Review Round-up
Feb. 23rd, 2013 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearThese posts are turning into a bit of a fortnightly digest. I used to do them individually as I went along, but now I seem to be collecting them up and dedicating a chunk of weekend to posting them. Well done to those who still manage to wade through them!
How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff:
This was the second book chosen for the new family book club and certainly prompted an interesting and diverse discussion. We had two positive reactions, two negative reactions, and two more neutral reactions. I'm counting myself in the neutral camp, but that's not strictly true. I reacted violently against the book for the first two hundred pages, and only revised my opinion when things finally started to make sense in the epilogue. The start was deliberately badly written with no real explanation as to why, which always annoys me - I think it was a mistake on the part of the author to leave the explanation for it until right at the end, when it had already pissed me off royally with its stream of consciousness lack of punctuation, random use of capital letters, and inconsistent grammar. What was best about discussing it afterwards is that I thought the presentation of anorexia in the book was appalling, but was persuaded otherwise by the book's two advocates. I still think the premise was overly contrived and ridiculously unrealistic, and the writing style still annoyed me, but I have come to think that aspects of the book were quite well done and that it could be impactful for readers going through some of the issues experienced by the protagonist.
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (audiobook):
This was recommended to me by prunesquallormd and I'm really glad I decided to listen to it. I read the book back when the trilogy first became really popular and didn't get on with it. It just didn't grab me and I reached the end not caring what happened next, so I never continued onto book two. Then I saw the stage show, which was *amazing* and encompassed all three books in one day - I still don't know how the actress playing Lyra did it - she was hardly ever off stage and the whole performance went on for hours. Anyway, the audio version is narrated by Philip Pullman, with different actors doing the voices of all the characters. It's an effective way to do it when it's done well, and this was. It really brought the book to life and made me care much more about the characters than I had in reading the actual book. I'm not entirely convinced by some of the ideas presented in the book - both science and religion are presented as bad, which leaves us where exactly? Or is it just that adults are evil, whatever their beliefs - hence the whole thing about trying to keep the children innocent? It all got a bit unsettling towards the end, and I wasn't sure what the author was trying to say, but it was an exciting tale with plenty to keep the interest, so I will slot the other two into my listening schedule.
The Shape of Desire by Sharon Shinn:
This was a Christmas present from prunesquallormd, and unfortunately not as successful as the above recommendation (though it's hardly his fault, since it was on my wishlist and I was really looking forward to reading it). I'm used to romance from Sharon Shinn, but it's usually extremely well written, engaging and realistic, and liberally interspersed with political and societal intrigue, along with lots of exciting suspense and action. This was a story about a woman who subsumed her whole life to meet the needs of a frankly less than attractive guy, and whose life was completed by becoming a wife and a mother. Yeuch! When several other relationships in the story were presented as varying levels of abusive, I thought it was going to be about women discovering value and worth in and of themselves and rejecting their bad relationships, but no. The woman who was being beaten by her husband only escaped because he was killed, the one whose partner kept leaving her for other women and then crawling back just carried on as she had done from the start, and the protagonist failed to assert any kind of individual identity at all and seemed quite happy for her life to revolve around her man. Very, very disappointing from a usually good writer.
A Quantum Murder by Peter F Hamilton (audiobook):
Book two in the Greg Mandel series, and just as enjoyable as the first, perhaps more so since I wasn't confused by reading Takeshi Kovacs at the same time, and the inestimable Toby Longworth didn't make any voice errors this time. Gripping mystery, likeable characters, enough maguffin to be entertaining but not so much that it crossed the line. Good fun, and I look forward to listening to book three.
Embassytown by China Mieville:
I think one of the things I like about China Mieville is that he so ridiculously pretentious that it makes me feel superior to be able to read his books without being entirely baffled. Intellectual snob, moi? A failed one, really, though, as I think actually most of what he's getting at in this book is totally over my head. I certainly wasn't sure what this book was supposed to be about. It was very cleverly put together, though - starting with almost incomprehensible events that gradually became clearer by about halfway through, but with the exposition trickled out so gradually as to be almost imperceptible, giving the impression that the plot was coalescing almost magically. The second half was rather more blunt and brutal, with the painfully honest Hosts almost completely destroyed by interfering humans and only managing to survive by learning the art of deceit. There did appear to be a couple of inconsistencies as well - the way things were described as working in the first half wasn't wholly supported by what eventually happened at the end. Interesting, but perhaps a little too obscure overall.
Artemis Fowl - The Eternity Code by Eoin Colfer (audiobook):
I really enjoyed this. It was just so much fun, and so well written. A truly entertaining adventure with a brilliant set of characters that are just fun to spend time with. Roll on the rest of the series.
How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff:
This was the second book chosen for the new family book club and certainly prompted an interesting and diverse discussion. We had two positive reactions, two negative reactions, and two more neutral reactions. I'm counting myself in the neutral camp, but that's not strictly true. I reacted violently against the book for the first two hundred pages, and only revised my opinion when things finally started to make sense in the epilogue. The start was deliberately badly written with no real explanation as to why, which always annoys me - I think it was a mistake on the part of the author to leave the explanation for it until right at the end, when it had already pissed me off royally with its stream of consciousness lack of punctuation, random use of capital letters, and inconsistent grammar. What was best about discussing it afterwards is that I thought the presentation of anorexia in the book was appalling, but was persuaded otherwise by the book's two advocates. I still think the premise was overly contrived and ridiculously unrealistic, and the writing style still annoyed me, but I have come to think that aspects of the book were quite well done and that it could be impactful for readers going through some of the issues experienced by the protagonist.
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (audiobook):
This was recommended to me by prunesquallormd and I'm really glad I decided to listen to it. I read the book back when the trilogy first became really popular and didn't get on with it. It just didn't grab me and I reached the end not caring what happened next, so I never continued onto book two. Then I saw the stage show, which was *amazing* and encompassed all three books in one day - I still don't know how the actress playing Lyra did it - she was hardly ever off stage and the whole performance went on for hours. Anyway, the audio version is narrated by Philip Pullman, with different actors doing the voices of all the characters. It's an effective way to do it when it's done well, and this was. It really brought the book to life and made me care much more about the characters than I had in reading the actual book. I'm not entirely convinced by some of the ideas presented in the book - both science and religion are presented as bad, which leaves us where exactly? Or is it just that adults are evil, whatever their beliefs - hence the whole thing about trying to keep the children innocent? It all got a bit unsettling towards the end, and I wasn't sure what the author was trying to say, but it was an exciting tale with plenty to keep the interest, so I will slot the other two into my listening schedule.
The Shape of Desire by Sharon Shinn:
This was a Christmas present from prunesquallormd, and unfortunately not as successful as the above recommendation (though it's hardly his fault, since it was on my wishlist and I was really looking forward to reading it). I'm used to romance from Sharon Shinn, but it's usually extremely well written, engaging and realistic, and liberally interspersed with political and societal intrigue, along with lots of exciting suspense and action. This was a story about a woman who subsumed her whole life to meet the needs of a frankly less than attractive guy, and whose life was completed by becoming a wife and a mother. Yeuch! When several other relationships in the story were presented as varying levels of abusive, I thought it was going to be about women discovering value and worth in and of themselves and rejecting their bad relationships, but no. The woman who was being beaten by her husband only escaped because he was killed, the one whose partner kept leaving her for other women and then crawling back just carried on as she had done from the start, and the protagonist failed to assert any kind of individual identity at all and seemed quite happy for her life to revolve around her man. Very, very disappointing from a usually good writer.
A Quantum Murder by Peter F Hamilton (audiobook):
Book two in the Greg Mandel series, and just as enjoyable as the first, perhaps more so since I wasn't confused by reading Takeshi Kovacs at the same time, and the inestimable Toby Longworth didn't make any voice errors this time. Gripping mystery, likeable characters, enough maguffin to be entertaining but not so much that it crossed the line. Good fun, and I look forward to listening to book three.
Embassytown by China Mieville:
I think one of the things I like about China Mieville is that he so ridiculously pretentious that it makes me feel superior to be able to read his books without being entirely baffled. Intellectual snob, moi? A failed one, really, though, as I think actually most of what he's getting at in this book is totally over my head. I certainly wasn't sure what this book was supposed to be about. It was very cleverly put together, though - starting with almost incomprehensible events that gradually became clearer by about halfway through, but with the exposition trickled out so gradually as to be almost imperceptible, giving the impression that the plot was coalescing almost magically. The second half was rather more blunt and brutal, with the painfully honest Hosts almost completely destroyed by interfering humans and only managing to survive by learning the art of deceit. There did appear to be a couple of inconsistencies as well - the way things were described as working in the first half wasn't wholly supported by what eventually happened at the end. Interesting, but perhaps a little too obscure overall.
Artemis Fowl - The Eternity Code by Eoin Colfer (audiobook):
I really enjoyed this. It was just so much fun, and so well written. A truly entertaining adventure with a brilliant set of characters that are just fun to spend time with. Roll on the rest of the series.
no subject
Date: 2013-02-24 08:31 pm (UTC)Philip Pullman is a surprisingly good narrator.
I'll reserve discussion of the actual story till you get through the others :)
Though truth be told I'm not the most impartial commentator cos it's one of my favourite things ever!
I'm sorry The Shape of Desire was such a disappointment. I know it was on your wishlist, but it would have been nice if your Christmas present was something you ended up loving. Hey ho.
While I loved Perdido Street Station and The Scar I've yet to finish Iron Council and haven't even touched Mieville's other books. Must do one day.
(And I must try Artemis Fowl too. Never looked at any of those).