January Booklog
Jan. 31st, 2014 06:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
netgirl_y2kElantris - Brandon Sanderson
The Rapture of the Nerds - Cory Doctorow & Charles Stross
Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie
I've been slow to get off the mark with reading things this year, nothing was really catching my interest. Usually, I really love my kindle, but when you're having trouble deciding what to read there's something singularly uninspiring about a big long list of titles, especially when you can't remember what half of them are or why you wanted to read them in the first place.
Sometimes you just want to judge a book by its cover, you know? To that end I've been reading the paperbacks I got for Christmas.
I liked Elantris well enough, but it was Brandon Sanderson's first published book, and you know how you sometimes go back to read an early book by someone whose later work you enjoy, and the rough edges seem really obvious? It had a lot of reoccurring narrative tics that I'd encountered in Sanderson's later stuff - like a romance between an ordinary person and someone with nigh on godlike powers. I always like Sanderson's worldbuilding and magical systems, which I find endearingly coherent, even if here I find them... slighter than I did in Mistborn or Warbreaker.
The one thing that did annoy me in Elantris was the female protagonist, Sarene, or rather the trope she inhabits where she's convinced she is irredeemably unattractive because she's, um... tall and a bit strident, and that she's doomed to be alone forever, all the while the male hero and the male antagonist and probably some others too are falling hopelessly in love with her. It's just -- I'm not against having unattractive women in media, indeed I think it's actually pretty important that we do, just let them be genuinely unattractive, and stop pretending that unattractive and endearingly clumsy are even in the vicinity of being the same thing.
In conclusion, if you want to start reading Brandon Sanderson might I be so bold as to suggest starting with Warbreaker, which was by far the best of the two stand-alones I have read.
My sister got me The Rapture of the Nerds, and I really ought to have given her my too-buy list to work from, or at the very least taken it back and swapped it for something else. I would have done, too, except that I'd already used the receipt to return the Tom Holt book she gave me. I think she went into Waterstones and got book recommendations from someone who likes SF/F like me, but is much more into, um, boy-books I guess I'd call them, than I am.
Anyway, The Rapture of the Nerds, christ on a cupcake this was awful. You know how people will sometimes recommend Good Omens on the grounds that it gets you the best of Pratchett and the best of Gaiman, and that's actually true, I put my indifference to it entirely down to the fact that I don't care for Gaiman. The Rapture of the Nerds is the worst of Stross and Doctorow, and is little more than self-indulgent, meandering, incoherent claptrap. Very much not recommended.
Ancillary Justice was the first book of the year that I've really liked and found super interesting. The main character was once a spaceship, and also simultaneously thousands of bodies slaved to the ships AI, and after she, spaceship her (see, already it's interesting; and I am in awe of the author for being able to keep this up for however many hundred pages) is destroyed she's left with one human body. The other really interesting thing is that the dominant human culture in the book has no concept of gender, there are men and women, of course, but it defaults to female pronouns - she and her - for everyone. And what I found really fascinating about this was, right, I got that Breq is biologically female, and that Seviarden and the Lord of the Radch were biologically male, but I hadn't a clue as to whether the rest of the characters were men or women -- and it mattered not a whit, and didn't affect the plot in any way. I frickin' loved that. Highly recommended.
I've also been dipping in and out of Paul Cornell's London Falling (tbh, I've been dipping in and out of it since mid-December). I don't know why it hasn't been grabbing me, it's a perfectly good book (and if you're into diversity in urban fantasy you should probably read it) but I keep putting it down to read other things and feeling no pressing need to pick it back up. Maybe I'm just not in the mood for urban fantasy, or Rivers of London fulfils any need I have for "characters use traditional police methods to investigate the supernatural". Btw, if anyone knows of any UK set urban fantasies that don't take place in Bloody London they should tell me about them; if I want to read about the special-specialness of the Greater London area I'd pick up a newspaper.
Anyway, I'm like three quarters of the way through it so perhaps I'll try to push through it before I start something new; which will be Life after Life, The Doomsday Book or The Lies of Locke Lamora if anyone particularly recs or anti-recs any of them.
The Rapture of the Nerds - Cory Doctorow & Charles Stross
Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie
I've been slow to get off the mark with reading things this year, nothing was really catching my interest. Usually, I really love my kindle, but when you're having trouble deciding what to read there's something singularly uninspiring about a big long list of titles, especially when you can't remember what half of them are or why you wanted to read them in the first place.
Sometimes you just want to judge a book by its cover, you know? To that end I've been reading the paperbacks I got for Christmas.
I liked Elantris well enough, but it was Brandon Sanderson's first published book, and you know how you sometimes go back to read an early book by someone whose later work you enjoy, and the rough edges seem really obvious? It had a lot of reoccurring narrative tics that I'd encountered in Sanderson's later stuff - like a romance between an ordinary person and someone with nigh on godlike powers. I always like Sanderson's worldbuilding and magical systems, which I find endearingly coherent, even if here I find them... slighter than I did in Mistborn or Warbreaker.
The one thing that did annoy me in Elantris was the female protagonist, Sarene, or rather the trope she inhabits where she's convinced she is irredeemably unattractive because she's, um... tall and a bit strident, and that she's doomed to be alone forever, all the while the male hero and the male antagonist and probably some others too are falling hopelessly in love with her. It's just -- I'm not against having unattractive women in media, indeed I think it's actually pretty important that we do, just let them be genuinely unattractive, and stop pretending that unattractive and endearingly clumsy are even in the vicinity of being the same thing.
In conclusion, if you want to start reading Brandon Sanderson might I be so bold as to suggest starting with Warbreaker, which was by far the best of the two stand-alones I have read.
My sister got me The Rapture of the Nerds, and I really ought to have given her my too-buy list to work from, or at the very least taken it back and swapped it for something else. I would have done, too, except that I'd already used the receipt to return the Tom Holt book she gave me. I think she went into Waterstones and got book recommendations from someone who likes SF/F like me, but is much more into, um, boy-books I guess I'd call them, than I am.
Anyway, The Rapture of the Nerds, christ on a cupcake this was awful. You know how people will sometimes recommend Good Omens on the grounds that it gets you the best of Pratchett and the best of Gaiman, and that's actually true, I put my indifference to it entirely down to the fact that I don't care for Gaiman. The Rapture of the Nerds is the worst of Stross and Doctorow, and is little more than self-indulgent, meandering, incoherent claptrap. Very much not recommended.
Ancillary Justice was the first book of the year that I've really liked and found super interesting. The main character was once a spaceship, and also simultaneously thousands of bodies slaved to the ships AI, and after she, spaceship her (see, already it's interesting; and I am in awe of the author for being able to keep this up for however many hundred pages) is destroyed she's left with one human body. The other really interesting thing is that the dominant human culture in the book has no concept of gender, there are men and women, of course, but it defaults to female pronouns - she and her - for everyone. And what I found really fascinating about this was, right, I got that Breq is biologically female, and that Seviarden and the Lord of the Radch were biologically male, but I hadn't a clue as to whether the rest of the characters were men or women -- and it mattered not a whit, and didn't affect the plot in any way. I frickin' loved that. Highly recommended.
I've also been dipping in and out of Paul Cornell's London Falling (tbh, I've been dipping in and out of it since mid-December). I don't know why it hasn't been grabbing me, it's a perfectly good book (and if you're into diversity in urban fantasy you should probably read it) but I keep putting it down to read other things and feeling no pressing need to pick it back up. Maybe I'm just not in the mood for urban fantasy, or Rivers of London fulfils any need I have for "characters use traditional police methods to investigate the supernatural". Btw, if anyone knows of any UK set urban fantasies that don't take place in Bloody London they should tell me about them; if I want to read about the special-specialness of the Greater London area I'd pick up a newspaper.
Anyway, I'm like three quarters of the way through it so perhaps I'll try to push through it before I start something new; which will be Life after Life, The Doomsday Book or The Lies of Locke Lamora if anyone particularly recs or anti-recs any of them.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-01 01:01 am (UTC)No, but I'd read the fuck out of it, if there is such a thing. Oh, unless, I don't know, Hellblazer isn't entirely set in London. Does that count as urban fantasy, or is there too much mucus?
The back end of London Falling is much better than the front, for what it's worth. It took me ages to get into it, but the end galloped ahead for me.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-01 08:04 pm (UTC)I'm about 80% of the way through London Falling (Oh, and I just got that the title is a The Clash joke! Hee!) and it's more compelling that it was in the beginning, certainly, but unless the ending is spectacular I'm not sure that it won't be too little, too late.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-01 01:05 am (UTC)*hi5*
The Doomsday Book ... if anyone particularly recs or anti-recs any of them
It tells you about all the chickens in East Anglia in 1080!
no subject
Date: 2014-02-01 08:05 pm (UTC)It tells you about all the chickens in East Anglia in 1080!
I am going to count this as a rec!
no subject
Date: 2014-02-01 02:31 am (UTC)THANK YOU. I mean, I respect the fuck out of YMMV, but I sometimes feel like I'm doing nerdery wrong not adoring the fuck out everything Gaiman touches?
"Ancillary Justice" sounds awesome! I'm going to have to track this one down and possibly rec it around :D
no subject
Date: 2014-02-01 08:14 pm (UTC)It's like we're all afraid that we'll get our geek cards revoked if anyone finds out. I think because Gaiman's books are one of those things - the people who love them, really love them, and can get a bit evangelising about it.
I found Ancillary Justice stone cold awesome, and I hope you like if you decide to check it out, but I'd be the first person to say that it's a very YMMV book.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-01 03:07 am (UTC)I really loved Life After Life. Lies of Locke Lamora was very enjoyable too but it's part of an ongoing series which seems to be taking forever to finish, so there's that.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-01 08:29 pm (UTC)Ahem.
Life After Life it is! I think I need a wee break from the SFF genre, anyway.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-01 11:56 am (UTC)its interesting, and if i finish 'london falling' at some point i may make a post about this, that i would have said for sure that aarnovitch was the hard scifi (his blake's 7 is so boring!)(although remembrance is win, obviously) and cornell was the gooey girly feelings and character based stuff, but 'rivers of london' is just made to have a massive fandom, and the characters are the kind who you think 'ooh - i know and like you after you've been on the page 3 seconds', whereas 'london falling' feels like grit, grit, procedure, shouting banging things, who are these people, what is going on?
i feel it's very much based on him watching a lot of 'life on mars', too, which is interesting as it's modern policing, but it feels like it's the 70s and quill is a gene hunt without any of gene's trademark wit or intense character relationships...
what i'm saying is - i have plenty of feelings about how i have almost no positive feelings about 'london falling' :)
no subject
Date: 2014-02-01 08:40 pm (UTC)I don't think I'd mind the rotating POVs if the characters had more distinct voices; seriously, it should be more obvious when the perspective changes from being that of a young, female analyst, to that of a black gay undercover officer, you know? And it doesn't help that we jump between their heads so quickly that you could get dizzy. This most readable bits by far have been the bits like Lisa's flashback to her childhood, or Mora Losley's backstory, where Cornell actually let's us stay in one character's head long enough to get to know them and feel for them.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-01 04:01 pm (UTC)i could not get into Lies of Locke Lamora it was like GRRM-levels of worldbuilding just turned up to 11- tons and tons of detail and then 20 pages later, the characters have barely made it down the street. maybe it will appeal more to you? i've heard the second book has some interesting female characters.
no subject
Date: 2014-02-01 08:55 pm (UTC)The Lies of Locke Lamora is a library book anyway, so if I try it and it doesn't take then no harm no foul! If I'm going to take something from spending six weeks slogging through London Falling it's that it's okay to abandon a book that isn't grabbing me -- I already have that rule with books I dislike, but if they're just ...fine I tend to plough on regardless.