Books, October/November
Dec. 2nd, 2007 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellarienYes, it's a shortish list for nearly two months. This is partly because I got bogged down (again) in the latest Tad Williams, of which I will say only this: it's a Tad Williams middle book. When I bailed on that, I did a couple of rereads. This is everything else I've read since the last book post, unless I've forgotten something -- which I usually do when I let it go this long!
Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
I found this a rather annoying book at first. For one thing, it takes a chapter or two for it to become evident that the opening (which looks like a fairly conventional fantasy opening with a remote village and Things lurking on the roads) is really just a frame for the main, first-person narrative of the protagonist's life story. For another, the protagonist bears certain stigmata of the Mary Sue; red hair and green eyes, both of which change color with his mood, and an uncanny ability to pick up advanced techniques without apparent effort. He also has an adoring, if not altogether tame, faerie sidekick. In fact, the whole thing felt downright cartoonish in its two-dimensionality at first, though that improved as the story got underway. I was left with the odd feeling that I was mildly interested in picking up the next volume, not so much to find out what happens next, as to fill in the gaps in what has already happened and only been hinted at.
K.D. Wentworth, Moonspeaker
A young girl finds herself abruptly exiled from her psi-powered community, accused of a terrible crime that she herself believes she committed. The setup is interesting, and there's an amazing amount of incident and worldbuilding for such a short book, which maybe doesn't leave all that much room for deep characterization, but it's enjoyable enough.
Ian McDonald, River of Gods
Richly inventive tale of runaway AIs in a divided and drought-ridden mid-twenty-first-century India. Contains some material that LJ would like to be labelled adults-only, rather too much so for my personal taste, but very well written.
Naomi Novik, Empire of Ivory
Lawrence, Temeraire, and a group of sick dragons head to the Cape of Good Hope in search of a cure for the disease that's devastating the British dragon population, and tangle with the indigenous people and their dragons, who have yet another take on the human-dragon relationship -- and a fascinating one it is, if rather reminiscent of King Solomon's Mines. The differences dragons make to the world are becoming more apparent, but I found myself wondering at the end why the dragon element seems to have so little effect on the French Revolution. The world and characters remain engaging, in any case, and I look forward to the next installment.
Elizabeth Bear, Whiskey and Water
Sequel to Blood and Iron, partly set in Hell (which turns out to be dusty and dreary but not noticeably infested with mice) and otherwise in New York, New England, and Faerie. I found this rather easier to follow than its predecessor, though there are still some intricate games of meta-story going on.
Dudley Pope, Ramage's Signal
In which our hero, with typical preference for guile over brute force, invents the man-in-the-middle attack and applies it to an enemy semaphore system. The whole operation is remarkably bloodless and civilized, except for the rather disturbingly dehumanized Algerian pirates.
Dudley Pope, Ramage and the Renegades
In which the Peace of Amiens breaks out, much to the disgust of the Ramage family. Ironically, Ramage manages to incur much more damage and bloodshed on a supposedly peace-time mission to plant the flag on a remote island than in several previous books when he was supposed to be fighting a war. He also acquires a new love-interest.
Linda Nagata, Vast
A long, lonely quest across space for the small, more-or-less human crew of a spaceship, searching for answers to the threat of the very alien Chenzeme; this is a world of nanotech and AIs, of ships made of quasi-organic material and humans with ceramic scales, of uploads and backups and the vast distances between stars. It's a little reminiscent of Blindsight, but not nearly as bleak.
Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
I found this a rather annoying book at first. For one thing, it takes a chapter or two for it to become evident that the opening (which looks like a fairly conventional fantasy opening with a remote village and Things lurking on the roads) is really just a frame for the main, first-person narrative of the protagonist's life story. For another, the protagonist bears certain stigmata of the Mary Sue; red hair and green eyes, both of which change color with his mood, and an uncanny ability to pick up advanced techniques without apparent effort. He also has an adoring, if not altogether tame, faerie sidekick. In fact, the whole thing felt downright cartoonish in its two-dimensionality at first, though that improved as the story got underway. I was left with the odd feeling that I was mildly interested in picking up the next volume, not so much to find out what happens next, as to fill in the gaps in what has already happened and only been hinted at.
K.D. Wentworth, Moonspeaker
A young girl finds herself abruptly exiled from her psi-powered community, accused of a terrible crime that she herself believes she committed. The setup is interesting, and there's an amazing amount of incident and worldbuilding for such a short book, which maybe doesn't leave all that much room for deep characterization, but it's enjoyable enough.
Ian McDonald, River of Gods
Richly inventive tale of runaway AIs in a divided and drought-ridden mid-twenty-first-century India. Contains some material that LJ would like to be labelled adults-only, rather too much so for my personal taste, but very well written.
Naomi Novik, Empire of Ivory
Lawrence, Temeraire, and a group of sick dragons head to the Cape of Good Hope in search of a cure for the disease that's devastating the British dragon population, and tangle with the indigenous people and their dragons, who have yet another take on the human-dragon relationship -- and a fascinating one it is, if rather reminiscent of King Solomon's Mines. The differences dragons make to the world are becoming more apparent, but I found myself wondering at the end why the dragon element seems to have so little effect on the French Revolution. The world and characters remain engaging, in any case, and I look forward to the next installment.
Elizabeth Bear, Whiskey and Water
Sequel to Blood and Iron, partly set in Hell (which turns out to be dusty and dreary but not noticeably infested with mice) and otherwise in New York, New England, and Faerie. I found this rather easier to follow than its predecessor, though there are still some intricate games of meta-story going on.
Dudley Pope, Ramage's Signal
In which our hero, with typical preference for guile over brute force, invents the man-in-the-middle attack and applies it to an enemy semaphore system. The whole operation is remarkably bloodless and civilized, except for the rather disturbingly dehumanized Algerian pirates.
Dudley Pope, Ramage and the Renegades
In which the Peace of Amiens breaks out, much to the disgust of the Ramage family. Ironically, Ramage manages to incur much more damage and bloodshed on a supposedly peace-time mission to plant the flag on a remote island than in several previous books when he was supposed to be fighting a war. He also acquires a new love-interest.
Linda Nagata, Vast
A long, lonely quest across space for the small, more-or-less human crew of a spaceship, searching for answers to the threat of the very alien Chenzeme; this is a world of nanotech and AIs, of ships made of quasi-organic material and humans with ceramic scales, of uploads and backups and the vast distances between stars. It's a little reminiscent of Blindsight, but not nearly as bleak.
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Date: 2007-12-03 03:22 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-03 04:40 am (UTC)