This book has been sitting on my shelf for almost a year, silently rebuking me. I finally pulled it out two weeks ago, in anticipation of our spring break-go-look-at-socal-colleges road trip. I'm not very deep in (only ~120 pages), but I'm pretty impressed.
R. Scott Bakker is a canuckian and (gasp!) earned both a B.A. and an M.A. in Literature from Western Ontario. He also spent some time in a Ph.D. program in philosophy at Vandy. But apparently all that learnin' hasn't prevented him from creating something weird and wonderful. This is the first in an extensive, and lauded, series of swords-and-sorcery fantasy, but with a high degree of inventiveness and "literate"-ness. The first trilogy goes by the Prince of Nothing moniker (originally planned as a single book, then expanded and expanded as so often seems to happen).
I'm not far enough in to really know whether there are any compelling female characters; I've only "met" one named female so far in the narrative (teh Repository tells me that she will become prominent). So I'm a little nervous that things will decay into cliche, but hopeful that the hype will bear up. Certainly, the sophistication of the writing and storycraft is far ahead of anything that Robert Jordan achieved in The Wheel of Time, although it maybe lacks the swashbuckle of that epic series. This doesn't (yet) have the grit and realism of George R.R.R.R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones. I might put it in a class with Dune, actually, for the scope, vision, and pacing. I'm looking forward to getting in deep.
What are you reading?
Hugo nominees are out. I haven't searched out all the short stories and such just yet, but I'll get something together for next month.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot!
We had a successful book exchange this month (I sent MagUidhir my copy of Gravity's Rainbow). Mags can testify to the simplicity of the process, they don't call it the World's Greatest Online Book Exchangef for nothing!
Link is here for those who were waiting for that initial ice-breaking exchange to get involved.
It was insanely simple, and very much appreciated. I look forward to sending it on to another Citizen in a few months.
Navidad & Matanza by Carlos Labbe
The blurb on the cover says "Begins to fuck with your head from its very first word." I guess that's true. The book has 100 chapters, but only 33 are included. It's narrated by Domingo, except that's not his real name. He says he's part of a scientific experiment testing a new drug that triggers "an ecstasy of hate", but that's not the story Domingo is telling. Labbe keeps building up and tearing down narratives throughout the book, each time convincing us that we're getting somewhere nearer to the truth. Whether that's true or not is something to think about once you've finished. Metafiction at its best. It's only 92 pages, but it will keep you intrigued throughout the whole thing.
Fondly by Colin Winnette
Inexorable is the best word I can come up to describe these two novellas. They are direct and forceful and sometimes even the characters can't keep up, they get left in the wake of the forward momentum of the narrative. I loved the first novella, "In One Story, The Two Sisters". There are 16 stories that all start the same way, "In one story, the two sisters..." These story fragments are wildly different from each other, and they all added up to something powerful for me and I couldn't put it down until I finished it. The sisters would separate again and again, but would be right back together at the start of the next story. "Gainesville" follows a convoluted not-quite-family-tree through several generations in a small Texas town. Similar to the first novella, the stories reset after each generation, but the overall push of the writing carries everything through wonderfully. I've loved everything I've read by Winnette, this was no exception.
There was one other book.... what was it? Oh yeah.
Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
It was OK.
Black Aperture by Matt Rasmussen. I mentioned this one last month. It’s a short volume of poetry in which Rasmussen explores/meditates upon/whatever you want to call it his brother’s suicide when he was a teenager. At first I found the poems a little hard to get into—I tend to feel I’m not smart enough to pick up the references I should or make sense of disparate imagery—but I continued reading and found a lot to admire. It’s dark to be sure, but in with the grief and anger there are moments of beauty.
The Story of Owen: Dragon Slayer of Trondheim by E.K. Johnson. This is a strange and wonderful YA novel that’s a sort of alternate history of the world. Dragons are real and they’re attracted to sources of carbon. Dragon slayers exist to protect the rest of humanity from these beasts. Set in Canada, this book is told from the point of view of a high school girl who becomes the bard for a dragon-slayer-in-training, the titular Owen, when he moves to her small town. The author weaves together fact and fiction in highly entertaining ways. Here’s just one example:
How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. I could probably write an entire FKB post about this book, but in brief, I found a lot to like here. The overall approach makes a lot of sense to me (and seems to be working with the jalapeno from the little bits I’ve tried out so far). It has a lot to do with treating your child as a person capable of making good decisions and behaving well rather than as someone who needs to be constantly corrected and told what to do.
I added The Story of Owen to the Exchangef!
I'm still slowly working my way through Gravity's Rainbow. It's my least favorite Pynchon so far. It makes me wish I was reading V. or Against The Day. I will fully admit that my reading has been hampered by my downloading of the Magic: The Gathering app.
One of those exists now? Like I don't have enough ways to waste my time already.
It's really good too. Really really good.
Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin - I'm glad I was able to pick this one up so quickly after finishing A Game of Thrones. There are so many moving parts and character movements that I couldn't imagine keeping things clear otherwise. About 2/3 done and I have trouble putting this down at night.
Don't get too attached to any of those characters.
So I've been told ... I won't - but I do like to keep the character's motivations clear and the relationships (seem to) have a lot to do with those.
I should do a better job of tracking what I read. I should also start getting some of my books entered on the exchangef (which would help me keep track of which books I own so I don't buy duplicates, too).
Well, books I remember-
-In the Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. I'd meant to get to these for a while, but just never had. They are both incredible- well-written, engrossing, lots of action and interesting characters. My only concern is that it's not moving very quickly. There's the main story going on that's covered maybe two-three years of history, plus the story being told in the present has only covered two days and hints at characters we haven't even been introduced to yet. I think there's some indications that Rothfuss is willing to move things along by skipping "uninteresting" parts of the past, but he covers so much stuff in such great detail that I wouldn't be surprised if this goes at least six books.
-The Warded Man by Peter Brett. I liked it- it's got a completely different take on magic and demons, and did a nice job of introducing us to the three main characters, weaving their stories together towards the end in a way that made sense. Density-wise, this was the opposite of the Rothfuss books- it covered decades in about a quarter of the pages of the two Rothfuss books. I just ordered the second in the series, The Desert Spear, and I'm hoping it doesn't disappoint me the way lots of follow-up books have in the past.
Speaking of follow-up books, I read the second book in The Witcher Saga by Andrzej Sapkowski, Blood of Elves. Definitely wasn't as interesting as the first one, The Last Wish. What I found interesting about the first book was the way he tied a series of unrelated stories together but got everything tidied up and in order by the end. He didn't manage to do that with the second book, and it suffers in comparison. I'll certainly read the third book in the saga at some point, but I'm not expecting it to be anywhere as good as the first book.
I'm reading The Beatles. Volume 1, Tune in : All These Years. It is a quite thoroughly researched book of the Beatles early days up to their first album. When I say thoroughly researched I'm not exaggerating. Want to know what bus George and Paul took to school? It's in there. When and with whom did Ringo lose his virginity? It's in there. Where did John steal a guitar that he never even played? It's in there. I'm 200 pages in and George, Paul, and John are in the Quarrymen but they've kind of stopped playing regular gigs. It's 800 pages for this volume with the next two volumes promising to be similarly detailed.