May 6, 2009

• What I’ve read lately

  So, I rarely write about what I’ve been reading, despite the fact that I’m pretty much reading all the time. This past week I finished several books, so I should probably say a bit about them. Sorry Heidenkind, none of them are romance novels. hehe

  But since I’m tired and the Xanga Photos thingie is not working for me, guess you all just get links.
  
  The first, is Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. It’s  graphic novel based on Fritz Leiber’s stories. And while it’s very cool to have a comic representations of his stories, well, they’re just not the same. In some ways they’re better, but in many ways the characters are completely different than their literary counterparts. Ah well. Like any reinterpretation of someone else’s work, there are bound to be differences, and not all will sit well with the fan.
  
  Next, I finally finished Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross, featuring Bob Howard. The main character is not the only Lovecraftian reference. Imagine a world, very nearly like ours, where everyone goes about their every day business never realizing that complex mathematical formulas and the right electrical system can summon and/or contain entities from ultra-foreign dimensions. I think this series (this is the second book I’ve read featuring Mr Howard, the other was The Atrocity Archives) could best be described as cyberpunk-lite. Bob Howard is an underpaid British civil servant, working for the Laundry (that’s the British paranormal secret service for the likes of you and me) who sees more than his fair share of earth shattering, life endangering, soul crushing horror… and he battles it all with a modified palm pilot (which I covet).
  
  Next I read the new Hellboy novel, The Fire Wolves, by Tim Lebbon. He had written another Hellboy novel, Unnatural Selection which was fairly good. The Fire Wolves was pretty good too. Neither of his books are my favorites, but they’re not the worst either. You can definitely tell that Lebbon has an imagination. He weaves an impending eruption of Vesuvius with the original destruction of Pompeii, ghosts, and evil were-lava wolves into an entertaining enough story, if a little… unsatisfying. His other story I think was better, but I see this trend in his writing to end on a down note and with loose ends. It’s not necessarily bad writing, except for the fact that there won’t be any sequels to tie the loose ends up. That’s not the way these novels work, unfortunately.
  
  Then I read I young adult novel, The Swan Kingdom by Zoe Marriott. It’s a retelling of one of my favorite Hans Christian Anderson stories, The Wild Swans. This is a fairly new trend in young adult novels, that is, embellishing a fairy tale. I read a few that were good, and a few that didn’t need to be written IMO. The Swan Kingdom was good. My issues with it would be only nitpicking. It was a good book. From certain thoughts of the main character, I’d say the writer has obviously read The White Goddess or a similar book of female empowerment. Not a bad thing of course, it just shows in a little bit of heavy handed feminism at points. Far be it for me to criticize, being a girl and all, but it made the story a little bit flat maybe… Only the main character was really very developed. Some of the other characters had back story, but it just seemed like an excuse for the author to write herself into the story. It was well written, but I’ll probably be giving it away as a gift to one of my friends daughters for birthday or holiday. It really is *only* a young adult book and nothing special. Not like Hale’s Book of a Thousand Days. Now that was a fairytale retelling worth reading and rereading.
  
  And finally A. Lee Martinez has a new book, Monster. I love his work. He’s funny as heck! A. Lee Martinez, if you haven’t read anything by him, is a writer of comedy. His books are to be found in the scifi-fantasy sections, but his work is pure comedic gold. Monster is the first on of his books that I’ve seen in hardcover. All his past books were in paperback. Monster is the story of a color changing cryptobiological containment and rescue specialist (AKA Animal Control) who finds himself thrown in with a woman who seems to be a cryptid magnet. If it’s not Yeti in the freezer eating rocky road, it’s trolls in the closet eating everything else, and things just get stranger from there on out. Excellent, excellent read!

  
  
  

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  May 5th
  

  
  

  In parts of Mexico and Central America, priests offer prayers to the rain god or goddess today.
  
  

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  Tango no Sekko is the Japanese Boys’ Festival. Carp kites fly from bamboo poles at each house for each boy in the household.
  
  

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  The 21st day of Payni is the Day of the Living children of Nut.

  
  
  

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  • 1:04 am
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