Book Reviews: What I read in the first half of 2011 (Part 1)

Time management.

Competent time-management skills are something I have not cultivated to any great extent. If I had, if there had ever been some reason for me to do so, this post would be dated closer to July 1 than July 21.

But "better late than never," to use an over-ripe cliche:

The first six months of 2011 were, as one might expect, a mixture of really good reading, good but not memorable stuff, and prose that should never have escaped from the writer's word-processing program.

In fiction:

The Next Queen of Heaven, Gregory Maguire: The only other Maguire novel I've ever read is his debut, Wicked. In that book, I enjoyed the subversive take on the classic Wizard of Oz but wasn't blown away by the writing and haven't followed the subsequent book in the series. Queen was in impulse buy based on the book's blurb but what it promised wasn't delivered.

The Tablet of the Law, Thomas Mann: This was the first Mann work I've ever read and I was enthralled. It's a novella really - a very short read - but packed. It's Mann's retelling of the Exodus myth, and I highly recommend it.

The Duel (Pavear translation), Anton Chekhov: I picked up this English translation of the Chekhov novella at the same time I picked up Queen. I have been a Chekhov fan for years and I had read other translations but I've been hearing good things about the Pavear/Volokhonsky outpouring of translations for this author and others (I have to get my hands on their translation of Crime and Punishment) and the picture of the woman playing Nadya in the recent film version seduced me:

Beyond that, this story turns out to illustrate two of the things that I find most appealing about Chekhov. To quote from my GoodReads review: "Two of the several many reasons I read Chekhov are the realistic (if oft times depressing) depiction of human relationships - "the idea enters into no relationship with the ideas of others; each consciousness is isolated and impenetrable; there is a polyphony of voices, but no dialogue; there is compassion, but no communion" (p. xvi) - and Chekhov's "irrational intuition that there is meaning and beauty in the cosmos" (p. xiii).

The man was brilliant. It's a shame that I can't read Russian.

Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain: After years of loathing Twain based upon my experience with Tom Sawyer in high school English, I finally broke down and listened to this book on Audio CD. My resistance crumbled in the face of the controversy stirred up earlier this year by the publication of a bowdlerized version that replace "nigger" with "slave" in order to save the delicate sensibilities of the readers. And, after all, the words are practically interchangeable. Right?

Outside of that, I found the novel to be pretty good right up to the point when Tom Sawyer shows up, then it went downhill and any of its power was dissipated by the ending.

The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi: I'd heard a great deal about the "amazing" Bacigalupi and was interested enough to check out this book when it became available at the library. He's good but not great. I may be persuaded to read other stuff by this author but I'm not anticipating it.

The Inquestor Tetralogy, S.P. Somtow: This is a SF series comprising The Light on the Sound, The Throne of Madness, Utopia Hunters and The Darkling Wind. I had read at least the first two books when I was a teen-ager, and I was curious about how I would respond to them today. They were OK but not great. I had a "Somtow Phase" and read many of his novels when I was younger but I've found that he no longer appeals to me.

'Tis Pity She's a Whore, John Ford: Ford was a playwright of Tudor England. His were the plays you went to see when a Shakespeare or Marlow or Jonson production wasn't in town. Whore is an over-the-top story about incest and full of bloody violence and it probably thrilled the groundlings that came to see it.

Collected Poems, Sylvia Townsend Warner: This is a collection of Warner's poetry (duh). As a devoted Warner groupie I can't review this dispassionately. I loved it.

Against All Things Ending, Stephen Donaldson: This is the latest installment in the Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Admittedly, Donaldson is scraping the bottom of the soup bowl to find anything new to say about the Land but it's still a pretty decent story and I'll be finishing the series when the fourth book comes out.

Best Served Cold, Joe Abercrombie: This novel is set in the same world as Abercrombie's The First Law series but it's a standalone. Abercrombie's vision is so bleak, cynical and hopeless that I - myself usually quite pessimistic - find it difficult to read. There's nothing to redeem anyone in this book. I'm probably not going to be reading more of Abercrombie's stuff.

The Last Ringbearer, Kirill Eskov: This is a retelling of Tolkien's War of the Ring and its aftermath. Short version: It stinks. The longer and more thoughtful review can be found here on GoodReads. The man took on Tolkien and he lost.

The Crippled God, Steven Erikson: The final book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen. Anyone who follows these reviews will know that Erikson is one of my favorite SF authors and that I was looking forward to the conclusion of this 10-book epic. And I was not disappointed - much. I think the author chickened out at the end with the final fate of Tavore Paran and the Bonehunters but it was still a good ending and there were a lot of great episodes getting there.

The Last Page, Anthony Huso; The Lone Ranger & Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Sherman Alexie; The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter; The Lions of Al-Rassan, Guy Gavriel Kay: I lump these four together because they were "meh." Nothing much to recommend them, though only the last (Lions) felt like an utter waste of time.

The Dress Lodger, The Mammoth Cheese, Witches on the Road Tonight, and A Stolen Tongue, Sheri Holman: Holman joins my list of favorite authors. It's impossible to describe in this space the novels here since they take place in many diverse places (Lodger is set in 19th Century Britain while Tongue takes place in 15th Century Palestine, and the middle two take place in 20th Century America) but they're gripping stories that enthralled me. I eagerly look forward to Holman's next novel.

The White-Luck Warrior, R. Scott Bakker: Book #2 in Bakker's Aspect-Emperor series. I reread the first book, The Judging Eye, in anticipation of this one and found it to be better than I remembered. Like Erikson, Bakker has created a unique and original world, one where I don't know what's going to happen next. I look forward to the final volume, The Unholy Consult.

A is for Alien, Caitlin Kiernan: A collection of SF stories by one of my favorite authors.

Stonewielder, Ian Esslemont: Esslemont is Steven Erikson's collaborator on the Malazan books and has been carrying on the story thread of the Malazan Empire. He's just not Erikson's equal so his books are not as interesting. This is the weakest of the three so far but I'll continue to soldier on because he does show glimmers of talent and, being a Malazan groupie, I can't not read them!

Embassytown, China Mieville: This is Mieville's first foray into SF and it's one of his best novels in my opinion. READ IT. (Sorry for the shouting.)

I began Ruth Downie's mystery series about Gaius Petreius Ruso, a Roman doctor during Hadrian's reign (117-138), with Medicus, which I finished on June 30, so I'll lead off my year-end review with those books. And, yes, there will be "books." This is a sprightly written series much like Colin Cotterill's Siri Paiboun mysteries that is a delight to read and a good source of brain candy when the serious stuff becomes too much to endure.

As always, you can get more thorough reviews on my GoodReads page.

I'm going to have to come back in Part 2 to cover the nonfiction reading I managed through June, so stay tuned.

2010 - Last Year's Best Reads (part 2)

Bookwise, the second half of 2010 proved pretty good. My love affair with Sylvia Townsend Warner continued, I discovered an interesting new author, and boned up on my American history. As usual, most of these books have some sort of write up on my GoodReads site.


On the Fiction Shelf (in chronological order):

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson. Outside of “The Lottery,” I’d never read any Jackson but was intrigued by a review of this book in The New York Review of Books, and was very entertained by this quirky look at a decidedly odd pair of sisters. At the same time, I watched a film called “Spider Babies,” with Lon Chaney, that was similar and also (surprisingly) good. Both recommended.

Lorna Doone, R. Blackmore. I picked up a copy of this book at the library for 25 cents after watching an adaptation of it. This is a really good book, far better than I could have hoped.

Mock’s Curse, T.F. Powys, and Selected Stories, Sylvia Townsend Warner. Two short-story collections by two of my favorite authors.

Journey to Aprilioth, Songs from the Drowned Lands, The Sarsen Witch, Eileen Kernaghan. I first read Aprilioth when I was a teen-ager (early teens) and always remembered it as a really good book so, in one of my occasional fits of nostalgia, I scrounged around and got used copies of it and the subsequent sequels (which I hadn’t read). Aprilioth was about as good as I remembered it. I didn’t think the other two books were quite as successful but they were still good and I enjoyed reading them. The setting is early Bronze Age Europe: Aprilioth recounts the adventures of a young British Celt who sets out on a journey to the legendary city of Aprilioth (on the island of Thera in the Mediterranean), the last settlement of Atlantis; Songs is a series of linked stories about the drowning of Atlantis; and The Sarsen Witch is about a young woman in the generation after Aprilioth, when the Goddess-worshipping tribes of Britain were falling back against the onslaught of God-worshipping invaders.

I'd like to get Kernaghan's Winter on the Plain of Ghosts, which is set in Harappan India.

Gods of Night, Mere Mortals, Lost Souls, David Mack. David Mack is one of the best Star Trek novelists out there. This may sound light faint praise but it really isn’t. Mack has a knack for vivid description and writing a compelling story. Not great literature by any means but if you’re a Trekkie and/or looking for some brain candy to read, this is highly recommended.

And, speaking of Star Trek, another serendipitous find was Night of the Living Trekkies, Kevin Anderson and Sam Stall. I was apprised of this little gem from a GoodReads review. Normally, I wouldn’t bother with another entry in the latest vampire-zombie novel genre but it is Trek and it was recommended by a man whose opinion I trust. My Uncle Russ, who died a couple of years ago and was the family’s Uber-Trekkie (I’m just an apprentice), would have loved this.

Kraken, China Miéville. I liked this book more than Miéville’s The City and The City, which I also read during the latter half of the year. It’s fast paced, baroque and over the top.

The Marquise of O-, Heinrich von Kleist. Von Kleist is a little known (to English speakers) German author, which is unfortunate because he’s very, very good. As I noted in my GoodReads’ review, the translators managed to preserve the Teutonic flavor of the writing without sacrificing readability for Anglophones.

The Corner That Held Them and The Music at Long Verney, Sylvia Townsend Warner. Ooooh, I get goose bumps this woman is so good. Read her!

On the Nonfiction Shelf (also in chronological order):

Aurelian, Alaric Watson, and Diocletian, Stephen Williams. Routledge Press has a whole series on the Roman Emperors and in a perfect world, I’d have the resources to buy them all.

Empires and Barbarians, Peter Heather. A brilliant look at the Roman Empire and the barbarians along its borders. You may not agree entirely with his thesis but his description of society of both sides of the frontier is fascinating.

Dinosaur Odyssey, Scott Sampson. A fascinating look at dinosaurs and the worlds they lived in. It’s probably a bit advanced for very young people but I think it would be OK for the 13+ crowd.

God Is Not One, Stephen Prothero. This is an interesting discussion about the various traditions of the world’s religions and makes the case (a good one, I think) that our conceptions of “God” are not the same and that the drive to create an ecumenical faith is misguided, at best.

The Rise of American Democracy, Sean Wilentz, and Disunion!, Elizabeth Varon. These two volumes were the best of the American history books I read, particularly Wilentz’s look at the American polity up to the Civil War. Varon’s book was more focused on the anti-slavery campaigns but both are recommended to anyone who wants to understand how this country developed.

Shakespeare, Sex, and Love, Stanley Wells. This is a provocative look at sexuality in Shakespeare and is prompting a read (or reread) of several plays.

That’s it for last year.

The new year promises some equally good reads, including the concluding volume of the Malazan Book of the Fallen.

Inter armas silent leges

A few days ago I finished China Mieville's The City & The City, which (briefly) is about two cities - Beszel and Ul Qoma - that occupy the same physical space but whose citizens occupy totally separate mental spaces. It's an extreme version of the reality people in the world deal with every day and I was reminded of it when reading this entry at the TomDispatch.com website.

In essence, the author (Chase Madar) argues that Guantanamo is not an aberration in the current American prison system:

"Prosecuting a 15-year-old for `murder' with the help of a little torture and some threats of rape may not be the kind of thing we want to show German journalists. They’ll just get upset. They lack the context. But we Americans really have no right to claim that we’re shocked, shocked. We got used to this kind of thing a long time ago. The prosecution of former child soldier Omar Khadr has been nothing, in other words, if not all-American."

It's a form of the same "unseeing" that Beszel's and Ul Qoma's citizens practice every day.