Bookish Thoughts

Coming off one of my least-favorite Discworld  books, we head straight into my favorite one. I don't necessarily think it's the best book in the series, though it's certainly up there. But it pits the Witches (my favorite main characters) against a family of vampires (my favorite villain). So of course I'm going to love it. And there's a lot to love here. Magrat has just had a baby is trying to figure out how to be a queen and a witch while taking care of a newborn. Granny Weatherwax makes her biggest sacrifice yet in an attempt to defeat the vampires, and there's legitimate concern that her methods may cause her to join them instead. Agnes is still trying to figure out where she ends and Perdita begins, all while fighting off the unwelcome romantic attentions of one of the vampires. And an Omnian priest with serious doubts finds himself on an adventure he never asked for. One of my favorite things about this book is the interactions between Agnes and Vlad, ...

Unlike the other stories so far in the Penric series, which take place years apart, this one is a direct sequel to the previous one. It picks up hours after Penric, Nikys, and Adelis narrowly escaped their pursuers and follows the rest of their journey to safety in Orbas. They stop briefly in a brothel to recover and get their bearings, where Penric gets the idea to disguise himself as a wealthy, semi-retired courtesan, with the aid of one of Desdemona's previous hosts. This disguise, of course, leads to shenanigans and makes for a fun farce. It also complicates the developing relationship between Penric and Nikys. What had been a slow-burn, seemingly inevitable romance between the two is thrown off. This being a Bujold story, I was expecting a happy ending. I was pleasantly surprised to discover something much more ambiguous. It was refreshing to get a story from her that wasn't all wide-eyed optimism and love-conquers-all. I love those stories, of course. The great comfor...

Ship Breaker  was my Christmas present from Kevin this year - the random book with a cool cover that he saw at the deep-discount store. As this tradition goes, it was better than most. Though the awards on the cover indicated that it might be. This is dystopian YA from the height of the dystopian YA phenomenon. When it seemed like everyone had something to contribute to that particular genre and it all started to blend together. So I was pleasantly surprised that this stood out from the pack. First because it posits a world that I could actually see coming to pass (unlike the Hunger Games, which are a bit too far removed from reality, though they serve as an apt allegory). And second because it doesn't slot white characters into the oppressed group. After global warming melted the poles and we ran out of oil, the rich kept getting richer and the poor kept getting poorer. Out protagonist, Nailer, works stripping copper wire from old ships and oil tankers that now dot the coast o...

Holes  is one of the first books I can remember everyone making a big deal about when it first came out. It was an instant classic, and though I was on the older end of the intended audience, I can remember getting caught up in the excitement around this new book, reading it, and loving it. I even say that movie when it came out a few years later, though I was definitely too old for it then and not quite old enough to circle back around to appreciating it. I'm glad I took the time to revisit it now, though I'm finding myself questioning my motives for doing so. See, I spent about a decade carefully curating a library for a hypothetical daughter. I'd scoop up the classics whenever I found them, populating the shelves with the heroines of my youth and seeking out the ones I'd missed the first time around. Then I found out I was having a son, and I found myself shifting gears. Holes  was the first book I bought with my actual son, rather than a hypothetical child in mind...

Bujold's Penric  series, her "retirement project" has been a nice way to continue to get new fiction from her, even though she's not planning to write any more books. Instead she's been releasing this series of novellas as e-books. And as much as I prefer physical books, the electronic format isn't so bad for these shorter installments, which I can often read in one or two sessions. The third installment jumps forward in time. Penric and Desdemona have been together for over a decade now, and they have a seamless partnership, with a deep knowledge of and respect for each other. It also throws the reader right into the action, with Penric getting kidnapped and thrown into a dungeon in the first chapter. Structurally, this story is a lot like Cryoburn, with kidnappers, shady governments, and shaky partnerships. Adding to the comparison is the fact that Penric is acting more and more like Miles with each passing story. This can probably be chalked up to the c...

I knew going in that The Twelve  was not as well-received as The Passage . This is often the case with the second installment in a series. Too often they serve as mere bridges from the intriguing beginning to the thrilling conclusion, with little meat of their own. This wasn't entirely the case with The Twelve , which I though was similar in style and scope to its prequel. It meandered a lot, but the so did the first book. There was an enormous cast of characters, spread over multiple locations. But I ultimately found it just as heart-rending and entertaining as the first book. One thing that frustrated me early on was Cronin's decision to return to the immediate aftermath of the viral outbreak. Most of the characters I cared about live 100 years after this point, and it seemed weird to focus on a group of people who were definitely going to die, one way or another, before the main focus of the book. But as the story progressed and the threads came together, this return to ...

I picked up Infomocracy  because it seemed like an interesting concept. Especially in light of the recent election. It takes place in the not-too-distant future, where access to the internet has revolutionized elections and the way we're governed. The world has been split into districts known as centenals. Each contains 100,000 people, or they did when they were first drawn up. It wasn't clear how that evolves over time. Regardless, each centenal votes on its own government, with elections held every 10 years. The borders have been opened worldwide, making it trivial to travel from one centenel to the next. This is especially important in big cities, which might contain dozens of competing governments. Some of these governments are remnants of those that exist today, emphasizing heritage and tradition. Others have naturally grown out of corporations like Coca-cola and Sony. And there are new, smaller ones, trying to gain footholds. It's a fascinating system and one that...

I came across The Bloggess many years ago. Her blog is hilarious and compassionate. She has a multitude of chronic illnesses, running the gamut from depression to arthritis. Her writing is a blend of dark humor and the wacky shenanigans she finds herself in, with a dash of brutal honesty thrown in. She's always funny and occasionally heart-breaking. I enjoyed her first book, Let's Pretend This Never Happened , which is a more straight-forward memoir about her crazy life and offbeat upbringing, which instilled in her an appreciation for strange taxidermy, among other things. Her second book is more like a collection of her blog entries, in handy portable form. (Though I suppose her blog is pretty portable, what with current technology. But this is like the greatest hits.) I didn't like this book quite as much as her first one. It still made me laugh, though I wasn't literally laughing out loud as frequently, or shaking while I tried not to laugh. It was funny and amu...

I first read The Passage many years ago and absolutely loved it. It's a sprawling, epic tale about vampires. It stretches from coast to coast and covers about 100 years, from the time when the vampires first appeared to when the resistance to them starts to actually be effective. There's a lot in this book, especially since it has to establish two entirely different casts of characters a century apart from each other, linked only by the girl Amy, humanity's last hope. Because thus book has such a wide scope, it is occasionally pretty slow. Because of that, I think it held up better on the re-read. It didn't drag nearly as much as I remembered, mostly because I knew where it was headed and why Cronin was slowing down to include the details he was. The end result is a very rich book about a rampant virus and vampires and the near end of the world. It's about humanity's ability to hang on to hope even when all hope is lost, and to keep fighting even when we know...

The Last Continent  is one of my least favorite Discworld  books. It's surpassed only by Eric , and it should come as no surprise that they're both Rincewind books. Rincewind is a frustratingly stagnant character. He does his level best to avoid everything interesting that happens to him. It's a sentiment I can identify with. Given my druthers I'd rather be sitting in a library with a never-ending supply of potatoes, too. But it's not terribly interesting to read about, and it get more and more frustrating with each additional installment in his series. It doesn't help that the Rincewind books largely function as a way to make fun of other cultures. This one centering on Australia. The plot threads never quite come together. Rather, Rincewind runs away from various terrifying creatures, drinks a lot of beer, and can't make heads or tails of the locals. The other wizards wreak havoc wherever they go. And everyone insists that Rincewind has to save the wor...

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August  is that rare book that I finished and immediately handed to Kevin so he could read it. It's a fun twist on the time travel narrative and pokes at some interesting questions about the end of the world and our duty to future generations. Harry August, and others like him, keeps reliving his life over and over. When he dies, he goes back to the beginning to be born again. But this isn't a Billy Pilgrim situation where he's just come unstuck from time. While the circumstances of his birth and early life are always the same, Harry retains all knowledge from his previous lives. This initially leads to some time in mental institutions and various houses of various gods as he tries to figure out what's happening. But before long he's gaming the system to make his life easier. The story is very jumbled, at least in the beginning. His first several lives are relayed in bits and pieces, grouped thematically more than chronologically...

The nice thing about Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga is that you know everything's going to be alright. There are exciting adventures with misunderstandings and obstacles galore. But at the end of the book, everyone will get their happily ever after. Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen  is likely the last book in the saga. Bujold claims to be retired and seem focused entirely on a series of novellas that take place in her fantasy world. But if this is the last one, it's a fitting conclusion. It's slower than the books that came before. The problems here are interpersonal and revolve around fairly low-stakes questions. Or, at least the kinds of questions that people who aren't characters in space operas find themselves facing. Should I take that job? Do I want kids? Will her family be okay with us dating? I know the shapes of these stories, and the optimum outcome, the one Bujold would no doubt pursue, was evident about halfway through the story. But it was still nice to sau...

I'll admit, I struggled with this book. It was a surface-level round-up of a very long history spanning decades of aeronautical and space history in Langley, Virginia. It was the author's first book, and it showed in her run-on sentences and difficulty in nailing down a cohesive narrative. It didn't help that I was trying to read the book in 5 and 10 minute chunks, and I was having trouble really getting into it. That said, this is a really important book, and I'm glad I read it. I have yet to see the movie, but it's clear that it condensed the story dramatically, reducing some of it's effectiveness. This isn't the story of a handful of black women who, against all odds, contributed to America's space program. It's the story of generations of black families who were employed buy the Army and NASA. Hundreds of men and women who were able to put their engineering and mathematical talent to use building planes and later spaceships. An entire town that...

This was a light, fun, ridiculous book that was exactly what I wanted to be reading over the holidays. It basically centers on Rachel, who is traveling to Singapore with her boyfriend to attend his friend's wedding. Unbeknownst to her, he's basically the richest bachelor in the area, and his family is already deeply disapproving of her. She finds herself in over her head while his family colludes and conspires to get rid of her, all while dealing with their own petty problems against a backdrop of jaw-dropping opulence. There's something so fun about reading about the problems of the stupidly wealthy. It's the reason shows like Gossip Girl  and The OC  (and their forerunners and descendants) are as popular as they are. Something about these problems doesn't quite seem real. After all, how bad can it be when you can just hop on a private jet to go get coffee in Australia? The insanity of these rich snobs is nearly as fun as reading about all the designer clothes ...

Of the funny TV-lady memoirs I've read, this one is easily my favorite. Mindy Kaling is effortlessly funny and matter of fact. She's just a bit crazy, but seems aware of it. There's more than a little of her in her character on The Office , after all. This book is organized as a series of short essays. Mindy talks about her childhood, her college experiences, and her early jobs. She reveals a lot of herself, while also holding just a bit back, which I understand and appreciated. You can tell there's a part of her life that she wants to keep private, and she does this by easily sharing all the other parts. I laughed a lot while reading this book, and I also appreciated how close Mindy was to her parents. So often you get stories of broken homes and distant parents who just don't understand. But there was clearly a lot of love and affection in Mindy's home. It's almost a relief to read about happy families, even if they aren't as interesting as the unh...

Gods of Risk  is a quick story about Bobby and her family following the events of Caliban's War.  She's actually a side character; the story focuses on her nephew. But it was a nice exercise in both world-building and character-deepening. This story takes place on Mars, and it was a treat to see the partially terraformed world. People mostly live underground. And while there is a criminal element (which Bobby's nephew gets involved with), there's still an emphasis on efficiency and looking towards the future that drives everyone. They all hold on tight to a vision of a future Mars, one that requires sacrifices from everyone but will provide a better life for their descendants. It's an optimistic world-view that's absent from the rest of the galaxy. It was also nice to spend time, however tangentially with Bobby. She was my favorite addition in the second book, and I was disappointed when she decided to go home at the end of it. But it made sense, and this st...