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perlmonger[ lifts head (still not) gingerly above parapet ]
Yes, I am still alive. Pointless status posts and linkspam are going to Twitter, and thence to Facebook, these days, and what with moving (back for me, forward forramtops) to Hull and werk I've not had time or brain capacity to write anything substantive.
What I have been doing since the autumn, when the Books app I use on Facebook started offering me the option, is writing a few words (if not anything much like a review) of the books I read. These get lost in the historical maw of FB so, as much for my reference as anything else, I'm going to start reposting them here.
As a start, here's what I read last year, with a few worms for the last few:
Yes, I am still alive. Pointless status posts and linkspam are going to Twitter, and thence to Facebook, these days, and what with moving (back for me, forward for
ramtops) to Hull and werk I've not had time or brain capacity to write anything substantive.What I have been doing since the autumn, when the Books app I use on Facebook started offering me the option, is writing a few words (if not anything much like a review) of the books I read. These get lost in the historical maw of FB so, as much for my reference as anything else, I'm going to start reposting them here.
As a start, here's what I read last year, with a few worms for the last few:
- The World of Tiers, Volume 1 ("Maker of Universes", "Gates of Creation" and "Private Cosmos") - Philip Jose Farmer
- The World of Tiers, Volume 2 ("Behind the Walls of Terra" and "Lavalite World") - Philip Jose Farmer
- Nine Princes in Amber: The Chronicles of Amber Book One - Roger Zelazny
- The Guns of Avalon - Roger Zelazny
- Sign of the Unicorn (Doubleday Science Fiction) - Roger Zelazny
- The Hand of Oberon - Roger Zelazny
- The Courts of Chaos - Roger Zelazny
- Trumps of Doom - Roger Zelazny
- Blood of Amber - Roger Zelazny
- Sign of Chaos - Roger Zelazny
- Knight of Shadows (Orbit Books) - Roger Zelazny
- The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell
- The Owl Service (Lions S.) - Alan Garner
- The Watcher (The Women's Press Science Fiction Series) - Jane Palmer
- That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation - Bernstein Sycamore
- City of Saints and Madmen - Jeff VanderMeer
- Use of Weapons - Iain M. Banks
- Viriconium: "In Viriconium", "Viriconium Nights" - John Harrison
- Maul - Tricia Sullivan
- Jerusalem Commands (Between the Wars) - Michael Moorcock
- Children of God (Black Swan original) - Mary Doria Russell
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: Children's Edition - Mark Haddon
- Omnibus: At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels of Terror No. 1 (H.P. Lovecraft Omnibus) - H.P. Lovecraft
- Chinese Agent - Michael Moorcock
- The Russian Intelligence - Michael Moorcock
- Northern Lights - Philip Pullman
- The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman
"The Subtle Knife" was a little disappointing this time round - it's hard handling a multi-threaded middle book in a trilogy with grace, and Pullman didn't quite manage it for me, though the bleak ending helps redeem the book a little.
Now for "Pete! Pete! They've got castors!" (please forgive private joke :) - The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials S.) - Philip Pullman
Now *that's* why I wanted to re-read the trilogy: best of the three by far, and ending the only way it could. - The Execution Channel - Ken MacLeod
I don't think I'd have finished as Ken did (as if I could ever have written it the first place :) but I can see why he did, and it just about works in a compressed summary sort of way: I can forgive a lot for the splendid way the book got there, particularly from the PoV of this child of 70s left/anarchist/environmental politics.
I love it that *nobody* who appears as a character in the book really knows WTF is going on. - Back to Methuselah - Bernard Shaw
Reading Shaw's long preface, and reflecting on how little has really changed in the getting on for 90 years since it was written.
(My edition is the 1939 Penguin paperback, ex. my dad's library, FWIW; it's on Amazon, but the Books app doesn't include it in its picklist.)
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Fascinating: this really was an illustration of SF (and I don't think that's an unreasonable categorisation) being a reflection of, a spotlight on, the society and time in which it is written.
From my position of 99 years junior, the casual racism, sexism and classism in the book was beyond jarring to almost unreadable, even where (as often) Shaw was clearly subverting his audience's expectations (the parlour maid gaining longevity, power and wisdom when the politicians and scientists did not). It was also distressing, if unsurprising, to read how little politicians as a species have changed (and improved not one whit) in the intervening years.
A vision of the future as peopled with early 20th C British sensibilities as (say) Doc Smith is with mid 20th American, but with infinitely better writing; saturated with the author's Lamarckian vitalism (and conflation of Darwinian evolution, unadorned with any directing energy, with Social Darwinism, which may well have been a commonplace of his time), but still and again: fascinating and worth the time to read. - Space Machine: A Scientific Romance - Christopher Priest
Slight, but entertaining (I liked Edward's bemusement at Amelia's never having mentioned the linen cloths in her handbag) conflation of two of Wells' best known works; one for the charity shop heap before we leave for Hull, I think. - When We Were Orphans - Kazuo Ishiguro
An odd book: I'm really not sure what it was trying to be, other than itself. Still, it was quite good at being itself, and on the whole I'm glad I read it. - Albion - John Grant
I loved this first time round, bounced off it last time I tried it a few years back, and (with minor qualifications) loved it again this time. It's an interesting premise, if you don't look at its internal consistency too closely, and a worthy attempt to avoid most and the worst patriarchal holes that fantasy is prone to (even often when written by women). Only Grant's seeming inability not to in some way describe, or at least mention, the breasts of all his female protagonists really let it down at all, and even there I'm being picky as he's hardly crass about it. Bechdel passed with ease. - The World - John Grant
A far more ambitious work than "Albion", and one that, in spite of (because of?) its reliance on an utter shit as the main viewpoint character in the latter parts of the book, works beautifully well. Also, I'm very fond of pigs, and not just innabun; Fine beasts often sadly maligned [gruntle, rootle].
The underlying games with realities and perception to book is constructed around made me think of Josephine Saxton before, and Trish Sullivan after: this is not in any way whatsoever a criticism :) - The Good Soldier Svejk and His Fortunes in the World War (Penguin Modern Classics) - Jaroslav Hasek
Finally finished (what there is of) Švejk last night; not been much time for reading recently. A wonderful, deeply subversive, book that got steadily more cynical about power and the war machine as it progressed: I'd love to have read what Hašek made of the horror and chaos of the Front itself, but it wasn't to be.