like much of Delano's run, this was okay.
Delano, Jamie et al. Hellblazer: The Fear Machine
Issues fourteen through twenty-three. Constantine joins a commune, of all things. The Women's Magick started to get to me pretty quickly, and if Delano didn't write as good as he does I'd have thrown the whole thing down in disgust.
Delano, Jamie et al. Hellblazer: 1-13
In which John Constantine wanders around various places getting his character established as a Right Bastard. Delano's got a bit too much eco-weenie-ness in his stories for me to fully enjoy them, but Constantine's good stuff nonetheless.
Alexander, Lloyd. The Beggar Queen
These are not children's books. They are Young Adult, most certainly. Major characters die in this book-- some rather unpleasantly. There is no Happy Ending, not really. Everyone should read these at least once.
Alexander, Lloyd. The Kestrel
Talk about brutal. It's not as bad as I remembered it, but the last time I read it was in elementary school. Theo continues to be a real character, and Mickle does some growing up as well.
Alexander, Lloyd. Westmark
Alexander's Westmark trilogy is probably the harshest set of books he's ever written. They're very good, but somewhat brutal. Also, they don't contain the Stock Alexander Female (being an incarnation of Eilonwy of the red-gold hair). Theo is one of Alexander's best-developed characters.
Knight, Damon. A For Anything
Ehh. The science fictiony aspects of the novel are drowned in the psychological commentary. Which is okay if the psychological commentary is interesting (as with Delany). It wasn't. (Two months later: the psychological commentary actually is interesting, but doesn't go anywhere.)
Azzarello, Brian and Eduardo Risso. 100 Bullets: Hang Up On the Hang Low
Everything in 100 Bullets will eventually be tied together. This story resolves the Christmas special and answers the all-important question of "What the hell happened to Lono?" It's probably not really necessary to the series as a whole, but it gives more insight into Graves's character.
Azzarello, Brian and Eduardo Risso. 100 Bullets: The Counterfifth Detective
Weird. It's similar to Cole Burns's story, only with a wildly different lead character, a wildly different ending, and stretched out over six issues. Enjoyable, although it left a foul taste in my mouth. I'm very curious to see what actually went down in Atlantic City, now.
Ellis, Warren and Darick Robertson. Transmetropolitan: 52-58
Wow. It's hard to believe that Transmet will be finished in just two more issues. It's been a good run. Oddly enough, not much bad happens to Spider and his Filthy Assistants in these two stories, although plenty bad happens to just about everyone else. Mary (the Revival from the first year) shows back up again, and is still my favorite minor character in the series.
Knight, Damon. The Dying Man
Knight seems to be big into this whole devolution of technology concept (cf. Wells's Eloi). The Dying Man is about an immortal in a world of immortals, who's dying, and rediscovers the passion of life in the process. Worthwhile for the fairly creepy last couple of paragraphs alone.
Knight, Damon. Natural State
Not as good as Rule Golden, but that might be because the premise is a bit much. Cities versus 'uncivilized' countryfolk, and the countryfolk are kicking butt. Still a pretty good read.
Knight, Damon. Rule Golden
A short 'novel' about what happens when the Golden Rule gets enforced the hard way. Knight's characterizations are only okay, but he's got wonderful ideas, and his prose is very readable.
Azzarello, Brian and Eduardo Risso. 100 Bullets: Split Second Chance
I reread this trade paperback because, hey, it was lying around when everything else was packed up. It's still some excellent stuff. Cole Burns, the first 'reactivated' Minuteman that we've seen, is a great character, and "Parlez Kung Vous" implies some... interesting... history for Dizzy.
Stolze, Greg and John Tynes. Unknown Armies Second Edition
They've cleaned UA up a lot from its first release. The clear divisions of knowledge between player power levels are very nice, as are the new skill rules (in general, unless you're under a LOT of stress/time crunch, you can succeed at anything you're skilled in; the only question is how fast/well) and initiative (instead of rolling, it's a Speed-based skill that starts at half your Speed). Still one of the best modern-day RPGs on the market.
Borgstrom, R. Sean. Nobilis
A gorgeous, genre-shattering RPG. The cute little sidebars are brilliant, and the mechanic is wonderful. I doubt I'll ever be able to run this, but it's still very very cool.
Gaiman, Neil and P. Craig Russell. Murder Mysteries
A pretty good comic adaptation of an excellent short story about the first murder in Heaven and some weirdness on Earth. I liked this one a lot. It's a gorgeous hardback, too.
Laws, Robin D. Robin's Laws of Good Game Mastering
This was worth maybe five bucks, hardly the ten I spent on it. A useful typology of players, some decent advice on building scenarios and campaigns, but there's just not that much to it. Hite's Nightmares of Mine was infinitely more useful.
Laws, Robin D. The Rough and the Smooth
A political fantasy novel, about a mole man who's learned human politics and thinks they can apply to the mole men as well. Very Machiavellian (more so than the Martin books, I think), and good writing. Laws has an annoying tendency to tell not show in dialog, though, of the "X explained why that would be a bad idea. Y insisted on doing it anyway" style. On the other hand, the characterizations are very realistic.
Effinger, George Alec. Irrational Numbers
A short story collection by the author of When Gravity Fails. I really really like Effinger's prose style, and the stories were all suitably weird, but the ending of each felt like just a bit of a let-down. Still a good read.
Purcell, Steve. The Collected Sam and Max: Surfing the Highway
A comic that manages to be hilarious, somewhat random, and a bit dark all at the same time. "I can't think of anything to say in this panel. Go ahead and pummel him, Max." The LucasArts adventure game based on the comic is also very cool.
Brooks, Frederick P, Jr. The Mythical Man-Month
Kind of dry, but worthwhile reading. It's a bunch of essays on how to actually do software development on larger products. Brooks's main theories are that 1) adding more people to a late project will make it later, and 2) a project should be designed by only one person.
Stackpole, Michael. Fortress Draconis
Better than DGW, although that might be just because it's less dark. Resolute still eludes me, and I feel like I've almost totally missed twenty years of history (the occasional references aren't quite enough for me to figure out what all happened). I eagerly await the next one in December.
Stackpole, Michael. The Dark Glory War
Not as good as Eyes of Silver, but still not bad. Good character development of the main character, and some for his best friend, but not enough for the other characters. Resolute in particular I couldn't really get a handle on. Near as I can tell the book is mostly useful as a lead-in to the following series. Which is okay
Lee, Stan and George Mair. Excelsior! The Amazing Life of Stan Lee
Very cool. I like Lee's conversational writing style a lot, as well as his descriptions of what went into the making of Marvel Comics. A bit short, but well worth reading for anyone with an interest in the history of comics.
Teller, Astro. Exegesis
An email conversation between a grad student and an AI that she's created. Lots of good stuff about ethics/morals, and the 'right' to create AIs simply to have them do scutwork. Recommended.
Shakespeare, William. Henry IV Part 1
In which Bullingbrook from Richard II beats up on people who are trying to do to him what he did to Richard II, "Owen Glendower" appears as a Welsh idiot, Falstaff gets drunk and lies a lot, and the future Henry V acts like a jackass. One of Shakespeare's best plays.
Hite, Kenneth. Nightmares of Mine
The definitive guide to horror gaming, both playing and running. It's a bit dry, but still a must-read for anyone involved with horror gaming. Or horror in general, since it breaks down "what makes horror work" quite nicely.
Hite, Kenneth. GURPS Cabal
Conspiracy theory and secret history at their finest. The Cabal is a group of sorcerers that's been around since ancient Egypt trying to run the world / keep the world in the dark about magic / not get killed by normal people. A complex Hermetic magic system and cosmology plus a complex history make this one of the better conspiracy gaming books I've seen. Even though it's for GURPS.
Stackpole, Michael. Eyes of Silver
Now we're talking. Sure, it's just post-Napoleonic Europe with the names and geography changed and magic added in (with appropriate changes to the religions), but it's good. Nice thick plot, characters with motivations, typically excellent Stackpole prose... a shame it's out of print. I'll have to get him to sign it at Origins.
Stackpole, Michael and William F. Wu. An Enemy Reborn
See A Hero Born for abuses of Chaos/Plot. This book also commits the sin of pulling a guy out of the Real World into the Fantasy World, where he discovers that he's extra-cool and there to Save The Day. (I make it sound like I didn't like these much; that's not really true, they just didn't stand out all that well from generic fantasy. Reading them after coming down off of A Song of Ice and Fire doesn't help, either.)
Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night, or What You Will
This is actually one of Shakespeare's better comedies, in that it doesn't have people acting like idiots for no reason. Lots of homoerotic undertones, too. I maintain that Malvolio's exit spoils the tone of the 'comic' ending, but that's just me.
Stackpole, Michael. A Hero Born
You can replace the word "Chaos" in this book with the word "Plot." 'The Ward Walls keep Plot out of the Empire.' 'I want to be a Plot Rider, and defeat the forces of Plot.' 'Things are different in Plot.' In any event, this was pretty good fantasy, but something was missing. The characters just weren't all they could have been, I think.
Shakespeare, William. Richard II
It's still Shakespeare, so it's not bad per se... just not terribly interesting. Very formal, and none of the characters really stand out as much as Richard III or Iago or Aaron the Moor.
Le Carre, John. The Spy Who Came In From the Cold
Cold War espionage... late '60s, I think. I'm pretty sure this was Le Carre's first book. Fairly short, but quite good. Killer ending. It's been awhile since I read a good spy story.
Beckett, Samuel. Endgame
Kind of short, but very good. Beckett has a great grasp of language ("If I don't kill that rat, he'll die" et cetera), and Endgame manages to simultaneously be a very contrived situation with very real characters. Quite possibly my favorite overly-existential play.
Martin, George R.R. A Storm of Swords
Wow. Red Wedding. Tyrion's marriage. All the crap that goes down around Joffrey. Catelyn bloody Stark. Plus tons of fun with Night's Watch. I want more, dammit. I want to see Stannis's reaction to Jon Snow. I want to see Jaime's reaction to Tyrion. I want to see Faceless Men on Braavos.
Martin, George R.R. A Clash of Kings
Not quite as good as the first one. This focuses more on a couple of military campaigns, rather than the out-and-out intrigue of the first book. The Daenerys and Night's Watch segments are still excellent (as is the rest of the book, really; just not as excellent), and I get the feeling that the real story here is about the conflict between the dragons and the Others.
Martin, George R.R. A Game of Thrones
Excellent. Very, very, very good epic fantasy. Two wholly unexpected deaths (plus the king's death, but you can't really have a Game of Thrones if the throne is occupied, you know). Martin has created a pretty good world, and incredible characters to people it. About the only thing I have issue with is the idea of 'seasons' that last for years.
Powers, Tim. Declare
A re-read from last year. The first half wasn't really as good as I remembered, but the second half (once we get some kind of explanation about the djinn) stands up pretty darn well. This ranks with The Anubis Gates and Last Call as some of Powers's best work.
Donaldson, Stephen R. A Man Rides Through
Ah, here we are. The villains in Mordant start to seem more like Angus and Nick from the Gap, and Joyse starts to resemble Warden Dios. It's still quite good, but despite really liking the Gap a lot I think I preferred the first book. Orison makes a better setting than "the rest of the world," too.
Webster, John. The Duchess of Malfi
After Titus, this just isn't all that shocking. The poetry is uneven as well, and although the basic plot is okay the characters are a bit iffy. Not really impressive, overall.
Ibsen, Henrik. Hedda Gabler
Better than Chekov. I'd like to see it in performance sometime. Apparently there was all kinds of stuff relating to Naturalism in the play, but I missed it due to skipping class the week we were discussing it. This probably contributed to my getting a B in the class. Life goes on.
Donaldson, Stephen R. The Mirror of Her Dreams
This isn't nearly as much like Donaldson's Gap series as I remembered. It's quite good, though, and there are lots of little things to pick up on if you've read it before... like Havelock saying "Joyse, it's your move" when it looks like Joyse is about to do something stupid.
Shakespeare, William. Titus Andronicus
Mmm. Gore. Plus the best stage direction ever, "Enter a Messenger with two heads and a hand." It's got some very good bits, too. Like Aaron's "Ay, that I had not done a thousand more" monologue.
Strindberg, August. Miss Julie
Class struggles, gender struggles, and above all power struggles. A play about a French aristocrat and a French servant by a Swede. It's very good, but I'm not really sure if I liked it.
Daniel, Estelle. The Art of Gormenghast
Very pretty, and the interviews with all the people involved are neat as well. What do you want? I read this one mostly for the pictures.
Pinkwater, D. Manus. Lizard Music
This was the first Pinkwater book I ever read. It's still one of my faves. The little pebbles that the lizards wear on their wrists are really cool.
Perez-Reverte, Arturo. The Club Dumas
Ah. Good stuff here. Plus one of the rare books that gets mentioned in passing is "the Astarloa treatise on fencing," which is the kind of self-referential humour I've come to love. I've read this three or four times and it's still a lot of fun.
Marlowe, Christopher. Doctor Faustus
Marlowe writes good poetry, and good characters, but the plot of Faustus is a little weak... a good concept, but not really enough to sustain a five-act play.
Adams, Richard. Tales from Watership Down
Ehh. A bunch of short stories, two-thirds of which are tales of El-ahrairah (the rabbit equivalent of Coyote) and one-third of which is a continuation of Watership Down. They were okay, but not as good as the source material. Which is to be expected, really.
Adams, Richard. Watership Down
Also known as The Aeneid starring rabbits. This really is one of those books with just about everything... epic journey, character growth and development, big battle scenes... the only thing it's really missing is a romantic subplot.
Perez-Reverte, Arturo. The Fencing Master
It's not as good as The Club Dumas, but then what is? Don Jaime Astarloa is a better character than Lucas Corso, but he's also a dupe for most of the book, and the ending is a tad weak.
Chabon, Michael. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
Quite good. A story about two comic-book creators in the thirties, forties, and fifties. Plus a golem, escape artistry, and McCarthyism. I enjoyed this one a lot.
Churchill, Caryl. Top Girls
Feminism. Rah. An interesting play nonetheless. The device of having all the historical women at the beginning and then using their actresses to portray similar modern-day women is very cool.
Wagner, Matt. Mage: The Hero Defined
Ah. The search for the Fisher King is going to be an on-going thing. I liked this series more, but mostly because I felt like the characters were done better. The story wasn't quite as good, and it didn't end very conclusively (or well) at all.
Wagner, Matt. Mage: The Hero Discovered
A fairly interesting comic about the modern-day Pendragon. It seemed a little off in places, and the Fisher King didn't get much play at all, but well worth the read.
O'Conner, Patricia T. Woe is I
A cute grammar book, explaining some of the more common pitfalls (it's and its get plenty of play, as do your and you're). Also, a list of cliches that should be avoided like the plague, and some mistakes that aren't really mistakes (ending a sentence with a preposition, splitting infinitives, etc). I still maintain that data are plural, though.
Dürrenmatt, Friedrich. The Visit
How odd. I wasn't sure whether I'd like this or not. It's a pretty good play, though. It makes you think, which Brecht tries hard to do and doesn't quite (in my opinion) succeed in. An old lady offers a town a million dollars if they'll kill one of their inhabitants...
Tolkien, J.R.R. Farmer Giles of Ham
Probably my favorite Tolkien work. It's a linguistic shaggy-dog story explaining the origin of the names of Thame and Wunnle (small towns in England), but also a pretty fun adventure, and a chance for Tolkien to show off his sense of humour.
Beard, Henry N. and Douglas C. Kenney. Bored of the Rings
Heh. Funny. I'd forgotten how cool this parody is. Ballhogs and "It's a pity I've run out of bullets" and Minas Troney...
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Return of the King
Excellent epic fantasy, even though the story actually ends halfway through the book and the rest is wrap-up (well, plus the Scouring of the Shire). The Appendices have lots of tasty information, too. "It was a purely [Battle of] Bywater joke to refer to [the street where Saruman was killed] as Sharkey's End."
Brecht, Bertold. The Good Person of Setzuan
I was expecting not to like this very much... I couldn't stand The Threepenny Opera when Tech performed it a couple years ago. Regardless, this turned out to be well-written and funny, and while it does beat you over the head with its concept, it manages to be engaging even so. Bonus points for the water seller standing in the rain and ranting.
Shepard, Sam. True West
It's quite a relief to be back to reading something with a recognizable plot and characters. This is partly a retelling of Cain and Abel, and partly a play about reality versus facade. Enjoyable. Some very funny bits involving toasters.
Büchner, Georg. Woyjeck
Confusing. The play was unfinished when the author died, so all we really have is fragments, in some semblance of order, and questions about madness that were covered better by Franz Kafka and Luigi Pirandello. But it was short, so I can't really complain too much.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Two Towers
This was the first Tolkien I ever read, and it's still a really good story. He takes three separate tales and manages to entwine them quite well. I remember being really impressed by little things, like the chapter title "The Window on the West" referring to Henneth Annûn as well as to Frodo getting details of what was going on in the West, too. Good stuff.
Pinter, Harold. The Homecoming
What the hell was going on here? This is the weirdest thing I've read since Ionesco. It makes absolutely no sense, but really desperately wants you to think it does.
Kreutz, Franz Xaver. Michi's Blood: A Requiem
Powerful. A one-act in fifteen scenes, about a poor couple... the woman gets pregnant, the man gives her an abortion, and she dies. All the dialog is in short, clipped sentences, and you have to read it at least twice to really understand it, but I can imagine that seeing it onstage... wow.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Fellowship of the Ring
It starts off reading about like The Hobbit, and then takes a much darker tone. Frodo angsts a lot, not that I can really blame him. The Nazgûl are less scary than I remember them being, although the Balrog is more so. And Lothlórien really was just lame in the movie.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit
Reads kind of like a children's book, although I imagine the goblins would scare small children to death, and there are too many dwarves without personalities. Still a good fantasy story.
Chekov, Anton. The Sea Gull
Ehh. Slow moving, filled with characters that don't really talk to each other, and without much of a "plot" per se. Chekov doesn't really impress me much, and the symbol of the seagull was much like the symbolism in The Scarlet Letter in that it beat you about the head and shoulders. But I don't have to write about it.
Moorcock, Michael. Stormbringer
The last of the Elric books. This one felt a lot more like a coherent narrative than any of the other short-story collections. Zarozinia's death scene seemed fairly contrived; Moonglum's, on the other hand, was very well done. I'm glad I reread the Elric books, in all.
Büchner, Georg. Leonce and Lena
Fascinating. A comedy (mostly) from the 1830s. It doesn't feel like it hung together very well, and the ending was kind of creepy, but I think I enjoyed it. Maybe the other plays for the Modern Drama course will be better.
Moorcock, Michael. The Bane of the Black Sword
This is actually just three stories that happened to be published together. The first is fairly unremarkable, except that in it Theleb K'aarna finally dies. It also features Moorcock's strongest female character (except for the Rose): Queen Yishana. The second story is fairly blah (I can't stand Zarozinia), and the third is nifty in its presentation of a wizard whose soul is trapped in a kitten. Not bad, just not great.
Moorcock, Michael. The Revenge of the Rose
Ehh. It's got a better plot that many of the Elric books, but it hops hither and yon and never lets you catch your breath, or get to know any of the characters all that well (like Esbern Snare, whose valiant sacrifice just wasn't all that effective for me). Still enjoyable, but there are better books.