Matt
I listened to this book because it was a selection for a gothic book club I belong to. Overall I was very underwhelmed. Austen's work is at times delightfully satirical, but some of the humor and nuances of the book may be lost on those not familiar with gothic classics such as the works of Radcliffe. Those who are familiar with such works may find themselves wishing they were listening to one of works instead of this one. It took FOREVER for Catherine, the book's “heroine” to actually go to the title location, and much of the book was simply a story about love and English society. Austen fans may enjoy this work, though some of her better known works are probably superior to this, her debut novel. Fans of gothic literature are advised to pass on this one in favor of one of the “horrid novels” this book references. Anne Massey's narration was solid and was included in the Audible Plus Catalogue.
I received a free copy of The Between by Ryan Leslie from The Parliament House in exchange for an honest review. I enjoyed The Between. This debut novel by author Ryan Leslie combines elements of science fiction and horror that at times reminded me of The Hike by Drew Magary and Off To Be The Wizard by Scott Meyer, all while being something distinctly different. I enjoyed the world building and conceptual framework employed by Leslie throughout the book, as well as the delightful moments of fear and tension woven into the narrative. There were also some fun references throughout the book, and it was partially set in my home state of Texas! While there was much to be enjoyed, this book is not without some issues. The characters seemed juvenile and unbelievable at first, though over time they grew on me and I became invested in them. There were also some elements in the book that I felt were not adequately explained or resolved, and the plot as a whole stuck me as being a bit off. Toward the middle (actually, maybe more like 1/3rd) of the book a major problem seemed to be resolved, and the decisions the characters made next seemed...insufficiently motivated to be believed. Nevertheless, I enjoyed everything that happened in the plot, but this slightly disjointed plotting clearly betrayed that this work is a debut. I don't know if Leslie will write a sequel to this book or not, but if he did I'd probably read it. I want to know more about this world he's created and what happens next for the protagonist. I would consider leaving me wanting more to be the mark of a good book.
Good Neighbors by Sarah Langan was a chilling vision of contemporary American society. The book was a character focused slow-burn, with echos of Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, contrasting the idealistic image of people of Maple Street (and all suburbia, and America) with the murky and hideous rot within.
Imagine the reversal of expectations of Blonde Roots meets the format of The Handmaid's Tale meets the sci-fi dystopia of The Fireman meets elements of the spirituality of The Parable of the Sower. In The Power women suddenly develop electrifying new abilities and patriarchal structures begin to topple as social, political, and religious are redefined. What if God was Mother? What does it mean to be a woman? Would the world be a better place if women ran the place, or is the violence known as patriarchy something beyond the masculine gender? These are just some of the questions explored by this novel. While I felt the concluding chapters went on a bit too long and were a bit too on the nose, overall I enjoyed this book. The plot was interesting and it was easy to become invested in the characters.
Tender is the Flesh is an anything but tender dystopian horror examining dehumanization and the hierarchical value assigned to life. The author and translator wrote in blunt and visceral prose, allowing some of the greatest horror of the book to come from the world building more than the plot. While the narrative was slow to start and the characters are unlikable, something about the book seemed hauntingly plausible. It's worth a read.
Scourged is the final novel in The Iron Druid Chronicles series (at least so far), and I found it to be a “meh” conclusion to an amazing series. As should be a surprise to no one who has read the other books leading up this this one, the book largely concerns Ragnarok. There are some other interesting subplots, but overall Hearne finishes up the story he's been telling. In some ways the battle against Loki felt too easy and the book was a bit meandering. The real gut punch comes in the events following the battle, which were kind of sad and somewhat out of tone for this humorous urban fantasy series. Even if most of what happened was Atticus' fault, he's such a likable character that it seems tragic to see bad things happen to him without seeing some resolution. Frankly I didn't like that he and the hounds ended up alone, much as they were at the beginning of the series. The ending was somewhat open ended. Perhaps this won't truly be the final adventure for the Iron Druid after all? But if it is, even if this book wasn't as great as some of the others, the series as a whole merits 5/5 stars from me. Excellent, read this book if you've read the others, and read them all if you haven't yet. This book might only be 4/5 for me, but the whole adventure is well worth the time, especially when listened to as read by the amazing Luke Daniels.
Overall THE WORM AND HIS KINGS is a great concept marred by disorienting prose and vagueness. I found the text somewhat hard to follow, both with regard to sentence construction and plot. I was left with questions and a desire to discuss the book, which I count as a huge positive, but I cannot say reading this book was a consistently pleasurable experience. I might read another book by Hailey Piper, but probably not for awhile.
Read this for a book club (HOWLS) and I enjoyed it both less and then more than I thought I would.
The initial premise sounded intriguing (secret underground city at the US/Mexico border), but I was flabbergasted by the density of the prose. Goodfellow packed so much information into each sentence that the reading experience was a bit overwhelming, perhaps not unlike the chaotic setting described in the novel itself. This is a literary achievement, but was nevertheless an intense and somewhat challenging read. I also found the plot somewhat hard to follow. At various points I really felt like I had no idea what was going on and I was just along for the ride.
Content wise the book is a dystopian horror examination of our present and recent past in America. Goodfellow examines capitalism, immigration policy, American exceptionalism, and faith through a complex narrative with strong cyberpunk vibes.
As the book went on I became more and more interested and I actually really enjoyed the ending. I liked Unamerica. It's a book that would probably merit a second reading, albeit I don't relish the prospect of diving into the dense prose again. If they made an audiobook version of this with a really good narrator, I'd love to listen to it!
After finishing Antioch my initial impression is that this is an ambitious, but ultimately flawed debut novel. Jessica Leonard took on a highly creative concept but I think the book is marred by lackluster prose and perhaps too much ambiguity. I was drawn in at first by several subjects in the book: Amelia Earhart, shortwave radio, the mystery of Vlad the Impaler...but the book kind of lost me in the middle before picking up steam at the end, albeit the book ended without providing any clear answers. Antioch is filled with mystery and deception, as the story unfolds people and events are slowly revealed to not be what they seem, beginning with a cryptic radio transmission and spiraling out until this reader could no longer trust anything he read. The writing was inconsistent, sometimes interesting but sometimes the syntax and word choice were simplistic and even amateurish in some sections (in fact between the simplicity of the prose, the unrealistic way characters behaved, and the font I actually wondered if this was a YA book at one point), and plot sometimes felt disjointed. Having read the book, I understand that Bess is an unreliable narrator, and this may account for some of the strange turbulence I found in the plot and composition, but it nevertheless this made reading the book a somewhat unpleasant experience. This may have been the author's intention, but something about how she pulled it off didn't clue me in that it was intentional until the last few chapters, and my ability to enjoy what the author was doing was diminished by what I perceived to be poor writing. This may be a deficiency with me as a reader, or it may be in the writing of the book. Overall this book just didn't seem as polished as what I'm accustomed to reading. Hey, it's a debut novel! All the same, the unreliability of the protagonist felt a bit like a Monopoly get out of jail free card to justify the confusion and plot amounting to an abrupt and ambiguous end. Yes, there were breadcrumbs of the book's conclusion scattered throughout, but the ending still felt like it came way out of left field to me. I might have liked to know a little bit more of what was going on, what was real and what wasn't. I'm sure Bess would have too, and this may be the point. But overall Antioch felt like a book too convoluted for its own good, with a journey that didn't justify the concept of the book or provide a clear ending.
The Diver's Game is a novella length book of short stories forming a mosaic novel. In the world of the book certain people (descendants of immigrants) have been deemed subhuman and it is considered legal for full citizens to kill them. A fine premise for a dystopian novel, but Jesse Bell constructed this book in a way that just didn't work for this reader. The book consists of a series of stories featuring different characters looking at different aspects of the world with few instances of direct overlap. Furthermore many of these stories just didn't develop enough or have a clear enough sense of resolution for my taste.
I don't know if they were well or poorly written, the first story was loaded with exposition (a teacher explaining the world to a class, and thus the reader), but it seemed that the author enjoyed setting up a story only to deny the reader an opportunity to find out what happens. Perhaps this was Ball's way of putting the reader in the shoes of the subhuman residents who could be gassed at any moment? If so, it's a bit clever, but I still didn't care for it.
That's another thing, the means by which pats (full citizens) killed non-pats was by opening canisters of gas. Seems implausible. Too many ways that could go wrong or have unintended victims.
Overall, the dystopian world was clearly a thinly veiled metaphor for many contemporary issues, and perhaps this book is Ball's grim prediction for what our world might look like in a few generations. As interesting as that is, it doesn't excuse the lackluster means by which he told the story...or more precisely, the lack of story. That's actually the whole problem, the book is much more concept than story.
Also, the formatting is very odd. He puts frequent line breaks and even page breaks in the book, resulting in lots of blank space throughout. That's why I said it was novella length, I bet if it was formatted like a normal book it would be numerous pages shorter.
In brief, I think it was an interesting concept and would have been interested in reading one of these stories written as an actual novel with a clear sense of resolution, but this book just didn't work for me.
P.S. If anyone would like to read a mosaic novel where the structure works more effectively, check out Coyote Songs by Gambino Iglesias. It's a horror book and also explores themes of xenophobia.
Great potential, only partially realized. A young woman becomes a senior editor at a publishing house. Weird stuff happens.
The good:
-I enjoyed the conversational writing style and the meta concept of a horror book about a horror editor.
-I liked Lussi, the protagonist.
-The book has a creepy basement in it, and creepy basements are scary!
-Fun 80s references!
The not so good:
-I, more or less, figured out what was going on well before the end of the book.
-Some of the characters behaved in unbelievable ways and the plot was sometimes a bit too convenient.
Overall it's a fun Christmas horror book. It's worth a read if you're in the mood for a holiday horror book. 3.5 stars.
John Scalzi's The Last Emperox is a fitting, if somewhat unsatisfying, conclusion to the Interdependency trilogy. This series has not been my favorite set of his books. That said, The Last Emperox - like the rest of the series and many of Scalzi's books - has tons of humor (crude and otherwise) alongside interesting sci-fi concepts and political intrigue. This whole series has had major Dune vibes, and frankly I didn't love Dune when I listened to it and have yet to listen to the sequel. So ultimately I was not inherently predisposed to like this series, or this book. I did enjoy both, but I was disappointed that the ending felt a bit rushed. Scalzi created situations that seemed too easy or implausible, and I wasn't thrilled with how the book proceeded after the major twist toward the end. I might give the whole series another listen, but for now I'd give this book and the whole series 4.5/5.
Homefront is another great installment to the excellent Expeditionary Force series despite changing the format up. Unlike the rest of the series, this one is an audio drama with a full cast rather than novel. While RC Bray is hard to top, I did enjoy hearing some other voices alongside his...especially women's voices reading the women. Most of the narrators really added a lot of value to their roles, and although I'm happy to listen to Bray read all the characters, I'd also be thrilled to listen to these actors read these characters again. That said, I have to admit I'm glad the next few books in the series are regular books, because the format of this audio drama was kind of funky. And not funky like “let's dance to this funky music all night”, no it was much more like “does this milk smell funky to you?” Here's the thing, it sounded over-produced. There were background sounds and musical sections that didn't seem to fit the rest of the recording, and the levels were sometimes odd. Additionally, the whole thing sounded like there was a bit of reverb, not the crisp simple sound we have come to expect from the series. I also prefer the flow of Alanson's usual writing over the audio drama structure. This wasn't bad, I just was much more cognizant of it being composed of “scenes” than I usually am. Admittedly as an actor myself I may be trained to recognize them, but nevertheless I prefer to simply get lost in the story rather than clearly hearing one scene end and another begin.
Overall, this is a solid story and is an interesting listening experience. Great performances and so-so production. This listener would love to hear a regular Expeditionary Force NOVEL read by this cast some day. Sadly, this is probably not economically plausible, but hey - with Skippy the Magnificent, who knows?
P.S. Listen through the credits. I loved hearing the outtakes and funny things some of the actors said.
The Visitor is a fun bit of Christmas violence. It's short and a bit gory, and that's about it. The ending isn't great. The plot is nothing special. The characters aren't super well fleshed out. It's got some typos. But it's short, easy to read, and has a few cool scenes in it. Think of it as a long short story and enjoy it for what it is. 3.5 stars.
I really like this acting book. It's very short, simple, and useful. While it might not equip the actor to deal with every challenge they will encounter, I believe the basic technique of scene analysis they outline will serve actors well in approaching any text-based performance. I trained with a teacher who believed in many of these ideas, and after spending some time with this action and reality of the moment oriented technique, I have come to believe this is an effective approach to acting. I would recommend this book to any actor and am assigning it to my acting students.
With that said, I do have a few issues with it:
-The introduction by David Mamet is ridiculous. I don't appreciate how he trashes a bunch of other acting training exercises and refers to these teachers as fraudulent. It is especially egregious that he describes holding other methods of acting in contempt as a symptom of the approaches to acting training he criticizes, when he is doing exactly that in this introduction! I also disliked his style of writing wherein he attempted to describe his experiences as if they were mine (“You have...”) this stylistic approach rubbed me the wrong way. Perhaps more importantly though, I have a fundamental disagree with the core idea - that some methods of acting are superior to others. No. There is no one way (or “right” way) to act or train actors. Some methods and tools will be more effective for specific actors than others, but just because the mirror exercise or “hearing the music with your toes” didn't do anything for Mamet, doesn't mean it might not do something for others.
-Similarly, the authors like to use words like “must” a lot. This implies there is only one right way of doing things. I'm not a huge fan of this.
-The book uses terminology that may differ from the terminology many actors will be familiar with. To a certain extent, this is unavoidable. But using a term like “action” to mean “objective” (and “through-action” or “through-line” instead of “super objective”) seems like a bit of an odd choice and runs the risk of creating confusion in the minds of inexperienced actor or students who may be used to different terminology.
-This book frequently makes use of the outdated and patriarchal convention of making use of masculine pronouns in a universal way (as if “he” meant “all humans”). It's not a super contemporary book, but some readers may be confused and believe the ideas contained in this book only apply to men. Additionally the subtle implication of using masculine pronouns as the default pronoun is that men are the default people. I doubt this what the authors meant, especially the women authors, but it is nevertheless a dated and problematic element.
-Finally, the book makes reference to a number of plays without necessarily giving a lot of context about those plays. They're all old (duh, it's an old book), and there isn't a lot of diversity reflected.
Despite these shortcomings, I nevertheless believe this book is meritorious and offers a lot to the actor in a short page count. Read it, and then try applying these ideas to a scene, monologue, or role.
Ready Player Two is a great sequel to Cline's blockbuster novel Ready Player One. Like the first book, this one is filled with references to the 80s and pop culture, and it is glorious. Some readers might criticize this book for being too similar to the original. Well...there are a number of similarities. Yet, it's also interesting to watch some of these characters trying to navigate the new reality they find themselves in. Could Cline have done more of this instead of sticking to his original recipe for success? Sure, but hey- if it's not broke don't fix it. I loved the first book and therefore I also loved this one. I listened to the audio version and Wil Wheaton's narration is superb. I'd highly recommend RP2!
Meh
This is an interesting concept that might be better suited to a longer format. The novelette length of this story, and if I'm being honest the mediocre prose, didn't really get me invested in the characters or their experiences. There were some cool moments, but sadly they felt like punctuation in a stream of boredom. This short book just didn't really resonate with me.
I had the opportunity to reread this classic YA dystopian novel for a book club, and I was struck by how good it is and how well it's held up over time. Without getting into too many spoilers, The Giver asks what society might be like if everyone was the same, and peace and order were prioritized over everything else. In our increasingly divided world, it is difficult not to see The Giver as a chilling warning of how the world might be if we ever lost our diversity, our freedom, and our feelings.
The narrative itself is very solid. I did feel that time began to accelerate in the mid-teen chapters and at times the author seemed to gloss over elements of Jonas' training and life for the sake over moving on with the story. This isn't a fault exactly, it just felt a little too easy and somewhat diminished the mystery and the tension for me. I also thought the rules of the world were a bit unclear and too convenient. Lois Lowry didn't exactly explain how transmitting memories was possible, or why memories would return to the community as a whole if the Receiver was lost. Since this differs significantly from how memory works in the real world, I think it would have merited more explanation. Perhaps since this is a YA novel the author felt she could play fast and loose with reality, or perhaps she will reveal more in one of the other books in The Giver Quartet? I don't remember being bothered by the mechanics of memory when I read the book for the first time as a child, but still, this is arguably a problem with the book. There is a sci-fi or fantasy element present in a world that otherwise seems to be our future, and the failure to account for this device challenged my suspension of disbelief just a bit.
The Giver is the first book of a four book series, which is something I didn't know until recently. I've eagerly ordered the next three books. I hope to learn more about Jonas and Gabe, as well as the Giver and the community. I would rate this book 4.5, rounded up to 5. Well worth a read, or a reread.
The Ancestor is a surprising gothic novel, that though interesting, is marred by plot holes and strains believability. The book begins one way, and then goes in a somewhat surprising direction. I enjoyed reading the book (and listening to the audiobook), but it was hard to really buy in to some of the choices these characters made, and other elements of the world never seemed fully fleshed out or otherwise didn't make sense. This was disappointing because I usually enjoy these kinds of stories. And indeed, I did enjoy this book- I just wish I could have enjoyed it even more. I was somewhat surprised to learn this was not the author's debut novel, as the plot read like a writer's first completed attempt of writing fiction of this length (this is not a compliment). I also found the prose lacking a sense of beauty and complexity. The word choice and syntax were fairly pedestrian. Overall this book was good, albeit flawed. I would recommend it, but not highly. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4.
Content warnings: rape, kidnapping, killing, gun violence, stillbirth and miscarriage, death in childbirth, divorce.
Dennis E Taylor has done it again! While this book might not have been my favorite in the series, it was nevertheless a five star experience to return to the Bobiverse and accompany the replicants on a new adventure. Heaven's River focuses on two main plot lines, and I found both compelling. The ending of the book suggests there will be more installments in the series to come, which is GREAT news as far as I'm concerned. I would love to listen to hundreds of hours of Ray Porter reading this series.
Paul Tremblay's Survivor Song is a timely novel exploring the horror of infectious disease, but did not live up to the author's past works. Tremblay's story follows two friends, Natalie and Ramola, as they attempt to get the pregnant Nats to a hospital to have a C-section in the midst of a novel rabies epidemic. The virus rapidly transforms infected people and non-human mammals into not-zombie zombies that spread the infection through, you guessed it, a bite. The book is interesting because at the time of publication the world was in varying states of lockdown due to the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic. Survivor Song was either influenced by, or predicts with eerie accuracy, attitudes of the public toward the virus. The reader gets a good sense of who Nats and Rams are and becomes invested in them. Unfortunately every other character introduced felt flat and unimportant, like an NPC, having too little page time to really make the reader care. Additionally Tremblay made some bold creative choices in this book such as leaving large portions of pages blank to represent breaks in time or story. The effect resembled film editing, and was effective even if jarring. Somewhat more confusing were Tremblay's inclusion of a prelude, interlude, and postlude in darker colored pages with different fonts. Overall the book felt somewhat experimental, and achieved inconsistent success. For me, this one didn't live up to Head Full of Ghosts, but I'm still glad I read it.
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro is a melancholy yet moving dystopian story about the value of a human life, and indeed what it means to be human. I don't know how to meaningfully discuss this work without spoiling some significant parts of it, so stop reading this review now if you haven't read the book and don't want some plot points spoiled. In Never Let Me Go people are cloned and these clones are raised from childhood to adulthood, going through special schools and training programs, until finally as adults they are called upon to make “donations” (or have their organs harvested to give to regular non-clone people). The “donors” know what they are and what their ultimate destiny is from a fairly young age. It's heartbreaking to see these characters grow up, discover what they are, and simply live with it as if it were normal. It also strained my suspension of disbelief. As adults the donors drove cars and enjoyed some freedom of movement, yet the protagonists never really made meaningful attempts to run away. There wasn't really mention of anyone protesting the practice of raising these donors and then slowly killing them for organs. Based on the way people in real life protest abortion, animal testing, and even eating meat I thought it was pretty unrealistic that everything could simply be so calm, so accepted, and so inevitable. Perhaps this is my American sensibilities running up against the British setting of the novel, but I just couldn't understand why all this went on without a fight or even much of a complaint? Despite this, the book features excellent character development, relationships, and slow-burn world building. I rate this book ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️