Best described as what would happen if Doctor Who violently collided with Cloud Atlas and they had a love-child.
How High We Go... is a deftly Best described as what would happen if Doctor Who violently collided with Cloud Atlas and they had a love-child.
How High We Go... is a deftly written, intricately woven story, and a good thing too, considering that at the heart of it, it tells the story of a global pandemic, climate change, and general human tragedy. But also, it tells the story of the aftermath. And that's kind of where the beauty of the book lies, in a way. The world around me is dying, as I write this. There is a global pandemic, and man-made climate change is worse than ever. There's also a full-blown war going on. I genuinely can't say with much conviction that things will get better tomorrow morning. On the other hand, I also have a reputation for being "stupidly optimistic". So for the stupidly optimistic side of me, the humanity of this book was like a balm.
The story itself is a la Cloud Atlas; broken up into chapters, but all adding up to tell an overarching story. Also like Cloud Atlas, its characters are ... connected. Kind of. It intersperses the tragedy of pestilence and destruction with the indomitable and stupidly optimistic hope of human achievement and goodness. Don't get me wrong, but even stupidly optimistic people lose their hope in humanity sometimes, and this book is for those moments.
How High We Go... does an admirable job of contrasting the mundane, everyday realities of living in a pandemic, like the logistics of burying one's loved ones, with the bleak, detached business decisions people take, like profiting off of euthanasia parks and eulogy hotels. Just when you feel like you're teetering on the edge of the hopelessness of it all, the book pulls you back with warmth and hope. Because, maybe humans are like cockroaches, we survive everything, but I think there is something to be admired about the ambition and resilience of it all.
In the real world, people comfort themselves with ignorance, politics, and faith, but here in the domes only hard numbers matter.
The first almost 75-80% of the book was sheer perfection. It tragically falters a little towards the end, collapsing a little bit under its own weight, but that's easily forgiven. Sequoia Nagamatsu tries to tie up the loose ends in a tidy, slightly impractical bow, which I unfortunately saw coming. I'm not saying that this takes away from the otherwise excellently done book, but also, it does, a little bit. On the other hand, for a debut novel, it's remarkably well written. Can I tell if it's a debut? If I look hard enough; there's an earnestness in the writing that I've come to associate with debuts, among other reasons. But we humans, the thing that makes us resilient is that we accept that everything and everyone is flawed, and move on. And that's exactly what I'm going to do here....more
Cyberwar is one of the absolutely most riveting pieces of non fiction I have read in a while. Maybe it's because it does, in fact read like a spy noveCyberwar is one of the absolutely most riveting pieces of non fiction I have read in a while. Maybe it's because it does, in fact read like a spy novel. Maybe it's because it confirms everything I'd suspected, but also simultaneously, that only makes it more terrifying. But mostly, because nothing gets my wheels going like international politics.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the foremost expert on campaign communications. She has spent her career studying how campaigns craft and disseminate their messages to the masses. As someone who is trying to learn more about how press and policy influence each other, I have made it my pet project to determine if generally influencing the elections and general public opinion in any country would constitute a crime against humanity. Jamieson delves into the dark, seedy world of campaign politics, the Kremlin, and everything in between. Her research solely depends on facts, and doesn't look at sensationalising those facts.
This is especially evident in the fact that she emphasises vehemently, multiple times, that it wasn't that the Russians made Trump win the elections, just that they influence the public dialogue in the US just enough to exacerbate the divide between, to put it simply, the liberals and the conservatives. Armed with thousands of Twitter handles, and Facebook accounts that constituted only a tenth of that number, it is equally terrifying and fascinating how the Russians were able to push those that were on the fence, just enough to the right to get the results they wanted. In an increasingly political world that seems to run on social media, Jamieson's book talks about exactly why we need to be scrupulous about using and understanding data we find on the internet. Of course, her book is an academic work, and that is not the solid "moral" of the story. But if your take away from this is not "holy shit, people can write whatever they want on the internet and I need to be careful with where I get my facts from", then I don't know....more
The final edition of The Lunar Chronicles is really, really long. To be exact, this book is over 800 pages long. I couldn't understand what Meyer had The final edition of The Lunar Chronicles is really, really long. To be exact, this book is over 800 pages long. I couldn't understand what Meyer had to say for 800 pages, seeing as there really wasn't much left to do, but she did an amazing job of it. There were too many things happening in it for me to get bored, and honestly, the 800 pages didn't seem like 800. Winter, here, is the girl of Ice and Snow; a version of Snow White, but not entirely. You see, Winter is a woman of colour.
I mean, it is just another space adventure where people get captured and their friends rescue them, but it's done well. Let me be honest here, I really didn't expect to like Winter as much as I did. She was crazy, literally, but she was so in an incredibly touching and endearing manner. Of course, the cause for her craziness is as altruistic as can be. I think perhaps the best part of this book for me was the contrast between Winter and Levana; between why the former was loved while the latter was loathed. Levana attributes the Lunar people's adoration of Winter to her beauty, whereas it is in fact her character, her voluntary descent into sickness due to not using her "Lunar gift" to manipulate people, that draws people to her. I can also draw parallels to both their stories, in that both were (technically) royalty, and, both fell in low with "lowly" guards. Except in Winter's case, he loved her back, and in Levana's, well, it's really quite difficult to love that woman. I really, really like Cinder in this one; she uses her powers to start a (successful) revolution. Thorne is hilarious and helpful, as is Cress. My one grievance, if any, is that there isn't enough Scarlet or Wolf in this. They're just...there. They don't really do much, and seeing as these were my favourites, that was disappointing. Of course, the ending is all happy and perfect. Well, mostly it is. In true fairy tale style, everyone lived happily ever after.
All in all, it was a pretty fitting, albeit predictable ending to a series I quite enjoyed. ...more
Levana knew a great deal about beauty, just as she knew a great deal about ugliness.
Unpopular opinion time. Fairest was a cop out. It took a spectLevana knew a great deal about beauty, just as she knew a great deal about ugliness.
Unpopular opinion time. Fairest was a cop out. It took a spectacularly vicious, utterly wicked, and ridiculously vile villain and...ruined her. Look, I get the point of a sympathetic back story, I do. Just that here, it was uncalled for. Let me be clear here, as this is probably a case of "me, not you", that I do not like stories, whether real or fictional, where purely evil acts committed by purely evil characters (or people) are justified by a sufficiently sympathetic back story. I have two problems with this form of story-telling. First, I do not like it when people, whether in fiction or otherwise, try to justify an immoral act by saying, "but oh, they suffered too". An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind and all that. Secondly, in fiction, I don't like it when the writer tries to make a character that has been utterly loved, or utterly loathed thus far, suddenly have these various shades of grey. I get that the idea is to humanise these characters, make them more (or less) flawed, and hence more realistic, but it doesn't always work. Fairest is one such story. It just doesn't work.
I don't feel bad for Levana; in fact, where I begrudgingly admired her ambition and grit in the previous books, albeit with severe distaste and disgust, in this book, I detest her. At the risk of giving mild spoilers, not only does she coerce a man into marrying her almost immediately after the death of his wife, but also constantly dreams about hurting her niece. The latter, I can understand, sort of, seeing as how her mother is the incarnation of the Devil, but I mean, much like Solstice, all I can do is pity her. And not kindly, with sympathy, but with distance and disdain. Levana could have used her powers for good, but she spent so much time trying to make people love her, the result is quite the opposite - she uses her powers for evil and people hate her. She was no different from her parents or her sister; her only desire was power. Power as the Queen, yes, but power also in love, or what she thought was love.
This story honestly caused more harm than good. It tried to humanise the villain, but ended up making her far, far worse (in my eyes at least), instead. Either that or I'm reading too much into it. In any case, I didn't like it....more
Have you ever had the experience of having had a good meal followed by a very average dessert? Maybe the pie crust was too doughy, or the gu3.5 stars.
Have you ever had the experience of having had a good meal followed by a very average dessert? Maybe the pie crust was too doughy, or the gulab jamoon didn't melt in your mouth. It wasn't a bad dessert, but somehow, it didn't live up to your expectations because the first two courses were so spectacular. That dessert is Cress. It's not a bad book, but the previous two books were so good, this one is a bit of a let down. The cause of this unfortunate disappointment is Cress herself.
Cress was, in her own way, a badass. I get that. Here again, I admire Meyer's range as a writer, because writing four female protagonists who are strong in their own right, each with their own quirks and characteristics. Each with their own strengths that make them strong, female protagonists. With Cress, however, she believes she's a damsel in distress, and is in need of rescuing. By Thorne. Cress is, however, a badass damsel in distress, if that makes sense, so I don't actually hate her. I just don't find her as endearing and engaging as Scarlet, nor do I quietly admire her as I do Cinder. I also feel like Thorne, being the blazing, flamboyant, cocky, womanising hero he is, romancing the naive manic pixie dream girl that is Cress, is rather far-fetched. But somehow, Meyer makes it work. Because Thorne is also funny, smart and kind, while Cress has a heart of gold. AND THIS WORKS!
Cinder shows tremendous growth as a character, and I truly believe this girl will be an excellent ruler someday. I do not envy Kai's position one bit, although Levana is quite spectacular. Of course because this is, in essence, a space adventure, some of our heroes get separated, and thus, the others have to hunt for said separated people. Here, I feel like Meyer uses this as an excellent opportunity to introduce new characters, and also to introduce new dimensions to old characters.
Overall an average book, although that ending was incredible. Still recommend it with all my heart....more
Ah, Scarlet. How do I serenade thee? Scarlet, like Scarlet, was by no means perfect. Yet, it had this charm to it, a charm you only see in flawed charAh, Scarlet. How do I serenade thee? Scarlet, like Scarlet, was by no means perfect. Yet, it had this charm to it, a charm you only see in flawed characters or books. It is a retelling of Red Riding Hood, and it is a good one at that. Okay, it is literally Red Riding Hood. Girl with reference to the colour red in her name tries to rescue grandmother from wolf. However, what if the wolf wasn't actually bad, Meyer imagines, and in this particular case, that actually works. Scarlet and Wolf are, by some random luck of the universe, perfect for each other, and their chemistry is so, so much more palpable than that of Cinder and Kai. Scarlet is like the colour scarlet. I could not imagine a more appropriate name for her. She is feisty, smart, and can stand her ground (to be fair to Cinder, she can do all of this as well). Wolf, on the other hand, although I verily dislike his name, he is of the tall, dark, and brooding variety, which, honestly, do you want anything more from a hero? Or, to be fair, from an anti-hero? Anti-heroes falling for the feisty girls are my favourite kind of romance. Well, no, but I quite like it. Meyer's strength lies in creating powerful characters, especially female, each different from the other. Whether on the proverbial good side or bad, they are very well-fleshed out with their own personality traits; with specific traits that define them. I don't just mean Cinder and Scarlet and Levana here, but also characters like Michelle and Sybil. What is also appealing is that while it seems like the ladies have the reins, well, they actually do. But nonetheless, the men aren't merely supporting characters; they have personalities too, and in these books, this formula works. Works so very well.
On the other side, Cinder escapes prison with Cadet Captain Thorne, and that does lead to some fun moments, mostly because Thorne is ...fun. An annoying dick at times, but a fun one, nonetheless. They go on adventures, trying to find out more about Cinder's past, because, well, for obvious reasons. This addition of new characters and inclusion of multiple plot points make the story more engaging than the previous one. Levana is as evil as ever, in fact more so, if that could be possible, and somehow, unlike the previous book, her villainy is as entertaining as it is disturbing. Another element from the previous series she retains is the subtle social commentary, or maybe that's just me trying to an extra layer where the author didn't intend there to be one. Either way, it works.
Meyer is very adept in keeping her readers hooked, and she had me jumping to the next book posthaste. In many ways, Scarlet (and Scarlet) is very different from Cinder, and Cinder, thus displaying Meyer's excellent prowess and vast range as an author. In many other ways, however, the second book is not so different from the first to distract you from the original story line. In bringing in additional characters, Meyer doesn't change the story, rather, she builds on it. I'm really not a fan of this genre; I'm one of the few people who didn't like The Hunger Games so much, so I think you should take my word for this....more
I realised that I didn't have a problem with fairy tale retellings sometime ago, when I read Snow, Glass and Apples by Neil Gaiman. More recently, wheI realised that I didn't have a problem with fairy tale retellings sometime ago, when I read Snow, Glass and Apples by Neil Gaiman. More recently, when I read Cinder, which, by the way, I did not expect to like as much as I did, I realised I quite like fairy tale retellings. In all fairness, Cinder is not the kind of book I would have ideally liked. Its prose isn't perfect, in fact, it is quite choppy in many places. That said, the strength of this book lies in its story. Meyer took an abstract concept and gave it life, which is more than I can say for most other YA/Fantasy novels I've read. While, of course, because of its genre, it does retain some of the common YA/Fantasy tropes, it also contains a strong enough story to back those tropes, and to remove attention from some of the books more obvious imagery.
Story-wise, it is like an extrapolation of the fifth story in David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas; the story about the "inferior" clones and the "superior" humans who, er, own them. In that, in the world represented in Cinder, we have the "superior" humans who look down upon the "inferior" cyborgs and androids. It does not baffle me that even after having conquered the moon and recognised how to successfully fuse people with robots, the human race is still very much obsessed with its ridiculous and pointless interest in social hierarchy. Meyer does an excellent job of introducing this social issue of difference, might I even say, racism (speciesism?) in this story. For instance, one of the recurring themes of this series is a sort of plague called letumosis, and hundreds are dying from it. There is, of course, no cure for it, but in the bargain of finding a cure, the cyborgs are treated as lab rats, because shouldn't they be grateful to the humans for "accepting" and "providing" for them? It was made out to be some sort of honor, giving your life for the good of humanity, but it was really just a reminder that cyborgs were not like everyone else. Many of them had been given a second chance at life by the generous hand of scientists and therefore owed their very existence to those who had created them. They were lucky to have lived this long, many thought. It’s only right that they should be the first to give up their lives in search for the cure. I mean, I am a "social justice warrior" to the core; even in fiction, this made me raving mad, and also left me slightly amused because, honestly, I don't expect any less from "humanity". My misplaced self-righteousness apart, the story itself was very engaging, which was what made it a very solid read despite its obvious flaws.
Meet Cinder. She's a cyborg, meaning she's part human, part wires and computers and prosthetics. To be precise, she's 36.28% "not human". She works as a mechanic in New Beijing, and meets the charming Prince Kai in a (not so chance) encounter, when he asks her fix his android. Cinder has her own charming android, Iko, and I'm pretty sure she's meant to be a replacement to Cinderella's pets. Because this is another Cinderella story, of course, the Prince falls is smitten by the pretty, snarky mechanic. However, like all fairy tales, it has a villain, and in this, alongwith the evil stepmother of course, it is the Lunar Queen Levana.
So it's important here that I mention that these lunars have a sort of magical talent that they call "glamour", which is essentially a smokescreen. Let me elaborate. So a "glamour" is a manipulation of the "bioelectrical energy" around people. You can use glamour to make yourself look prettier (or uglier, if that's your thing), but also to manipulate others into loving, admiring, adoring (again, or hating, loathing) you. So the Lunars are, in that aspect, more powerful than the Earthens. However, because all evil superpowers should have a weakness, this glamour doesn't work in reflections, netscreens, or with Lunars called shells, who are basically those Lunars who cannot manipulate bioelectrical energy. Phew. Complex, innit? But fun, nonetheless. Or maybe I was just feeling generous.
So anyway. This Levana wants to become the supreme ruler of the Universe (by which I mean the Earth and the Moon), and she plans to do so by marrying Prince Kai and conquering the Eastern Empire (dystopian Asia) first. Because she's evil, she's obviously a genocidal maniac, who is willing to kill shells because they can see through her glamour, kill Lunars who get caught trying to escape her tyranny...basically kill anyone she considers disobedient. I honestly loathe her with the passion of a thousand burning suns, but in a manner that is cathartic to me. But of course, there's a catch to all of Levana's ambitions, and what it is becomes very obvious quite early in the story.
That said, despite the trope-y heroes and villains, the characterisation in this story is quite well-done. Prince Kai is a manic pixie dream boy, but I'd much rather have that than an asshole with no regard to people's feelings. He's also depicted as kind and wise, and with a good amount of self-respect and self control. A prince with a personality. Who'd have thunk. Cinder, on the other hand, is smart, opinionated, and sarcastic, albeit prone to moments of stupidity and impulsiveness. There's the wise and loyal adviser, Torin, to complement the evil Sybil. There is, of course, the very Disney villain-esque Levana, who I'm sure will get a tragic backstory in the next books, but I don't think there is anything that could make me sympathise with a homicidal maniac.
All in all, a really fun read. (view spoiler)[Although I hate cliffhangers. Ugh. (hide spoiler)] I mean, it pushed me to read the second book immediately, and with me, that's saying something. Read it if you want a fun time!...more
Precisely why all the above (below, in this review, I guess) should be so is not clear, but goes some way to explain why, on the disc, the Gods arePrecisely why all the above (below, in this review, I guess) should be so is not clear, but goes some way to explain why, on the disc, the Gods are not so much worshipped as blamed.
Have you ever wondered about what would happen if you were merely a pawn in a game played by gods? Have you ever wondered about how living in a Flat-Earth would be? Would you like to learn about what failed wizards do in their free time? Are you curious about how dragons are born and how they rest? Do you want to understand what insurance actually means? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then The Colour of Magic is the book for you. However, if you're a pragmatist, and lack imagination, I would suggest you steer clear of the book.
Welcome to Discworld; the land of the strange and scary, of the weird and wonderful. It's important to know, before you enter this magical and frankly absurd land, that you are a pawn in a life-sized game of Dungeons and Dragons. There is no escaping that. Do not make deals with Fate, do not sing prayers for The Lady; perhaps, just perhaps, you might just survive. Though, well, you do start to question whether surviving is actually worth it. Journey along with sarcastic and cynical Rincewind, a failed wizard, and Twoflower, a tourist under his care. Rincewind is an extremely likable character, a rationalist, and quick-witted to the core. Rincewind often suspected that there was something, somewhere, that was better than magic. He was usually disappointed. Twoflower, who sells inn-sewer-ants polly-see, on the other hand, is a typical tourist - he gets excited at every instance, and would rather photograph a fascinating sight than run for his life. Twoflower was a tourist, the first ever seen on the Discworld. Tourist, Rincewind had decided, meant “idiot.” Together, the two make a hilarious and engaging pair, and their story is a definite laugh riot. There are books that employ elements of satire to prove a point; this book, and I believe the series by extension, are wholly satire, and I found myself literally laughing out loud at more than one point.
The story starts at Ankh-Morpork, a city so rife with accidents, nothing quite astounds their citizens anymore. A city of thieves, fraudsters and scoundrels. A city through which flows the filthy River Ankh. In a city where public executions, duels, fights, magical feuds and strange events regularly punctuated the daily round the inhabitants had brought the profession of interested bystander to a peak of perfection. The city of Ankh-Morpork perhaps best explains human beings as a species. Their casual nature, their inclination to defraud, rather than help people in trouble, and their undying love for gold. The journey from there is a meandering one, onto the Temple of Bel-Shamharoth, the temple of the Soul-Eater. There is an escape into the world of Dragons, through an actual aeroplane (like the ones we have on Earth), and onto the Circumfence, yes, Circumfence, not circumference, because you do need a fence at the rim of the Discworld. Our two friends here, they meet heroes and villains, and creatures we mustn't speak of.
In his dry and totally British way, Pratchett mocks religion, and the religious. ...the ravaged roof of the Broken Drum, was wafted high into the Discworld’s atmosphere on the ensuing thermal, and came to earth several days and a few thousand miles away on an uloruaha bush in the beTrobi islands. The simple, laughing islanders subsequently worshipped it as a god, much to the amusement of their more sophisticated neighbors. Strangely enough the rainfall and harvests in the next few years were almost supernaturally abundant, and this led to a research team being dispatched to the islands by the Minor Religions faculty of Unseen University. Their verdict was that it only went to show. He laughs at humans and their follies, at our propensity to regale ourselves with tales of heroes of yore. As says the resident Hero of the book: “I expect in a minute the door will be flung back and I’ll be dragged off to some sort of temple arena where I’ll fight maybe a couple of giant spiders and an eight-foot slave from the jungles of Klatch and then I’ll rescue some kind of a princess from the altar and then kill off a few guards or whatever and then this girl will show me the secret passage out of the place and we’ll liberate a couple of horses and escape with the treasure.” Satire at its absolute best, whole book is.
Learn about Dragons you can summon with your imagination, and the significance of the number 8. Experience the colour Octarine, and the 8-banded Rimbow. Communicate with different languages whose words make no sense at all. Understand how magic is actually, really, quite difficult. Have hair-raising adventures with Rincewind, Twoflower, and his sentient luggage, Luggage. Curse the gods, the ghosts and the monsters. Read Discworld.
It was all very well going on about pure logic and how the universe was ruled by logic and the harmony of numbers, but the plain fact of the matter was that the Disc was manifestly traversing space on the back of a giant turtle and the gods had a habit of going around to atheists’ houses and smashing their windows.
P.S., before I sign off, my good friend, The Doctor would like to explain to you what time is, because here, on Discworld, it's important to know what time is, and what it isn't.
I wrote a paper on African-American representation for a class I was taking, and so I read Binti. Like every book I have read written by an African-AmI wrote a paper on African-American representation for a class I was taking, and so I read Binti. Like every book I have read written by an African-American woman, Binti is not only entertaining, but also offers excellent commentary on race and race relations. The way that Binti does this differently is by making an intergalactic space drama of it. And, it works.
What do you do when you're the only person that survives a mass attack? And you're the first person from your race to have ever been put in this situation, for more than one reason? You use your skills and strengths to your advantage to survive, of course. Something I thoroughly enjoyed reading.
So why the four stars, you ask? As someone who studies wars and war crimes professionally, I know that wars don't end with agreements and treaties as tenuous as in Binti. What's more, I think the way it is portrayed in the book is unethical, because more violence isn't the solution to violence, and it is definitely not a longer lasting solution.
That is, in and of itself, a very minor flaw as compared to the rest of the book, so of course, I recommend it. ...more
Turns out I had a slew of ARCs to finish. So, here goes nothing.
Interesting premise, horrible execution. This was a tiny book, but the grammar is so aTurns out I had a slew of ARCs to finish. So, here goes nothing.
Interesting premise, horrible execution. This was a tiny book, but the grammar is so appalling, I cried myself to sleep. Author has zero knowledge of past perfect tense, and my delicate grammar Nazi brain cannot handle it. ARCs have become a platform for me to make PSAs, apparently, so prospective authors, listen, if you have an idea for a book and you think it's a good one, let me write it for you - I'll get the tenses right, the voices right, even the numbers right. You don't have to pay me, or give me any credit; I don't care about any of that. What I do have strong feelings about is the brutal assassination of the English language. I can't sit here and see it butchered mercilessly. It makes me want to weep. I'm not asking you to embellish your prose with grandiloquent words, and figures of speeches; far from it, actually. I'm only asking you to recapitulate your 6th grade grammar class, and get your tenses right. There's also some serious work that needs to be done about the sentence structure, but before I get to that, I'd like to clarify that the past perfect tense involves the use of the word 'had' before the verb, because it refers to an action that has already been completed. My point is, if an action has already been completed, and you're talking about it after the effect, said action has to be preceded by 'had'. Geez, Anuradha. No one came here for a grammar lesson, you say? Well, when the tense has been ignored at every. single. goddamned instance, I feel like people need to be made aware that the tense actually exists. There were errors regarding the other tenses as well, like the simple past tense, and past participle tense, but nothing quite as blatant as this. However, the first conclusion I drew as I progressed through this book was that Mr. Sharma had paid little attention in his grammar class, when the teacher was discussing tenses.
Anyway, moving on, let's talk a bit about sentence structure, shall we? The problem with this book was that there is no sentence structure. So I've read my fair share of badly written books, and the one thing I can say about them is that even if the writing there has been bad, it's been uniformly bad. Here, however, there is no uniformity in the errors made while framing sentences also. I mean, I tried rectifying some of the errors, but thing is, in most cases, I had to rewrite the entire sentence for it to make any sense, while being grammatically correct. When your English teacher told you to let words flow, this wasn't what she meant. For instance, you don't shoot someone on her head, you shoot someone in the head. Anyway, there are too many things wrong with this book grammatically, and for me to try and change these things without risking therapy would be impossible.
The story itself was very well crafted; honestly, this was the book's only redeeming factor. It was sufficiently suspenseful, and while I did feel like some aspects were pretty far-fetched, these aspects did not overpower the suspense bit. Trust me, you guys, the grammar in this book is the worst I've read so far, and yet, I managed to get to the end of this book. The story was good. I love me a good thriller, and this makes for one. It reads like any good Criminal Minds episode, albeit with its own Bollywood-esque touch. I wouldn't say it had me guessing till the end, but I was curious enough to want to know what happened next. I do dock points for ending it on a cliff-hanger, but I kind of want to know what happens next, ya know? Except, maybe hire a ghostwriter for part two, because, grammar. Man, you have got work on the grammar. ...more
This book was weird. I mean, it had elements that I like in a book generally; like a very well-fleshed out and likable protagonist, a pretty solid, alThis book was weird. I mean, it had elements that I like in a book generally; like a very well-fleshed out and likable protagonist, a pretty solid, albeit predictable story line, and sublime writing. But something didn't click; something I can't exactly put my finger on.
A symphony cellist braves the consequences of a political nightmare at the Panama Canal, as the ship she is on is attacked by, for lack of a better word, terrorists. Pretty straightforward, right? Right? WRONG! How about you add in some surreal, violent, vivid dreams, some of which leave you with your head in your hands wondering "what the fuck did I just read", and explicit rape? Still not satisfied? Cool, just bring in the Expendables. Except all the Expendables have somehow entered the soul of the cellist, and now she can do anything? Cool, you've got yourself a book.
I have to say though, that the writing was fantastic. It kept me going through all the fuckery, and for that, I have to agree that Banks is a really good writer, and that I have been curious about Wasp Factory for a while now. What an I say, the bizarre attracts me like a moth to a flame. ...more
"I'm Mrs. Amelia Bellowes," she said quietly, in her best company voice. "I'm from the planet Earth."
I feel like with this book, you get a taste o"I'm Mrs. Amelia Bellowes," she said quietly, in her best company voice. "I'm from the planet Earth."
I feel like with this book, you get a taste of what it could have been like had Bradbury written The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
What happens when a bunch of little old ladies spend their life savings so they can finally see God? They get cheated, of course. "But it was all a fake. I don't know anything about space. He's not out there, anyway. I lied. I don't know where He is, and I couldn't find Him if I wanted to. And you were fools to ever take my word on it."
Written in classic Bradbury style, with rich prose, punctuated with humour, A Little Journey is a little journey indeed. And a delightful one at that.
COME TO MARS! Stay at the Thirkell Restorium for one week. And then, on into space on the greatest adventure life can offer! Send for Free Pamphlet: "Nearer My God To Thee." Excursion rates. Round trip slightly lower.
"Round trip," Mrs. Bellowes had thought. "But who would come back after seeing Him?" Right you are, Mrs. Bellowes. Right you are.
I've always wondered why, as humanity, we're drawn to "dystopia" as a genre. Then I realised that maybe, just maybe, it's because we're fascinated witI've always wondered why, as humanity, we're drawn to "dystopia" as a genre. Then I realised that maybe, just maybe, it's because we're fascinated with the idea of all that is unknown, and what could be more uncertain than the future?
To be blind is not the same as being dead, Yes, but to be dead is to be blind.Blindness teaches us that dystopia isn't always about a tyrannical government. It teaches us that there are worse ways to go than the zombie apocalypse. We take our senses for granted, we do. What if, even for a day, all of us were to lose our sight. Or even an hour. The chaos it would cause in our otherwise "normal" lives. We would become, for lack of a better word, animals. This is exactly what this magnum opus does; it takes away the sight, just the sight of the everyone, resulting in a world ridden with absolute anarchy. ...blind in eyes and blind in feelings, because the feelings with which we have lived and we allowed us to live as we were, depended on our having the eyes we were born with, without eyes, feelings become something different, we do not know how, we do not know what...
This epidemic of blindness brings out the rawest, most primal instincts in the people. Take, for instance, the doctor. Respectable, he loved his wife. And yet, he lay with the girl in the dark glasses. Because what an unhappy lot we are. Indeed, the blind are always at war, have always been at war. Blind leading the blind? But then again, who leads the blind? A tyrant? Looking for his fifteen minutes of fame, of wealth, and of orgasmic pleasure? Or a woman? Kind, compassionate, and yet, so broken, she longed to curl up inside herself. They (women) after all, are said to have more resistance. Was it really the "gift" of sight, though? To see all the horror, the filth? To see her husband make love to another woman? To see the man who raped her? To see the death and the destruction? Blindness will never make us better people.
Buddy read with the amazing Fabian (whom everyone here knows as Councillor).
If this doesn't end up on my t7. COLLECTING MY THOUGHTS: A REVIEW BY A. H.
Buddy read with the amazing Fabian (whom everyone here knows as Councillor).
If this doesn't end up on my top three reads in 2017, I will eat my hat. Before I start my review, I must say I love Matthias's review of this book. Not only is it my favourite review of the book, but it is one of the best book reviews I've ever read.
Also, I was skimming some of the reviews of this book, and from what I could see, not many people liked Half-lives - The First Luisa Rey Mystery. I, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed it, because I love me some hard-boiled detective stories. What slowed me down, however, was Sloosha's Crossin' and Ev'rythin' After.
Bradbury crafts in this an eerie tale of death and destruction, of a world where the house lives, and goes about itRecommended by Mia's lovely review.
Bradbury crafts in this an eerie tale of death and destruction, of a world where the house lives, and goes about its daily activities even as its residents have perished in a disaster. I can tell you one thing, I do not want to be around when this actually happens.
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