Bookish Thoughts

It took me a while to recognize the shape of this story. It's billed as science fiction, but it doesn't read like the science fiction I'm used to. I spent a lot of time looking for clues that this story took place in the future as opposed to the past. They're there, but they're subtle and not really relevant to the story. Tigers are extinct. Computers are ubiquitous but old and rarely used. It eventually became clear that the creation myth in this world is also the story of the end of the world as we know it. But this book actually has more elements of fantasy. Magic is real. Our main character is a sorcerer-in-training. She can turn into animals and visit the world of the dead. Her lover is also magically inclined and a fantastic healer, though he doesn't pass the initiation rite necessary to becoming a sorcerer. There's a wonderful amount of magic and even that hallmark of fantasy literature: dragons. This all helps to obscure the fact that the book take...

Dandelion Wine is a book steeped in nostalgia. On the surface it's about being twelve years old in the summer time. But it's also about remembering being twelve years old in the summer time. It's about growing up and growing old, remembering your past and letting it go. This book is more a series of connected short stories. They all take place in the same town, and they're all observed and commented on by Douglas and his brother, Tom. They're the main players in a few of the stories, but in others they're just on the fringes. As will happen in a short story collection, even an informal one like this, I liked some stories better than others. I really liked the commentary of the two boys as they struggled to make sense of an adult world. And I liked the overall feel of the book. Bradbury's language is very poetic, well-suited to describing childhood summers. There were some elements of science-fiction (a happiness machine) and magic (the cure for a feve...

This book seemed to be all anyone was talking about last Spring. I heard fairy tales. I heard Beauty and the Beast. I heard Baba Yaga. That was enough to convince to me to stop listening until I could get my hands on the book. This book has elements of both of those stories, and other fairy tales besides, but it is very much it's own thing. Any resemblance to Beauty and the Beast or Baba Yaga is nothing more than an homage, an acknowledgment of the classics. And Uprooted  is well positioned to become one of those classics. The story follows Agnieszka as she becomes apprenticed to the local wizard lord. The relationship is contentious, and their magical styles are completely different. Watching them bristle and snipe and eventually grow to a grudging respect, and then something more, was a lot of fun. But the heart of the book is Agnieszka's relationship with her lifelong friend Kasia. Their bond is strong and beautiful. The two take turns saving each other and growing clo...

I was hesitant, going into this volume of Saga. The fourth volume felt like so much treading water, moving pieces around without really advancing the story. Then there was the fact that it's been so long since I last read any Saga that I wasn't sure I'd still be able to follow the plots. I considered re-reading the whole thing. But I ultimately picked up just the fifth volume, figuring I could go back if I needed to. I shouldn't have worried. This volume does a good job of catching everything up in the first issue. I was a little lost on one or two characters, but it didn't matter too much. I was able to follow the story well enough and the emotional beats all landed as intended. Most importantly, I really enjoyed this volume, and I think that's because a fair number of plot points finally get wrapped up. There are new plot threads spinning out, but there's also a significant time jump which necessitates a few endings. Prince Robot IV finds his kid, The...

I first heard about Scott Pilgrim in college. My memory says that this is because the movie came out, but it turns out that the movie wasn't released until two years after I'd graduated. So it must have just been that a friend really liked the comics, enough that they stuck in my mind. Regardless, they went on my to-read list, where they've been sitting ever since. For nearly a decade now. When the movie did come out, I refrained from going to see it, still intending to read the source material first. But there was always something more interesting, and I never got around to it. Until I was finally gifted the first volume this Christmas. I should have read these back in college. I probably would have enjoyed them a lot more. It's not that the story's bad. There's a cute romance and some fun jokes and some genuine weirdness that elevates this slightly above the standard rom-coms. But there were also elements that made me uncomfortable. The biggest one of th...

The second book in the Farseer trilogyis a lot like the first one: meandering and tragic. Fitz is a bit older. He's been through some tragedy, and he's anxious to carve out some sort of life for himself. Meanwhile his loyalties are shifting ever so slight, from the King to his eldest living son. The book starts off with a bit of a jolt. It backs up to just before the epilogue of the previous book. For the first few chapters it seems like it's going to go in a different direction altogether. But it's just an internal crisis that Fitz has to work through before reaffirming his loyalties and returning to court. After that it get right back into the thick of war and court politics. There's a fun, shadowy treason plot that threatens to tear the kingdom apart from the inside while raiders continue to attack from without. Fitz is doing his best to thwart both plots without betraying his loyalties and getting himself killed and while attempting to carve out some sort of...

The Paladin Prophecy  was one of my Christmas gifts from Kevin this year - the books he buys at a discount store based on their covers. They tend to be hit or miss, but this one landed somewhere in the middle. The book follows Will West, an extraordinary boy who has spent his life attempting to hide his talents at the behest of his parents. But then a shadowy organization comes after him, and after they capture his parents, Will flees to a hidden boarding school for other exceptional teenagers, where he starts digging into the mystery of who's after him and why. All while the forces of darkness are closing in on him from various sides. The book was enjoyable, but I had a hard time trusting anyone. Though the school seems (and ultimately is) benevolent, there's no real reason for the reader, or even Will to be comfortable there. Everything is too suspicious and shadowy, and I felt like I was off balance more than I was meant to be. On the bright side, the plot moved fast, ...

This book was amazing. I shouldn't be surprised, since I've been hearing about NK Jemisin for years, and I really enjoyed The Inheritance Trilogy . But I had such a hard time finding this book and it's sequel that I was worried it had gone out of print. Which isn't always the best sign when a book's been out for less than five years. Then again, who knows how the book industry works and why stores decide to stock what they stock. Jemisin takes a slightly different approach to fantasy than I'm used to seeing. Most high fantasy, especially most popular high fantasy, draws it's inspiration from European history and mythology. At least in the United States. But Jemisin makes an effort to draw inspiration from different places in the world, and to be as respectful of those sources as possible (She actually has some great commentary about JK Rowling's recent foray into American Indian folklore). I'm sure there are other authors who do this, but very few...

I picked this book up because it cost $0.60 and was less than 200 pages long. One of the reasons I've gotten into celebrity memoirs lately is that they tend to be really cheap at used book stores and very quick to read. It's fun to learn a bit more about the celebrities I admire, though I'm often left feeling a little meh after I finish them. That was the case with Carrie Fisher's memoir. Parts of it were interesting, but most of it left me confused and a bit put off. The book was adapted from her live stage show, and I think a lot of the jokes would have worked better in that setting. Many of the punchlines felt rather ambiguous; I was left wondering who exactly was being made fun of and it really could have gone either way. Being privy to Fisher's body language and tone would have cleared that up and made me more comfortable. (Or possibly significantly less comfortable.) That said, it was an interesting look into her life which was certainly dramatic and fraug...

The first thing that you need to know about this book is that the dog dies. And not just one dog either. Dogs keeps showing up and dogs keep dying. Okay, so I think there were only two dog deaths, but it feels like more. Especially because this book toys with your emotions like Jurassic Bark, leaving you but a shell of a person crying for a dog that isn't even real. My dog had better live forever. With that out of the way, I will say that I really enjoyed this book, though it may not be for everyone. It follows young Fitz, bastard of a prince, as he is introduced to court life and trained as an assassin for use by the king. The story takes a while to get started. It's slow and it jumps around a lot. It's almost episodic rather than a single story, as Fitz proceeds through different phases of training in sequence. And the ending is thrilling, though also a bit of a letdown. I suppose if all the plot threads had been tied off, there'd be no need for a trilogy. But thi...