Very effective twist on the usual plot line. Outide it is "gray and cold and miserable" but Grandad has to go out. Adventure ensues.
"W B B & S" LibraryVery effective twist on the usual plot line. Outide it is "gray and cold and miserable" but Grandad has to go out. Adventure ensues.
I'm sitting here, metaphorically drumming my fingernails impatiently. I have finished this series and it will be at least three months until the firstI'm sitting here, metaphorically drumming my fingernails impatiently. I have finished this series and it will be at least three months until the first book in their next outing is published. This is such a good pairing of collaborators. They've got the banter, the attraction, the very odd supporting cast. This is a series that if filmed would create a couple of new action stars.
And because this is the final tale in the trilogy, there's time to flesh out the people of small-town Burney, OH. And by focusing on the town the authors have managed a really neat trick: they have shown a society that isn't polarized. Maybe I need to cut back on my news intake, because it feels amazing that political parties are never mentioned. That feels so refreshing. People are still horrible in all the usual ways, but they're horrible because they do horrible things, not because of their opinions on unrelated topics. It's so refreshing to see a small town that's a seething cauldron of greed, lust, and other nice old-fashioned vices.
Also, for those who love this sort of thing, as I do, this one has quite a bit of real estate interest. I wouldn't be surprised to learn HGTV was trying to acquire the rights.
Personal, pre-ordered copy. Because the authors have been wise to mention that is particularly important, and because getting a new book by favorite authors every month is a dream that has languished since the mainline Nancy Drew's stopped publishing eons ago.
One part of what makes the characters so appealing is that they aren't. Murderbot is in some ways analogous to neurotypical humans. And Murderbot is aOne part of what makes the characters so appealing is that they aren't. Murderbot is in some ways analogous to neurotypical humans. And Murderbot is also very knowledgeable about a narrow field of onterest while remaining indiffert to almost everything else. Media are forever offering stories of robots or similarly non-human intelligences that want to be human. Wells gets that not being charming or even being a raging asshole doesn't preclude caring, although it can seem inhuman to anyone who considers seeming hamn more important than behaving humanely. Seriously, the only other example I can think of is Malkovich's character in Making Mr. Right.
I'm falling asleep writing this, but I also really want to see Making Mr. Right now.
I was trying to find out if an author tour is planned, so I could pick up a hardcover copy from a local bookstore nearish hosting an eve03 April, 2023
I was trying to find out if an author tour is planned, so I could pick up a hardcover copy from a local bookstore nearish hosting an event where I could say "I love your work" and get a copy signed. Did not find. Checked the publisher website and saw "Category: Romance."
WTH? To be clear, I read a lot of romance, so I am not ragging on the idea. I just can't reconcile having only one Category tag for an author with crossover appeal. But also: did anyone in marketing look at that cover? That cover says "for fans of
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and
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, and
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" That cover says humorous scifi, not Romance.
Am I wrong?
***
4th July, 2023
And today I finished reading it, coincidentally over the July fourth weekend during which I also saw Asteroid City. Not the only good time to read it, but pretty good.
The book is better than "pretty good" by a lot. Classic screwball comedy which does require a little love interest, but is more about putting sane people in a maelstrom of amusing absurdity for comic effect. Willis is brilliant at that maelstrom. And at the cinematic references. So many movies are named checked, that one should probably not read it without an interest in movies. A delightful read, and one lending itself to dream casting: there aren't any bad choices no matter when or where the cast is selected.
I read this and the second book out of order. They're both a bit Princess Bride, the movie, and just silly fun. But I think I prefer this one just a tI read this and the second book out of order. They're both a bit Princess Bride, the movie, and just silly fun. But I think I prefer this one just a tiny bit: the bit at the very end.
Interesting take on Queen Victoria, too. Possibly my favorite there as well.
Charlie has lost almost everything: his career is gone with newspapers amidst corporate takeovers and the internet and Google taking up all the ad spaCharlie has lost almost everything: his career is gone with newspapers amidst corporate takeovers and the internet and Google taking up all the ad space. He came back to his hometown to look after his father. All he has left is his father's house, his cat, one suit, two ties, and a sense of humor.
And, oh, how I enjoyed this book. I loved the interplay between characters, the snappy conversations, and Charlie's very middle class American point of view. He keeps plugging away, with a dream to restart his life. Then his essentially unknown billionaire uncle dies and he discovers there really are supervillains. Charlie is everyone who is hanging on to the vanishing middle class as billionaire robber barons assemble monopolies and fire workers who think a union might get them a living wage.
Charlie's struggle is real, and then his life becomes chaos, which is every bit as funny and action-packed and relatable as The Kaiju Preservation Society.
Library copy because the minimum wage has been held down in spite of reason, productivity, inflation, soaring housing costs, and soaring corporate profits. Support the strikers!...more
Holton has taken the 5 pound sack of the romance genre and stuffed in damn near everything good in all of literature. There's some Shakespeare and quiHolton has taken the 5 pound sack of the romance genre and stuffed in damn near everything good in all of literature. There's some Shakespeare and quite a lot of Austen, and also it captures some of the mood of The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists and To Say Nothing of the Dog perhaps a dash of Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch and Soulless. It is The Princess Bride as Reiner filmed it, rather than as Goldman wrote it. It is madcap and raucous and rollicking with many weapons and pots of tea and outrageous hats.
Sometimes it feels as though we are approaching a literary singularity when all fiction with a happy ending will be Romance, regardless of age group or anything else. The other books will be limited to one bookcase back in thecorner near the restrooms, labeled something catcher but along the lines of Unhappily Ever After. I can live with that. Happily.
9 April, 2007 [Annotations 29 April 2022 because the original review on GoodReads vanished, and when I was checking LibraryThing and BookLikes (view s9 April, 2007 [Annotations 29 April 2022 because the original review on GoodReads vanished, and when I was checking LibraryThing and BookLikes (view spoiler)[Dear Future: in order to save space in limited title fields and such, one option was to capitalize the first letter of each word but remove the space in your computer files, which became an early 2000s way of naming your website, and also, perhaps, a nostalgic allusion to the late 1980s series thirtysomething, which title graphic was much copied, but that last bit is my take and possibly no one else would agree, but it's my review to mess about with, and yes, this is the Friday evening of a long and difficult week and I might be channeling my inner David Foster Wallace due to non-narcotic pain meds for repetitive stress which comes from mousing and typing on my phone too much, and that would be an early-21st century problem. You're welcome. Please footnote me in your dissertation, thanks. (hide spoiler)] I get a recommendation on a blog [John Scalzi's Whatever.scalzi.com], come over here [GoodReads], and find a widget offering a preview, and another offering a download [Project Gutenberg link, an option dropped after Bezos bought GoodReads]. If GoodReads can find a way to offer me time to read in, I'll be set.[GoodReads did not, but the time did become available regardless]
***
Great fun. Rather draggy in bits with long discourses on the meaning of sapience. I like that it had a diverse cast (at least as far as the names go) although there weren't many women. It was funny to see everyone smoking and carrying guns. That's two of the things Scalzi changed. He also adopted a less paternalistic attitude toward the fuzzys. For all the talk about sapience, Piper shows them as really cute pets. They can do neat stuff, but they're like very amusing children. [Scalzi presents them as adorable critters who are brighter than most, but still, sapience is hard to prove, isn't it?]
[Well, that was fun]
Personal copy, free, from the fine volunteers at Project Gutenberg. I love you crazy metalibrarians!
**spoiler alert** What happens when a clever person reflects on the problems in a very popular series of books? Maybe Novik didn't start this series t**spoiler alert** What happens when a clever person reflects on the problems in a very popular series of books? Maybe Novik didn't start this series thinking how to fix issues with other books set in a world where magic is real and kids go off to special magic boarding school, but it seems like she might have.
It's an interesting world, with quite the dark side, one which incorporates thoughtful consideration of power, and class, and injustice, and prejudice, and friendship, and making deliberate choices. This is for readers whose taste runs more to The Hunger Games and less to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Lots of quandaries, ambiguities, complexities, nuance, and a heroine who pisses everyone off. It's also a series aimed at an older audience, so there's rather more typical teen behavior and less marriage at eighteen.
A polydactyl kitten has been added to the cast, among others. Lying on the sofa under a purring car on a cold morning is almost certainly the best wayA polydactyl kitten has been added to the cast, among others. Lying on the sofa under a purring car on a cold morning is almost certainly the best way to read this.
I'm on page 32 and having a fabulous time, wish you were here.
This is the Scalzi-est sounding Scalzi book so far with lines such as "It's like the ForI'm on page 32 and having a fabulous time, wish you were here.
This is the Scalzi-est sounding Scalzi book so far with lines such as "It's like the Foreign Legion for nerds." I love the representation that neither defaults to straight white dude, nor has to point out that there are non-white characters by describing their skin tones (and only their skin tones) in terms of comestibles. The utter lack of physical description is so refreshing: I am anosmic and aphantastic and tone deaf, so all that sensory stuff is just filler to me anyway. Hmm, maybe that's why I enjoy reading plays, and why everyone enjoys reading Austen.
Also, it's time to reread Snow Crash apparently, since I can't recall anything except one character name, and yes, it is an excellent name, but not enough to conjure with.
***
It will no doubt be the work of future graduate students to review the books that were written during 2020 and 2021 and fashion some kind of taxonomy for them: the ones that completely ignored the pandemic, those that acknowledged it; those that focused on any of the myriad shocks people suffered, from the intensely personal to the global, as well as other recurring themes or motifs or subtext that I can't imagine. It'll be interesting work, if you enjoy a dissertation. There will also no doubt be a lot of popular work on the art and culture of the plague years. Whatevs. This novel including the acknowledgements will be chief among my personal memories of the books read and written in those years. Scalzi is just so damn entertaining to me that he is a natural choice for diverting text. He is also a person with an amazingly lengthy and public diary, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is the Whatever that lives longest in people's interest. I would be surprised if I get to see this prediction come true because, fifty years on from now would be an impressive age to achieve as a person of no wealth or importance or even decent insurance in these United States of which mine is only among the best of those still considered Southern, generally ranked worst in everything, and boy does it not seem likely that anything is going to improve in the near future, because Citizen's United, and gerrymandering, and a Supreme Court majority so partisan and extreme as to be laughable if one could stop crying. Perhaps something good will come of all this and a way will be found to actually pass the laws that the vast majority of the citizenry are begging for, like another assault weapons ban, and an end to the death penalty, and states actually having to equitably pay for the public education they are legally required to provide, and the right of people to make their own decisions about their bodies, who they are, and who they want to marry. Sorry for that digression.
Anyway, Scalzi writes a damn good story, lots of damn good stories in fact, and if you haven't read any of them then you should. Fun for the whole family. And this is one that is going to make a fun summer movie one day.
Brilliant tale of a group drawn together on a quest. The book opens with Marra in the bone pit, an unfamiliar setting and task, but so right. There arBrilliant tale of a group drawn together on a quest. The book opens with Marra in the bone pit, an unfamiliar setting and task, but so right. There are three impossible tasks that are firmly grounded in domesticity. The quest proceeds at a walking pace, but it is never boring. There are grim scenes and horrible acts, bur there is so much humor in real world reactions to fantasy concepts.
There is a trip to the goblin market, as there is in
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. Both of these scenes manage to convey the wonder and the fear of so much that is uncanny and inconceivable.
Kingfisher gives us an even more mundane person than Frodo. trying to accomplish the impossible because it must be done, but here it is the unlikely hero who gathers the party and makes the plans and worries about having enough blankets. The result is a fairytale that feels familiar but is refreshingly unexpected.
It's odd that one of the the blurbs for this, not the one on this actual edition, contains two big plot points which are not present in the text. I amIt's odd that one of the the blurbs for this, not the one on this actual edition, contains two big plot points which are not present in the text. I am left wondering of there were significant revisions at some point, or no one familiar with the text ever bothered to read the blurb, or there is some kind of time travel/magic/multiverse shenanigans. Along the same vein, I have been wanting to read this for years because I thought it was about Christopher Marlowe, which it is not, at all.
Nor did I realize it was a swashbuckling extravaganza, and fun with that. In retrospect, I wonder if Neal Stephenson considered it an influence on The Baroque Cycle.
I'm glad it's been reissued: it deserves more readers...more
Last week was a conference that left me totally burned out by the end of each day. So I caught up on Murderbot. The first four books are nOctober 2021
Last week was a conference that left me totally burned out by the end of each day. So I caught up on Murderbot. The first four books are novellas, then there's an interstitial short story and then a full length novel. I recommend reading them in order at least the first time through. After using #1 for paint it Black, I'm putting #2 and #3 together for one Halloween Bingo square, and then #4 and #4.5 for one, and then #5 on its own. There's less snark and more about the universe, lots of complexity.
Read for Dystopian Hellscape
***
December 2023
This series re-read is preparation for reading the newest in the series, which is up to 7. It's hard to imagine that I could ever grow tired of this series. It has the same sort of moral tone as many classics of mysteries golden age. There are people doing horrible things, of course, but the ubiquitous evil is recognized as such.
And as fond as I am of a romance, I really appreciate a protagonist who isn't interested in any of that emotionally and physically messy stuff.
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