Valerie

I didn't really expect to like this book. At the start, everything was very confusing, and I'm not good at time travel stories on the best of days. The first module had my brain twisting around trying to figure out exactly what was going on and when is a dog not a dog. I felt similarly towards other trippy books like “Memoirs Found in a Bathtub,” like there was some subtext that I just wasn't picking up on.

Once we hit the second module however, the story clicked, and then it resonated. I realized that all the talk of chronodiagetics and the narratives and multiple universes was all the dressing over what is, at its heart, a story about stasis and the excuses we make as humans delaying adulthood.

As I started getting to know this narrator, I started identifying with him in all of my absolute worst ways. Here's a guy in his apparent thirties who doesn't visit his mother enough, works a job that guarantees him the least amount of responsibility, can barely take care of a ret-conned dog, and yet spends all day in a box without time, doing absolutely nothing. I'm not as far gone as the narrator, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel rather trapped in a state of pre-adulthood, watching my friends move through the social norm milestones of marriage, children, home-buying, and feeling just... stuck.

What Yu does is take this story, which would fit perfectly on the shelves of any mainstream fiction section, and add time travel, self-awareness, and a sense of humor ranging from morbid to slapstick. In short, he made a story about something I really should be reading into a story I genuinely wanted to read.

There is so much to love here, from TAMMY the anxiety-prone operating system to Buddhist zombie moms in weird alternate dimension. There's also so much meat to this story for its modest page count. Some might consider it a little bit of a pop psychology lesson, but it all resonated as very genuine to me. Here's this kid who watches his father transform from dream to reality, watches him leave and still thinks somehow that its going to be okay if he just finds his dad again, externalizes all of his own problems onto this time-traveling dad, and keeps himself in permanent stasis until being quite literally shot in the stomach. The metaphorical time loop becomes a literal time loop and leads to a character exploration which can make the reader ask some very hard questions.

Yet Yu keeps his wit at the ready and thus saves the novel from being too heavy-handed. At times, I had trouble following the stream of consciousness portions, and I'll freely admit to being lost during any and all talk of chronodiagetics, but to me its watching the writer manipulate time to represent how memory, regret, anxiety and all of those emotions possessed in each human heart manipulate time which make this a great story. It's the idea that we are all time machines moving in time right now, that it's not difficult to get stuck in a time loop while the world rages on outside, while our parents get older, while defining moments slip down the cracks – those things make this a valuable read.

I don't think this book is for everyone. Like I said, there is a lot of lite psychology, a very clear metaphor which some might consider overbearing, and some extremely convoluted sections of “explanation” in a very tongue-in-cheek set of universes. Also, the narrator is kind of a jerk, but the story wouldn't work if he were anything other than a jerk. For me, the underlying theme of self-imposed stasis hit hard enough that none of those things mattered. At the end, it just made me want to get off the couch and try to not shoot myself in the future stomach.

I found this volume a little more confusing than Bridge of Birds, but in the end I think I liked it a little more. Hughart maintains the same faux-fairy tale tone which I really enjoy. The way characters and coincidence weave in and out makes the story feel older than it really is. Some of the coincidences get a little hard to believe, but the tone makes this forgivable.

What I really enjoyed about the book though was the way it played with gender and sexuality. reGrief of Dawn and Moon Boy just fascinate me, and I'd have to think most authors would have swapped their gender. They are both intriguing characters without any sense of impropriety or jealousy, and that makes them pretty unique in the field of literature. Their love for each other is a pure thing despite the fact that they sleep with whoever and whatever they like/gets them to their goal. It's very weird and at times awkward, but that juxtaposition is so intriguing I'll overlook the weirdness.

Master Li remains a great character, a trickster of the old school. Ox develops into a bit more of a character, I think. He has more emotions, more opinions despite his innocence. I'm curious to see how he grows in the third book.

My one disappointment is that having read Bridge of Birds, it was pretty easy to guess who the real villain of the piece was. It's one of the reasons I don't read many mysteries. Most authors have tells that give it away pretty early, and Hughart's are pretty classic. Knowing didn't make any of the fantastical adventure much less enjoyable, though. The descriptions and crazy links of causality are some of the best parts of the book.

Bridge of Birds is under talks for a film right now, but I think this one might make make an even better film. Zombies and bishounen and crazy rock slides... what could be better?

Solid follow-up to Sleeping Giants. Neuvel's style is fast-paced and reads like a high stakes disaster movie, this one even more so than the previous. And yet, it doesn't have the characterization issues often faced by disaster movies and other popcorn type entertainment. It's a solid story, and while the narrative occasionally suffers from everything having to be a transcript or a journal entry, overall, it works.

The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox are what would happen if Terry Pratchett decided to write a Sherlock Holmes style mystery series right after he finished reading a messload of Chinese folklore. I'm sure if I were a bit more of an expert on Chinese folklore, I'd find ways to pick the series apart, but I'm not, so I'm just going to enjoy them at face value. The tales are wonderfully twisty, full of funny non-sequiters, and rich in imagery.

Eight Skilled Gentlemen follows the same format as the previous two books, and admittedly that's sort of a problem. If you've read the first two, you can pick out the Big Bad basically from the moment of said Big Bad's appearance. That said, it's still fun figuring out exactly how Big Bad is pulling off his scheme and what exactly that scheme is. It's also fun to just hang out with Number Ten Ox, watching all the craziness that comes with unraveling ancient mysteries with Master Li.

Not my favorite of the series, but well worth it to spend a little more time with these characters.

This was a fun book, and I had a major squee episode when I got the email from First Reads that I'd won it. I'm 31 years old, so I spent a good portion of my childhood in Nick's Target audience. SNICK was an Event in my home, I subscribed to Nick magazine, and I wanted nothing more in life than to someday compete on Double Dare.

The book isn't exactly what I expected it to be. It's an oral history, so it's a series of quotes from cast, crew, production staff, everyone involved in the various projects. Rather than being organized by the interviewee, it's organized by topic. This keeps topics from being repeated, but it did make it a little difficult to understand at times. I would have preferred if after the interviewee's name, there was some kind of credit to tell me who they were or at least which show(s) they were associated with. Either that or some sort of narrative thread from the author tying the interviews together. Most of the time, the context is there, but I still ended up flipping to the appendix an awful lot which got annoying.

That said, I learned a lot about the network that basically defined childhood for me and most of my friends. It's a great nostalgic look back at this time without having to see the stars now, recognize how old they are and by extension how old I am. They contradict each other left and right, so you really get to see all of the challenges from every angle. Kids loved being slimed! We all hated the slime! etc... The only time I found this frustrating was during the bits about Ren & Stimpy. I really hated this show, and listening to the people who made it talk bitterly about it all these years later... well, maybe that's some of the reason why. The people associated with my favorite shows seemed a little more positive except for those canceled in their prime (yes, my family was the only one around who watched Roundhouse. What? It had a mobile La-Z-Boy!).

I love children's television, and I still spend a lot of my time today analyzing it and seeing what values we are imposing on our kids. The last chapter reflects a lot on this, and I really feel that in those early days, Nick was one of the few that put kids first (except with Ren & Stimpy... God, I hated that show). They were using real kids playing with real kids, and I was sad when they got bigger and more and more corporate input started making its way onto the show. I hope that some of those folks will read this book and remember that, “What's good for kids will be good for business.”

If you like, Cracked.com, you'll enjoy this book. It's about as simple as that. I usually enjoy their articles, and this book edits and compiles some of their most popular ones in a very nice, hardback edition. It's fun to read food for thought with both smart jokes and stupid ones. Sadly, the book doesn't include any of its sources (and as a creature of the internet age, I only trust tiny blue hyperlinks...), but even if the book was one hundred percent false, it does a great job of making you rethink bits of information you take for granted in your everyday life. Then you can find a little blue hyperlink and feel better about taking your facts from the Humor section. That is the fun for me in both the website and the book.

This book has been on my to-read list for a while, and I'm glad I finally sat down to read it. It is billed as one of the foundational books for urban fantasy, so while the tropes in it might seem a little tired now, I think that's only because so many people have copied it. Overall, I enjoyed the story and characters as a popcorn-filled adventure of Fey rock and roll. Personally, I was delighted and overjoyed that it was set in Minneapolis, and all of the local references made me love it more than if it were set in a more standard city. It's incredibly amusing to me that the kingdoms of Faerie would fight over Como Park territory.

It's maybe a little simple in places, but that isn't always a bad thing. If you like hardcore fey and eighties rock music, I think you will be similarly delighted by this book.

I started reading this for a bit of Irish mythology research, and found it really fascinating. I'm so intrigued by the layers of Irish legends and Christian influence that create such a strange set of stories. Yeats is one of my favorite poets, and it was fun to look at these stories through the lens of his work and poetry. Like many original fairy tales, these are bloody, dark, and definitely not for children, but if you're interested in such things, it's worth a read.

All right nerd confession: this is actually the first time I've read Ray Bradbury. I know! Shame! I don't often enjoy older sci-fi, so it was pretty easy to not get around to reading any. That said, I'm glad the book club picked this one. While there are dated sections (only one woman left on Mars and she's fat!), there were also truly poignant and progressive sections. And Bradbury's prose is just as lush and beautiful as I've been told. It was progressive for the time, and really read more like philosophy than sci-fi often. I see why it's a classic, and I'm glad I finally read it.

I am pretty ambivalent about this book. I read it because it was an S&L pick and the very first Hugo winner. As such, I new it reflected the tastes and thought patterns of the time it was written (1951). I was immediately drawn in by how well the dialogue stood up to the test of time. In a lot of older fiction that I read, the dialogue is notoriously dated or (in SF's case) trying too hard to be futuristic. It makes it very hard to read from a modern perspective. Bester has a real handle on language, though, and that makes it easy to get to know his cast.

From the first page I was sucked into Reich's thought patterns. I love that this book starts not with our hero, but with our antagonist, and from the first we are right there in Reich's head. In so many mysteries, we are only seeing the cops' side and watching them be bested time and again by the villain. Here, we get to watch both sides of the drama as neither one really gets a handle on anything until the end.

The idea of an ESP run society is an intriguing one, and I disagree with criticism that this prevents it from being a science fiction book since ESP isn't a real science. For me, there's room in the genre for what ifs when they are addressed with a scientific attitude. The subject matter is how this development would affect society, and Bester does a great job of expressing that. I wonder if this book was at all an influence on Dick's “The Minority Report” as a world without pre-meditated crime.

So the plot starts out well and the language is still fresh, but as soon as Barbara D'Courtney enters Powell's life, the book falls apart for me. I am willing to look past the Freudian overtones of the book to a point, and even to look past the lack of power in most of the female characters. This is 1951 so I think Duffy Wyg& counts as progressive by having a job. What I just can't get past is Powell and Barbara happily entering into this Freudian romance with her literally possessng the mentality of a 5-year old. If Bester hadn't gone the romance angle here, I could have dealt with this book, but he did and by modern standards it is weird, creepy, and ludicrously unprofessional PREFECT Powell. The rest of the ending (They were siblings!) was something of a let down too. I know at the time it was probably innovative and exploring the latest in psychological theory, but as so much of that theory has been disproved, it denies the book of most of its uniqueness and philosophy.

The Demolished Man is a great concept with a few very captivating characters that falls flat for me due to .... is squicky a techincal term? It's the best word I've got. Due to squicky psychology. I would give it 2.5 because it wasn't all bad, but I couldn't even process Reich's ending when I was so distracted by Powell's.

I picked this book up because I was waiting for an author signing and had to sit in the natural sciences section for about 3 hours because I have anxiety about not being in lines. After the first couple hours, you start to think, I don't know enough about octopuses (which is the plural Harmon prefers though I always liked octopods better). Reading this book makes you realize that we, the collected human we, also don't know enough about octopuses.

This book discusses the octopus as an invertebrate, a thinker, a predator, a prey item, and a lunch. Admittedly, I could have done without that last part. I picked up the book to learn about amazing animals, not about how to serve them. I'm not vegetarian, but I didn't really want to read a cookbook either.

The more scientific chapters are interesting although some of the jokes fall a bit flat. Harmon explains what we know about these animals without forcing the reader to acquire a marine biology degree in the meantime. I learned a few things (their suckers can rotate independently... so cool) and mostly enjoyed doing so. Recommended for the casual invertebrate enthusiast.

It's rare that I find a book that speaks to me on the level this book did. It's a quiet story. The kind that would make a terrible movie. The hush of the grave is over every paragraph of this book except Mrs. Klapper whose very name disturbs the otherwise melancholy tone.

I knew Beagle has a gift with language that is really unparalleled in any other modern writer. I'm still a bit amazed that this book was written over 50 years ago because so little of it is bound to that time period. The characters are as real and present as anyone I have ever met or lost, and they surprised me as anyone I have ever met or lost.

However, I think the real strength of the book is in its mood, in the attitude it casts over the reader and the questions it forces you to ask yourself. At one point, Rebeck stops and yells about how he's not a good man, not a great man, not anything. He never lied about it! He makes honesty into an excuse. It reminds me how often I've played that card, how often I sit on the steps and wait for whatever is intimidating me to move along. Yet it does all this at a whisper while you feel the ivy growing over the headstones.

I hesitate to lump this book on a fantasy shelf, because its really more of a parable that uses fantastic elements to get its points across. The book makes no excuses for any of its fantasy, but just asks the reader to accept it and move on, which is, I suppose another point of the book. The book is strange and beautiful and heart-wrenching and hiding a great number of secrets, just like the world it subtly insists we can live in, if we like.

Despite having hazy memories of being terrified by the cartoon adaptation, I was still surprised at how intense this book was. It's one I've always meant to read, but only now been prodded into it by my book club.

The story reads like a great fairy tale with points which, like any good fairy tale, are highly inappropriate for children. It's definitely one I'd tell kids not to read just to see what they'd do when they read about a rabbit shouting “Piss off!”

Probably the most interesting bit for me was when they discover the first warren of tharn rabbits. Adams focused a lot on the politics of Efrafa, which feels like a strong commentary on military dictatorships fascist and communist alike. For me as a modern reader, I feel the metaphor of unspoken captivity, of not talking about problems because life is so much easier not talking about them, is far more poignant to the world I've grown up in.

Glad I finally found a reason to read the book at any rate.

I haven't read Scalzi in sometime, and it was good to come back to his style. He's one of my favorite witty dialogue writers, and this was no exception. The concept was exciting, the characters were interesting (even if I hope that far future societies don't go back to a religiously-based, hereditary monarchy... please tell me that's not our timeline), and the pacing is as quick and easy to read through.

I very nearly took away a star for using “squicked” in a non-ironic sense, though. Only previous enjoyment of Scalzi and his works stopped me. No way that word survives a thousand years. Right? We have too many dark timelines.

Okay, I admit I bought this because I thought it was a Neil Gaiman Sandman spin-off and not a Golden Age Sandman spin-off. I was at my used book store spending money like a crazy person that day. Things fell in the basket. It happens.

So while this was not what I was expecting, it was still a neat 40s-style comic with a modern, storyline. It isn't something I would typically read, but an interesting one. It strives to recreate the pre-Batman vigilante hero, and I think it succeeds in this. The art style is not my favorite, but at the very lease it isn't the hypersexualized garbage that way too many superhero comics these days turn to.

So for fans of Golden Age comics, this is a neat revival. Just don't go into it looking for Morpheus in the background. The gas mask is all they have in common.

I read this as part of the eBook collection “Elric of Melniboné” which includes the first four chronological novellas, so this review is encompassing that collection.

The Elric novels have been a hole in my fantasy history. I've owned a few for a while but only got around to reading it when my book club picked it. I struggle to rate them with stars because by modern standards, they aren't really my cup of tea, but as part of the foundation of fantasy, they are interesting to explore.

Elric is maybe the original fantasy anti-hero, and I know he's inspired a lot of my favorites. In Elric I see the ancestor of Morpheus, of Geralt, of Harry Dresden, of so many of the tall, pale, brooding figures just trying to punch a few evil doers while wondering how far from true north their own moral compass has wandered.

The plots themselves are pulpy and commercial, the non-Elric characters are pretty flimsy, and the women are basically just there for Elric to rescue and/or have sex with, so they aren't really what I look for in a novel, but I'm giving it the four stars because I know my books wouldn't have evolved to where they are to day with this series.

Terry Pratchett is one of the most amazing people I wish I knew. The man came out with like 3 books this year while battling Alzheimer's and still being a decent human being. I've gotten behind on my Discworld, but picking this up again reminded me just how much has happened as old friends breeze through the story guiding, meddling, or interfering with the new cast. It's just neat.

The Tiffany Aching books are billed as Discworld for Young Readers, but seeing as this one begins with a girl who has a miscarriage after her father beats her half to death for getting pregnant, “Young” is a relative term. Tiffany is young, but it is her business to sort out the messy bits, and Pratchett doesn't shy away from showing all those bits. It's in the older school of fiction for young readers that assumes both A) Children know more than we give them credit for and B) Children will censor themselves if they are truly not ready for something.

I Shall Wear Midnight feature a 16 year old Tiffany who is not much changed from the little girl first introduced in the Wee Free Men. She is the type of practical, no-nonsense protagonist Pratchett writes so well. The story itself, while not my favorite in the vast ocean of Pratchetty goodness, is nevertheless a compelling addition to the series and lets the readers get a glimpse of Tiffany (and possibly her young coven's) future as she handles her steading with grit and determination. Thematically, it harkens back to the early books in the Witches Chronicles with mob mentality and prejudice woven into Tiffany's uniquely adolescent coming of age element.

If you enjoy Tiffany's stories (or any of the Witches Chronicles) definitely give it a read. It could stand on its own, but like most of Discworld, I think it just reads better once you can get more of the references.

Talia's story continues, and I continue to respect Mercedes Lackey for creating proper female heroes with agency and autonomy. How easily this story could have fallen into a romance with Talia entirely depending on Kris' support, but it never does. This is pre-every YA story is also a love triangle, thank goodness. The series is still something I enjoyed more back when I was Talia's age, but it's enjoyable to revisit that sort of setting and that sort of mindframe from time to time.

This book was a bit misleading. I expected to read about whales in their variety and complext and in fact got a book far more about whaling and 80% about sperm whales. It's very informative, and if you're a Moby Dick fan, the first half pretty much follows Melville's life as it relates to whales. It's hard to read about the slaughter, the reasons for the slaughter, and the gruesome details of the whaling industry. The later chapters get more into modern relationships with whales including whale watching and the last vestiges of people still clinging to the whale products industry (amberghris is gross, y'all). While I learned a lot, it's hard to say I enjoyed the book. It was graphic, realistically pessimistic, and just not what I wanted from the subtitle “In search of giants of the sea.” If you are looking to read a natural history of whales, not for you. If you are looking to read a history of human interaction with whales/literary examples of whales, then this is definitely a book you want.

Okay, confession time. I've actually never read any Philip K. Dick before this... I know. Bad nerd. They've always been on my list, but the book club seems to the be only thing that gets me to bump the classics up to the top. Another confession, I've never watched Blade Runner start to finish (I always walked in when my dad was in the middle, so I feel like I've seen it a dozen times, but never in the correct order). I'm glad about this, because it let me appreciate the book without trying to predict the movie.

So onto the book: Naturally, I enjoyed it. I've never heard anything but good things about it, and it was everything I expected while still managing to surprise. The whole idea of empathy as the idea that makes us human while the story tugs at our own empathy throughout the story is incredibly well-constructed. I love the idea that animals are the way we demonstrate humanity, and that the most disturbing scene in the entire book operated on my empathy for a spider. Brilliant.

The android vs. human theme has obviously drawn a great deal from this book since the time of its publishing, and that alone makes it worth a read. The way our empathy shifts between them, Decker's preference of knowing the artificiality of his toad at the end of the day, but that not stopping his wife from declaring his attachment to it, it resonates through the science fiction of the seventies and onward. While the book wasn't an emotional revelation for me, I still feel I am a better person for having read it, and I hope many other people who have put off reading the classics as newer and shinier books arrive (I still need Ancillary Sword and I need it badly!) will take the time to explore where these new and shinier books came from.

Also, it's only 123 pages. I wish more modern authors could capture that amount of depth in that few words. Just brilliant. It's becoming a lost art.

Interesting to read as sort of a time capsule. Every time Scalzi goes into a rant against Bush, I just shake my head thinking, “Oh you sweet summer child, 2007-Scalzi.” I don't always agree with the content and sometimes he goes after very low-hanging fruit, but you know it's a collection of blog entries, and I'm sure I'm guilty of similar issues in my blog. I'm just not a well-known author so nobody is offering to collect my blog in a book and sell it. Worth the read if you enjoy Scalzi's style or really want a time capsule into that early 00's nostalgia.

Xkcd comics come in two flavors: ones that make me wet my pants laughing and ones I don't understand because I am not as smart as Randall Munroe. This book is a collection of both kinds along with a few extra notes, doodles, and ciphered messages. I have not tried solving any of the ciphers yet. I will probably have to google them.

What I'm trying to say is that this is a smart comic and people should read it.

I was a little disappointed when my book club picked this for the month. I first read this series in college, and lost interest around book 5. However, re-reading it was nice, and it was interesting to see how much of the movies had displaced the book in my mind. I'll always have some nostalgic fondness for this series, especially those precious first three.

As I read this book, I found myself deeply annoyed that I didn't have more time to read it. Finally, I had a Saturday and instead of doing any of the work I absolutely need to get done today, I found myself burning through the last 200 pages. It takes a lot to get me interested in political intrigue (It generally takes a Tyrion Lannister), but this one is gripping.

I loved the first book, but put off reading the second because A)The first book had a neat ending that left a sequel necessary but not immediately compelling and B)I can't handle any books in which bad things happen to dogs at this time in my life. This book has no such neat ending and leaves far more questions than answers. The summary on the back of book three does nothing to allay my agitation, and I want to get through this months S&L pick before reading it. Probably good for me; I need to settle down.

Things I like about Robin Hobb:
1) Her world building is lovely. Buckkeep is very real to me as is its magic system and the rules surrounding it. It's easy to understand and doesn't bend for plot convenience. I also like how utterly gender-neutral the world is. Soldiers are women as frequently as they are men. It's a little thing, but something I enjoy.

2) The way she writes animals. Hobb makes what could be a cheesy plot construction into a very vivid and engaging trademark. Everything about Nighteyes seems just as real as the animals in the first book. I get the feeling her favorite character is probably Burrich, and she sees the world through the same eyes he does. My only complaint was there was so much more time spent in the human world and not enough with the animal characters in this book.

3) Kettricken. I really enjoy this character and envision her played by Miranda Otto and stabbing a witch king in the face. She's wonderful and I want to cosplay as her. I look good in purple.

Things that bothered me a bit.
1) Now I'm not saying I dislike the book, that's not it at all, but I started to really dislike Fitz. First person narratives are never my favorite, and now that Fitz is all grown up... he's so whiny. I know that his life is awful and in his position I'd probably be whiny too, but told through his direct perspective, it gets a little wearing. I don't like teenagers much and have trouble when any book about a child turns into a book about a teenager. His relationship with Molly was, to me, just a distraction from the plotlines I really cared about.

2) Regal is a bit pat as a villain. He was in the first book too, and I was hoping we'd see a bit more of his motivations in the second, but if anything he's gotten even more mustache-twirly. I don't really get how he could ever have been Shrewd's favorite son because Shrewd is a character who genuinely should have seen through that pomposity, child or no. It doesn't really make sense that Regal is smart enough to orchestrate grand conspiracies and stupid enough not to see the conclusions, but then again I don't know his full plan and maybe the third book will offer that critical clue. This book has such well-rounded characters in Chade, the Fool, Burrich, Kettricken, Verity, Patience... it seems odd that the villain is so one-dimensional.

The ending left me rather dumbfounded, and I still have lots of questions at the end. I definitely want to know what happens next. The cover of the third book is suggesting dragons...

The Hum and the Shiver is one of my favorite books of all time, but the others in the series have had diminishing returns for me. This one, however, was my favorite since that first one. I love reading this series while in Tennessee, as it feels like I walk outside into the Fae woodlands. Also, conceptually this book is Jaws but with with a pig and also Fae, so sort of playing to my wheelhouse. There's a few points I thought were a bit glossed over, but all in all a nice incentive to finish off this series. If you'd given up after Chapel of Ease, I'd say it's worth coming back for this one.