Megatokyo: Volume 1 by Fred Gallagher and Rodney Caston (6)
I had been, how you say, equivocating over whether or not to include graphic novels and things of that nature here. The lit-snob in me is screaming. But I read it, and it took me a couple of days, and then it got written up in Publisher's Weekly, and plus, Fred and Sarah came to my New Year's party, and I have nothing but deep respect for the work, so here it is, I'm considering it a Real Book.
It was good, of course, but I knew that going in, since I'd read all of the comics on-line. But it was nice to see them assembled, and with many of the intervening non-plot-related comics taken out. It was sharp and focused, and very pleasant. Can't wait for the second volume.
And ultimately, I'm glad I chose to count it, because now I can count all those Preacher graphic novels Jason lent me.
From this Moment On by Lynn Kurland (5)
It's not a keeper. But I have to say, everything I come down on harshly for in a book I will overlook because it was so damn funny. I'm a sucker for humor.
I was caught by the gender-bender plot (girl dressed as knight). Ever since Tamora Pierce, I've been a sucker for that. This book is nothing like that, of course. For one thing, the girl is a sucky knight (score one point for realism). The main characters don't bathe much (it's the 13th or something century, so score two for realism). Nothing else is realistic, of course. But it was thoroughly entertaining, the characters were fairly well-explored though perhaps not true to life (and I am, of course, angry that there was an evil step-mother). Nevertheless, high marks from me, though I will never have a desire to re-read this.
Perfection kicks up her heels and dances
and runs up to tweak my nose,
and no one knows where she came from
nor where she ever goes.
Perfection smiles like a French coquette
but crosses her legs as well,
and no one knows why she hunts me
nor why she casts her spell.
Perfection claims no acquaintance,
yet glowers, looking distant and cross,
and no one knows how I love her,
nor how keenly I feel her loss.
Ampersand Project, February 2003
"Why the obsession with..."
We climb the stairs.
Low heels tap on the bamboo,
and our journey takes us upward,
onward through the canopy
of a faux rainforest.
Birds call. Waters tumble.
Ahead and above,
she turns her face down on me,
and tells me.
"It was beautiful here that night;
It was a ball, and I wore green
with black netting over it,
very fancy. It was hard
to climb these stairs in heels."
I smile, I oblige, and
I try to imagine,
Tagging along into the past.
Lawyers swirl around the
far-away dance floor.
Blink and I am not there,
for I never was.
Glass doors open,
we leave behind hot, humid air.
We descend
simple carpeted stairs this time,
and the rooms grow colder
and darker, and a giant
lighted window onto
another biome shows us
two worlds of air and water.
Penguins dart, bob and bubble.
She says, "They were sleeping
last time, for we were here at night."
I imagine all those birds tucked
in for the night; and then a myriad
birds on an ice-raft,
slow moving, slow breathing
beneath polar stars.
We walk on, descend further.
Non-native species fade away,
and now we are staring at
mud-eaters, bottom-dwellers,
whiskered river leviathans
with glass-marble eyes.
She is silent.
She did not dance here.
Slowing our steps because
the exit is near, we come to
a wide window which shows us
a drowned world. The river oozes
boats past this night-lit aquarium.
"Let's go," she says.
"The rain will not let up. It takes
water from the ocean,
and it never ends."
Always a Lady by Rebecca Hagan Lee (4)
Oh, dear.
I think, on the whole, I'm pretty hard on books. Maybe because I've read enough good ones that I keep hoping to find more good ones. I really should lower my expectations; not everything is going to delight as much as Pride and Prejudice or A Civil Campaign. Or A Rose in Winter.
Oh, dear.
This book, Always a Lady, had some fatal flaws. Not the least of which was having an immense amount of complex backstory that was just fantastically irritating. There were so many complications, too, that there were about a dozen sentences like "Kit told them about all that had been revealed." The editor was asleep at several points, too, as completely mundane conversations were left in, while Kit recapping "all that had been revealed" and how he felt about what had been revealed might have been quite helpful.
I really should just stop reading romances, but I keep hoping to find another one of those "I'm going to read this again and again" kinds.
And I have to say, it's been a damned disappointing year so far. I should stop grabbing books removed from the Pronto colleciton and stick to the books that I actually have purchased or have been loaned. Yes. New resolution. As soon as I finish the next smutty romance on my nightstand.
The Duke of Uranium by John Barnes (2)
Straight-out, hard-core sci-fi adventure. Toktru, I don't know that I particularly liked it, but it didn't suck. Exactly. But I've been trying to read it since before Christmas, so that's also not a recommendation.
It was like someone had sucked all the worst parts (but only the worst parts) out of Honor Harrington (technology) and Piers Anthony (social structures*) and made them more palatable. The one or two flashes of interest (Earth has been pockmarked by a bombardment from an alien civilization; humanity and the bombarding enemy are both up before the Galactic Crimes Tribunal for misdeeds in the war (Earth blew up their sun)) were not brilliant, just interesting.
I mostly worry that I couldn't have written this any better with the same ideas, so I don't want to harsh it too bad, but at the same time... one couldnt help but wish one was rereading Starship Troopers or even On Basilisk Station. The author pulled his punches, I guess, and never committed to fully saying something about the human condition... or anything.
* - I was planning to put quotation marks around social structures, then around just social, then just around structures, and I finally couldn't decide on which end of things I wanted to ironicalize my statement, so I finally left it alone.
In my Wildest Dreams by Christina Dodd (3)
And then I finished this book, which I'd also been trying to read for several months. It was such a non-inspiring rip-off of Sabrina that I had a hard time concentrating on it. It doesn't help that I didn't enjoy Sabrina anyway, because the younger brother was such an idiot, and the "solution" to the problem posed by Sabrina's love for the younger brother is idiocy as well... Towards the end, the author let her own imagination take precedence over the story and the book consequently got more interesting... but if I'd known, I wouldn't have picked the blasted book up.
The setting was very poorly evoked, as well... I couldn't actually tell which era it was set in until someone mentioned Queen Victoria's wedding and the Great Game, and when they did, I was incredibly shocked.