Bragan Reads on in 2019, Pt 2

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Bragan Reads on in 2019, Pt 2

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1bragan
Abr 7, 2019, 1:34 pm

I'm a bit late with my new thread for the second quarter of 2019. I blame the fact that the book I started April with took me entirely too long to finish. But here I am at last! I have to admit, I feel like I've been in a little bit of a book slump lately, at least by my standards. Here's hoping that rectifies itself soon and I end up with lots and lots of awesome reading on this thread.

In the meantime, I don't usually bother doing this, but since there's fewer than usual, I figured I'd recap the year's books so far:

January
1. Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke
2. A Man of Shadows by Jeff Noon
3. Calypso by David Sedaris
4. There but for the by Ali Smith
5. The Iliad by Gareth Hinds
6. The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake by Dr. Steven Novella, with Bob Novella, Cara Santa Maria, Jay Novella, & Evan Bernstein
7. Arrival by Ted Chiang
8. Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong
9. The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths are Solving America's Coldest Cases by Deborah Halber
10. Brown Girl in the Ring by Nalo Hopkinson

February
11. The Magic Misfits by Neil Patrick Harris
12. The Shelf: From LEQ to LES: Adventures in Extreme Reading by Phyllis Rose
13. The Oracle Year by Charles Soule
14. The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin
15. The Museum of Words: A Memoir of Language, Writing, and Mortality by Georgia Blain
16. Stories by O. Henry by O. Henry
17. Alice Isn't Dead by Joseph Fink
18. The Earth After Us: What Legacy Will Humans Leave in the Rocks? by Jan Zalasiewicz

March
19. The Monster Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson
20. Love: Ruining Everything Since 12 Billion B.C. by Zach Weinersmith
21. Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
22. Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
23. Time Traders by Andre Norton
24. The Love of a Good Woman by Alice Munro
25. Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward
26. The Missy Chronicles by James Goss et al.

2bragan
Editado: Abr 7, 2019, 3:27 pm

And now, onward into April:

27. Thirteen by Richard K. Morgan



Carl Marsalis is a variant thirteen, genetically engineered for aggressive, hypermasculine traits. His kind were meant to be super-soldiers, but now exist in a society that hates and fears them. Marsalis makes a living hunting down other thirteens, but he's about to be hired for something much more strange and complicated than usual.

I find myself with very mixed feelings about this one. I'm not sure how much of that is due to me picking it up at the wrong time and with the wrong impressions, though. It looked like it was going to be a fast-paced action thriller, the kind of thing that would be great for a sleep-deprived week of night shifts when my brain wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders. Well, there is definitely lots of action (and lots of violence and sex), but there are also lots of political and philosophical conversations, lots of complex world-building, and a surprisingly complicated plot.

Mind you, even taking into account the sluggishness of my brain at following some of the plot, I'm still not sure what I think about that plot. It's an interesting set-up, and it ends in an interesting place, but some of the twists along the way are a bit... much. And those long political and philosophical conversations do slow down the pace and kill the momentum quite a bit. As for the philosophy itself, well, I'm not really buying the whole concept of the thirteens and what they're supposed to represent about humanity. Not that Morgan doesn't do some interesting things with it, but interesting isn't exactly the same as convincing.

The world-building, though... That I loved. There's a truly impressive and gratifying amount of care and attention to detail in the way Morgan builds his future world. It's not so much in the big things, the technological advancements and geopolitical changes, although there is certainly enough of that. It's the little references to pop culture or history or current events, things that don't necessarily have anything at all do to with the plot but make the world feel lived-in and real. So much SF, including stuff that I otherwise really like, feels impoverished to me when it comes to that kind of detail, so it always delights and fascinates me to see it done really well. Even during times when I found myself just kind of wishing I could be done with this story already -- and it took me long enough to finish that I definitely did get to that point -- that alone made it feel worthwhile to me.

Rating: 3.5/5. Which might honestly be a bit high, but I just gotta respect that world building.

3rhian_of_oz
Abr 9, 2019, 11:13 am

>2 bragan: This has been on my TBR pile for over 10 years. Maybe this is the year I dust it off!

4dukedom_enough
Abr 9, 2019, 11:49 am

>2 bragan: This novel is the only Richard Morgan I've read. Didn't like it; too much violence. I did appreciate the geopolitical changes, which are beginning to look like a prediction. I liked that he wasn't just a superman. Still, I'm not looking to read another Morgan soon.

5bragan
Abr 9, 2019, 3:54 pm

>3 rhian_of_oz: If you do, I would be interested to see what you think of it. If only because I'm still not entirely sure what I think of it.

>4 dukedom_enough: Yeah, for a book that was published over a decade ago, a lot of that stuff feels very much of the moment. Unfortunately.

The only other Morgan I've read was Altered Carbon, and I remember being surprised by how much I liked that one, but it was long enough ago that I don't remember that much about it.

6rhian_of_oz
Abr 10, 2019, 10:50 am

>5 bragan: It's been a long time since I read the Takeshi Kovacs series so I don't remember much about them, but I do recall that Altered Carbon reminded me of The Forever War.

I've also read Market Forces which explores some interesting concepts.

7bragan
Abr 10, 2019, 3:19 pm

>6 rhian_of_oz: I'm a bit on the fence as to whether I want to read more of Morgan's stuff or not... Maybe eventually I'll go back to the Kovacs series, but I kind of doubt it.

8bragan
Editado: Abr 12, 2019, 2:04 pm

28. An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives by Matt Richtel



When Jason, a close friend of journalist Matt Richtel, was afflicted with lymphoma and received an experimental new immunotherapy drug that, for a while, resulted in dramatic improvement, Richtel was inspired to learn all he could about the immune system and the new medical techniques involving it, and to share his friend's story. This book is the result, although it also features the stories of three other people as well as Jason's: two women with autoimmune disorders, and a man who possesses a natural immunity to AIDS.

Unfortunately, though, the result really isn't quite the book about the immune system I wanted to read. I feel kind of bad saying that. I certainly did learn some things, and some of the moments involving Jason that Richtel shares with us are quite poignant. (Although he does give in to the entirely understandable impulse to share more details about his friend than the book really needed.)

The truth is, Richtel is trying to do a really, really hard thing here. The immune system is fantastically complicated and still not entirely understood, and the field is full of dry, hard-to-remember terminology. Trying to convey all of that to the lay reader in a way that makes sense is difficult, maybe impossible. But, for me, at least, the book errs on the side of trying a little too hard to be accessible. There was one notable moment in here where I finally started getting really into the nitty-gritty science details he was talking about, really finally feeling interested and able to follow the complexities of the thing... and that's the point where Richtel stops his explanation cold with a "Whew!" and an apology for how hard that was to follow. Which I found really frustrating. There are also several moments in the more science-y sections when he deliberately leaves things out, saying he'll deal with that when he gets back to talking about the patients' stories, and moments during the patients' stories when he leaves things out and says he'll get back to that in the science-y parts. I know all of this is meant to help readers stay engaged, by breaking up the technical stuff and focusing on human-interest stuff, but for me it kind of backfired and just made it all harder to follow.

I will say that I do like the parallels he draws between the immune system and human society, including the importance of diversity and the danger of being so focused on protecting "self" against "other" that the "self" ends up being damaged. It's not scientific, by any means, but I think it's actually a very apt analogy.

Also not scientific, but less appealing, is Richtel's willingness to flirt a bit with the pseudoscientific ideas of so-called "alternative medicine." He doesn't do it much, fortunately, but the moments when he does had me rolling my eyes a little.

Anyway. I will say that while this isn't the book about the immune system I wanted, I can see how some -- especially, perhaps, readers with less of a science-y background -- might find it to be much closer to what they want.

Rating: 3/5

(Note: This was a LibraryThing Early Reviewers book.)

9lisapeet
Abr 14, 2019, 11:31 am

>8 bragan: Have you read Eula Biss's On Immunity? It's more of a book-length essay, less hard science than philosophy on immunity and the modern construct of the immune system, but I enjoyed it.

10bragan
Abr 14, 2019, 3:50 pm

>9 lisapeet: I haven't, but it's on my wishlist.

11bragan
Abr 14, 2019, 3:58 pm

29. Young Men in Spats by P.G. Wodehouse



A collection of short stories featuring the romantic misadventures of various young men of the Drones Club (or, in several cases, the Angler's Rest). It's all pretty typical Wodehouse: it's frothy and silly, all the stories feel much the same, and ten minutes later it's hard to remember the details of any of them. But while you're reading them, it's impossible to keep the smile off your face.

Good old Wodehouse. Always such a reliable way to combat the dreaded book slump.

Rating: 4/5

12bragan
Abr 16, 2019, 7:41 am

30. The Magic Misfits: The Second Story by Neil Patrick Harris



This is the second book in Neil Patrick Harris' series about a group of friends and their magic club. (That's stage magic, for the record, not Harry Potter-type stuff, although it's sometimes a bit ambiguous whether there's anything actually supernatural going on.)

My review of the first installment in this series was that it was "an okay but pretty forgettable kids' book." Forgettable enough that I definitely wouldn't have bothered with the second book if a friend hadn't given me both volumes at once. But I found the story in this one -- involving secrets from the past and a supposed psychic who may be hiding something -- to quite a bit more engaging. Enough so that I was actually genuinely kind of annoyed that it ended with a "to be continued," leaving at least some of the mysteries still mysterious. Although I kind of doubt that will motivate me to seek out volume three when it comes out, anyway. It's definitely still the kind of kids' book that's best read by actual kids, I think. I know that I would have appreciated the magic tricks it includes a lot more when I was a youngster (although I would undoubtedly have been bad at them), and kid me would probably have found the bits where we're supposed to decipher Morse code fun rather than mildly tedious.

Rating: 3.5/5

13bragan
Abr 17, 2019, 4:35 am

31. The Compleat Ankh-Morpork by Terry Pratchett, aided and abetted by the Discworld Emporium



A guidebook to Terry Pratchett's fictional city of Ankh-Morpork, including the equivalent of the Ankh-Morpork yellow pages, complete with ads.

There's not nearly as much humor here as I was expecting, or hoping for. But it's a cool-looking book of the kind that might make a good gift for Discworld fans. And if you have some reason to actually need a reference guide to all the streets and businesses of Ankh-Morpork -- fan fiction? tabletop Discworld RPG? -- it has more details than you're ever likely to want.

The book also comes with a cool giant fold-out map of the city, with a beautiful aerial view of the city on reverse side, which I could easily imagine mounting on a wall.

Rating: 3.5/5

14bragan
Abr 18, 2019, 7:02 am

32. Zardoz by John Boorman



The novel version of the 1974 film Zardoz, written by the same person who wrote and directed the film itself.

Zardoz has, I think, something of a reputation as an inexplicable bit of baffling weirdness. But when I watched the movie, decades after it was made, the main feeling I had about it was a sense of familiarity. I read a lot of 1970s science fiction in my youth, and a lot of it felt exactly like this: pseudo-profound and slightly surreal and entirely too obsessed with sex. The whole thing made me feel oddly nostalgic.

So when I saw the book version at a library sale a while back, I thought it might be fun to revisit it in this form. Maybe I'd feel some sense of nostalgia for my nostalgia.

But, eh. It's not an awful example of the kind of thing it is, but it's not great, either. Also, the kind of thing it is hasn't aged very well, and my nostalgia does have some limits. Even though it's only about 130 pages long, I was getting tired of it by the end. The simple truth is, it's just not nearly as entertaining when you can't see Sean Connery running around in that, erm, highly memorable costume.

Rating: 2.5/5

15bragan
Editado: Abr 20, 2019, 3:52 pm

33. Sync by K. P. Kyle



On a rainy night in Vermont, a middle-aged woman picks up a hitchhiker who turns out to be an escapee from a secret lab experimenting with travel to alternate universes, and adventures ensue.

I feel like I enjoyed this one more than I really ought to, somehow, especially towards the beginning. The thing is, the "secret lab escape" premise is a little too familiar, the plot not terribly complex, and the science mostly nonsensical. It never really does anything especially interesting with the whole alternate realities idea, either. But the characters are fairly well-realized (even if one of them gets an ending that feels entirely too pat), and it's all very effortlessly readable. Which I think is exactly what I was in the mood for.

Rating: 3.5/5

(Note: This was a LibraryThing Early Reviewers book.)

16valkyrdeath
Abr 20, 2019, 6:32 pm

>13 bragan: I have this, and it's certainly not a great thing to just sit down and read, but it's a nice object to have I think. I do like the giant map too. Did you ever have the old Discworld maps? I can't decide whether I prefer the Streets of Ankh-Morpork one or this one.

17bragan
Abr 20, 2019, 7:19 pm

>16 valkyrdeath: Yes, nice to have but maybe not so much to read sums it up pretty well.

And, no, I don't have any of the old ones, sadly.

18bragan
Abr 23, 2019, 9:36 pm

34. Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky



I often enjoy reading "microhistories": non-fiction that focuses on one very narrow subject but manages to tie that subject into much larger aspects of history and society. I think this may be one of the first books that really popularized this particular subgenre, back in 1997, which is what made it interesting to me. In this case, the narrow subject the book revolves around is the humble codfish, which, it turns out, has indeed played a massive role in human history, as well as telling us some important things about the effect of humans on the natural world today. It's decently written and informative (and also contains a large number of cod-related recipes from many different times and places, if that's something you're into). I will admit that, as someone who has very little inherent interest in fish -- I don't even eat them very much -- I sometimes had a little trouble staying entirely engaged even as I fully recognized the scope and importance of the subject, but I hardly feel like I can complain that a book about fish was a little too much about fish for me.

Rating: Bearing that last point in mind, I'm going to give it a 4/5.

19lisapeet
Abr 24, 2019, 8:07 am

>18 bragan: Kurlansky is good at those. I thought The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell was a lot of fun, though that's probably also because I'm a New Yorker with an interest in NYC history. Maybe that's the way his books work best—if you have an existing interest that serves as a hook. For similar reasons, I have Paper: Paging Through History on the shelf and am looking forward to reading it someday.

20bragan
Abr 24, 2019, 10:53 am

>19 lisapeet: Paper sounds a lot more relevant to my own existing interests than either oysters or fish, and I see I already have that on my wishlist, so hopefully I'll get to it sometime.

21rhian_of_oz
Abr 24, 2019, 11:04 am

>18 bragan: and >19 lisapeet:
While I'm not interested in fish I am interested in paper, so have added Paper: Paging Through History to my wishlist. Does this count as a book ricochet?

22bragan
Abr 24, 2019, 11:42 am

>21 rhian_of_oz: Ha! Book ricochet. I like it. :)

23dukedom_enough
Abr 25, 2019, 10:07 am

>21 rhian_of_oz: Author and history professor Ada Palmer sometimes presents a talk that is a mini history of the book. Extremely fascinating, if you ever have a chance to see it. For the small audience that included me, she passed around some very old books for us to hold and examine.

24Petroglyph
Abr 25, 2019, 10:43 am

>14 bragan:
There's a novelization of Zardoz??

I gotta get my hands on this. I've seen that movie a number of times: something in the way that it tries so hard to be profound and meaningful and just keeps failing at it is very endearing to me.

25bragan
Abr 25, 2019, 11:10 am

>23 dukedom_enough: That really does sound fascinating!

>24 Petroglyph: A novelization, or perhaps simply a novel version, depending on how you want to look at it, since it's the same writer doing the story in a different form. (With a few differences, apparently, but it's been long enough since I've seen the movie that I couldn't necessarily identify them.)

And, ha, that is a great way to describe that movie. There really is something oddly endearing about that sort of thing. Although I don't think it's quite as endearing in book form.

26rhian_of_oz
Abr 25, 2019, 11:29 am

>23 dukedom_enough: That sounds extremely interesting. Maybe she'll come to Australia one day. I loved her Terra Ignota series and am eagerly awaiting the fourth book.

27dukedom_enough
Abr 25, 2019, 11:46 am

>25 bragan: >26 rhian_of_oz: Hearing her, you just know she's the kind of professor who frequently turns students lives around for the better.

28dchaikin
Abr 26, 2019, 1:20 pm

>18 bragan: For years my wife kept a copy of Cod in her car. No idea if she read it, or if it was just one of those things that you forget about and so never move. But occasionally I would pick it up and read some random pages. Usually I was entertained. I read his book on Salt - which is awkwardly edited (or maybe incomplete) with many dry sections, but was still fascinating overall. Of course, I spend my work-life thinking about salt, so I may be biased.

29lisapeet
Abr 26, 2019, 1:42 pm

>28 dchaikin: with many dry sections
Well, I would hope so...

30dchaikin
Abr 26, 2019, 6:33 pm

: )

31bragan
Abr 26, 2019, 11:34 pm

>28 dchaikin: Salt, oddly, sounds more interesting to me than cod.

>29 lisapeet: Grooan. :)

32bragan
Maio 2, 2019, 3:02 pm

35. The Surgeon's Mate by Patrick O'Brian



Book seven in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series features some complications in the personal lives of its characters on land and a delicate mission for them to carry out by sea.

I really enjoyed this one. Like many of them, it maybe gets a bit slow in the middle, but even during long passages about doing things with sails, I never stopped thinking happily about how much I like these characters. And the ending is fantastic, full of engaging and unexpected developments. I swear, there was one moment when I actually exclaimed out loud as I was reading.

Rating: 4/5

33shadrach_anki
Maio 2, 2019, 5:33 pm

>32 bragan: I really should try this series again. I keep hearing wonderful things about it.

34bragan
Maio 2, 2019, 7:23 pm

>33 shadrach_anki: It's always a slightly odd reading experience for me, to be honest, but one that almost always seems to pay off when I stick with it.

35rhian_of_oz
Maio 3, 2019, 9:47 pm

>33 shadrach_anki: I have Master and Commander on my TBR pile. Maybe we should make it a Pair Read (if that's not a thing already I've just made it one)? Probably for June as I already have a few books on the list to read for May.

36shadrach_anki
Maio 4, 2019, 9:50 am

>35 rhian_of_oz: I could go for that! And yeah, probably June since my May reading has suddenly become far more structured than usual.

37bragan
Maio 4, 2019, 7:58 pm

>35 rhian_of_oz:, >36 shadrach_anki: I will sit here being your cheering section for the start of a group-of-two read of Patrick O'Brian! Although I feel like I should point out that the series didn't really grab me until book two, so I'd suggest giving it that long before rendering a verdict.

38wandering_star
Maio 6, 2019, 9:07 pm

>35 rhian_of_oz: ..."even during long passages about doing things with sails" - brilliant. This is how I feel about Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels and fighting - somehow it keeps me engaged despite a total lack of interest in the subject.

Mr w_s is currently working his way through the series - I think he's up to about book 6 or 7 now - so I have access to them on kindle family sharing. I've only read the first one but I see what you say about book two - I will give it a go.

39bragan
Maio 6, 2019, 9:21 pm

>38 wandering_star: I haven't read the Sharp novels. But I have read the Horatio Hornblower books, and I will say -- although I know I've said this before when discussing these books -- that they did a better job, on the whole, of keeping me engaged during the naval battles and at least giving me the illusion that I could follow what was going on. With these ones, I just sort of have to let it all wash over me and try to keep my focus on the character stuff. But that does mostly work!

And, yeah, I thought Post Captain really was the point where I suddenly completely saw the appeal of the series, so I definitely recommend giving that one a go.

40bragan
Editado: Maio 6, 2019, 9:30 pm

36. Down These Dark Spaceways edited by Mike Resnick



This is a collection of science fiction detective novellas, intended to be more or less in the Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett tradition. There are a total of six stories:

"Guardian Angel" by Mike Resnick: I've read some novels of Resnick's that I believe were set in the same universe as this one, quite some time ago, and I mostly remember enjoying them. This story really didn't do much for me, though. It wasn't bad, but it never engaged me very much, and was utterly and immediately forgettable.

"In the Quake Zone" by David Gerrold: This is an interesting one. Ostensibly it's about hunting for a killer, but it's really much more about the experience of being young and gay in 1960s Los Angeles, brought to you by some really weird time travel stuff. Said time travel stuff doesn't make any actual sense, but, honestly, I don't think it's really even trying to, and I was mostly okay with that. That aside, I'd say this one is mostly good, with an imaginative premise and interesting characterization, but it suffers a bit from being overlong, and from some difficulty balancing social commentary and plot. Plus I had very mixed feelings about the ending.

"The City of Cries" by Catherine Asaro: A very straightforward story about a search for a missing person. Not an incredibly intricate or memorable plot, but enjoyable enough. I liked a lot of the worldbuilding details, too, but the way the society depicted here just takes some familiar social structures and flips the gender roles feels really simplistic and not terribly well thought out.

"Camouflage" by Robert Reed: I liked this one. It's weird, but in a good way. The setting -- a mysterious and unbelievably massive spaceship populated by a variety of species -- is strange and interesting, and the whole thing has the feeling of a small glimpse into a complex and alien world. Which doesn't actually sound like a great setting for a mystery story, that being the kind of thing where it's usually better if you feel like you know what the rules are, but I think it works fairly well.

"The Big Downtown" by Jack McDevitt: This one was readable enough, I guess, but the mystery wasn't especially interesting, and it gets wrapped up ridiculously fast at the end. And after the last couple of stories, the wordbuilding for this one was disappointing. It's supposedly far enough in the future that people are off doing archeology on alien planets, but the setting feels exactly like the present, just with very slightly more advanced technology.

"Identity Theft" by Robert J. Sawyer: I was looking forward to this one because, based on a very quick glance at the dust jacket summaries, it looked like it was going to feature the same detective as Sawyer's Red Planet Blues, which I enjoyed. It turns out I was right about that, but not exactly in the way I was hoping for: it's actually an earlier version of the first ten or so chapters of the novel. And while I liked Red Planet Blues, I don't think I liked it quite enough to want to read the beginning of it twice, so I ended up skipping this one.

Rating: This was enough of a mixed bag that I think I'm going to be slightly stingy and give it a 3.5/5

41avaland
Maio 12, 2019, 6:14 am

>36 shadrach_anki: Enjoyed your review of the collection. I have found the blending of SF & crime novels to be a real mixed bag. My cerebral favorite would be Mieville's The City and the City, but my sentimental favorite would be Asimov's books pairing Elijah Baley with robot detective R. Daneel Olivaw. For the more offbeat I've liked Lethem's Gun with Occasional Music, and Adam Roberts' Jack Glass.

(I read Asaro, McDevitt & Sawyer in the late 1990s and early otts...easy reads when I needed a quick SF buzz)

42bragan
Maio 12, 2019, 8:50 pm

>41 avaland: Asimov's Caves of Steel and sequels are certainly the first thing that leaps to my mind when thinking of examples of SF detective fiction done really well, even if they are probably a bit dated now. And The City and the City is a marvelous example of something that feels like it shouldn't work at all, but somehow, miraculously, does. I've read Gun, with Occasional Music, too, but don't remember it all that well. I really should read Jack Glass if it belongs in that kind of company. I already have it on my wishlist.

43bragan
Maio 13, 2019, 11:04 am

37. Please Bury Me in the Library by J. Patrick Lewis and Kyle M. Stone



A very short kids' picture book that I read while at a friend's house. It consists of a few poems, mostly having to do with books and reading, and some very colorful and lovely illustrations. I do have to say that the poems aren't exactly of brilliant literary quality -- Shel Silverstein this guy ain't -- but as lifelong bookworm, I found them charming, regardless, especially the title poem. I think this is one I'd like to put in the time machine and send back to child-me, as I'm pretty sure she'd be charmed by it, too.

Rating: a slightly generous but heartfelt 4/5

44bragan
Maio 14, 2019, 12:04 am

38. The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson



This is a sequel of sorts to Bill Bryson's 1996 book Notes from a Small Island, about his travels through Great Britain. It features more recent travels though Great Britain, visiting some places he'd never been before and others he was once very familiar with.

I remember liking Bryson's earlier travel books, and enjoying his snarky sense of humor, but I have to say... Either he's lost his touch with the snarky humor or I've lost my appetite for it, because far too much of this one just felt like a grumpy old fuddy-duddy angrily shaking his cane at trivial inconveniences and anything that dares to have changed in the last twenty years.

Mind you, it's to Bryson's credit that he gets equally worked up about the things he likes as the ones that he doesn't. But the things he gets worked up about, positive or negative, tend to be largely the same wherever he goes, and in the end I feel like I've come away from this book knowing a lot about his tastes, but much less about the places he visited. And his experiences in all those places tend to be pretty samey, too, and not terribly exciting. He takes a walk, drinks some tea and some beer, makes a note of what kinds of shops there are, maybe stares at a house some vaguely famous person used to live in, and, if we're very lucky, visits a museum. It very quickly all began to blur together.

All of which makes this sound worse than it is, probably. Bryson does share some interesting information here and there, and some of his bits of praise and criticism are actually well-taken. And it's pleasant enough to imagine oneself strolling down some of those pretty English country lanes. But overall, I did find it a bit disappointing. I imagine it would have been a lot more interesting if I'd known some of the places he was describing, or more worthwhile, perhaps, if I were planning a trip though some of these places and wanted an idea of what to expect.

Rating: 3/5

45dchaikin
Maio 15, 2019, 1:53 pm

>44 bragan: Yup, to all that. I like Bryson, but I think some books are better than others and I think some of his stuff worked better pre-google.

46bragan
Maio 15, 2019, 7:17 pm

>45 dchaikin: Yeah, I really want to hear about the aspects of places that I can't just find out on google.

47rhian_of_oz
Maio 16, 2019, 10:51 am

>44 bragan: I don't particularly remember it but my (brief) notes at the time describe it as "a delightful love letter to Britain".

One of the funniest things I've ever read is his description of ice skating in Notes from a Big Country (it's in 'Fun in the Snow'). I'm not generally a fan of slapstick but that bit always gives me a giggle.

48bragan
Maio 16, 2019, 12:18 pm

>47 rhian_of_oz: The bit of Bryson I remember most fondly is from The Mother Tongue, a book that may have some issues, but which I enjoyed a lot, anyway: "Imposing Latin rules on English structure is a little like trying to play baseball in ice skates."

49bragan
Maio 16, 2019, 12:37 pm

39. Severance by Ling Ma



Candace Chen is a young Chinese-American working a job she isn't happy about and dating a guy who's not going to stick around. She's also one of the last people to leave New York City when it's essentially wiped out by a plague that causes people to go into a permanent zombie-like state in which they endlessly go through the rote motions of tasks they performed in life.

This is a blend of literary fiction and post-apocalyptic story that I think is much more calculated to appeal to the litfic readers than the post-apocalypse fans, but as someone who enjoys both, I found it quite satisfying. It feels like it's reflecting on -- or maybe just plain reflecting -- a lot of the realities of modern life and human nature in a really interesting way.

Rating: 4/5

50valkyrdeath
Maio 16, 2019, 6:38 pm

>40 bragan: I've always loved science fiction mysteries when they're well done, so this certainly appeals to me. I loved Identity Theft when I read it a few years ago in a Nebula volume, but I had no idea it had been expanded into a novel, so I'll probably need to check that out now. The David Gerrold story sounds interesting too, especially since my knowledge of him currently begins and ends with The Trouble With Tribbles.

51bragan
Maio 16, 2019, 7:26 pm

>50 valkyrdeath: David Gerrold's story is very much not "The Trouble with Tribbles!" But it was interesting.

I have very mixed feelings about Robert J. Sawyer, on the whole, as I've really enjoyed some of his novels and been entirely lukewarm towards others, but I think Red Planet Blues is probably my favorite thing of his that I've read. It was given to me by a friend who is generally more into mysteries than science fiction, and he really liked it, too.

52avaland
Maio 17, 2019, 6:54 am

>42 bragan: Quoting the review of LT user gendeg, who I think hit the proverbial nail on the head re: Jack Glass : "Wow. A delicious trifecta of science fiction, murder, and mystery. Tonally one of the weirdest books I've read in awhile. Oppressive political structures. Social critique. Crime and punishment. Quantum physics. FTL travel. Dreamscapes as problem solving tools. Sociopaths, assassins. And yet lots of lightness and wry humor that worked. I love how all the back cover blurbs make note of it as a scifi book that would rival any so-called literary work. Bold but maybe not that far off. The prose is startling and beautiful at times. Will have to let this one soak in my brain before a detailed review."

Roberts' latest two books are SF mysteries also, I liked The Real-Town Murders well enough (a light, fun, fast-paced sort of thing), but not enough to chase down the second—at least not in hardcover.

>51 bragan: Good to know about your favorite Sawyer. I read about 8 of his books in the late 90s through early otts as we hosted him at the bookstore two or three times (often with Robert Charles Wilson). Great events, decent reads.

53rhian_of_oz
Maio 17, 2019, 8:52 am

>49 bragan: Hit by another BB.

54bragan
Maio 17, 2019, 2:57 pm

>52 avaland: No wonder that one's already on my wishlist, because it sounds very much like my sort of thing! Although I should probably really get around to reading Yellow Blue Tibia first. It's been sitting on my TBR shelves for ages.

I see The Real-Town Murders is also already on my wishlist, too. So I think the real message here is basically just that I need to read more Adam Roberts. I did like By Light Alone.

>53 rhian_of_oz: I hope you like it as much as I did!

55bragan
Maio 19, 2019, 5:24 pm

40. Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey



Eighty-two year old Maud suffers from dementia. She has great difficulty remembering things from moment to moment and is often confused about where she is and who is with her. One thing she is certain of, though: her friend Elizabeth is missing, and no one but her seems to care. But Elizabeth's may not actually be the disappearance that's truly troubling her.

The cover on my copy of this novel, with the tagline "How do you solve a mystery when you can't remember the clues?" makes it sound like a mystery novel, albeit one with a twist. But while there is a mystery at the heart of it, and an intriguing one, I suspect anyone going into it expecting a conventional mystery story may be disappointed. What we get instead, though, is something quietly fascinating and subtly heart-breaking. And incredibly impressive, too. Writing from Maud's jumbled POV and somehow shaping that into a workable narrative seems like a nearly impossible challenge for an author, but Healey does it with a gentle touch that makes it seem like the simplest and most natural thing in the world.

Rating: 4.5/5

56bragan
Maio 22, 2019, 7:24 am

41. Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing by Ben Blatt



Ben Blatt uses statistics to find patterns in the way that writers use words in their novels -- everything from bestsellers to literary award winners to Harry Potter fanfiction -- in an attempt to answer, or at least address, a number of different questions: Can computer analyses help resolve questions of disputed authorship? (Answer: a pretty firm yes, at least when you've got a limited number of authors to pick from.) Do authors who insist good writing involves eschewing adverbs follow their own advice, and are novels with fewer adverbs in fact more successful? Do women use some words more often than men, and vice versa? Are great first sentences more likely to be long or short? And so forth and so on.

I think a lot of the conclusions here need to be taken with a good-sized grain of salt, especially when they edge into the realm of writing advice. It's not at all difficult to see ways in which the data under consideration can be kind of ratty, or the algorithms lacking in nuance. But, to his credit, Blatt does make a point of acknowledging the limitations of what this kind of analysis tells us.

Really, mostly I think he's just having fun playing around with this stuff and thinking up questions to investigate. Which is fair enough, and it's interesting to see what he and his algorithms come up with. But maybe only mildly interesting. I have to say, I did find the book as a whole less engaging than I expected to, partly, perhaps, because there really is a limit to how much insight one can actually get out of this sort of thing, and partly because Blatt's own prose, while clear enough, isn't going to win any of those literary awards itself.

Rating: 3.5/5

57rhian_of_oz
Maio 22, 2019, 10:53 am

>55 bragan: You nearly hit me with a BB with this one but I started reading a preview online and it quite quickly made me sad. Maybe when I'm in a different frame of mind.

58bragan
Maio 22, 2019, 7:39 pm

>57 rhian_of_oz: It is definitely sad. Not overwhelmingly so, at least not for me, but I can absolutely understand needing the right frame of mind to read it. Or not wanting to read it at all, if it hits a little to close to home.

59bragan
Editado: Maio 27, 2019, 12:30 pm

42. The Prestige by Christopher Priest



A tale of two rival 19th-century magicians who end up trying to outdo each other -- to put it mildly -- in performing an act involving disappearing in one place and reappearing in another.

I did see the movie that was based on this novel. It was long enough ago that I didn't remember a lot of the specific details (many of which I think were different from the book's, anyway), but I certainly remembered the the twisty revelations about how the acts were performed. They were pretty unforgettable.

I wondered, at the beginning, exactly how Priest would pull off some of the movie's tricks in text form. I also wondered whether it would work nearly as well going into it knowing its secrets. Well, the answer to the first question turns out to be that it was pretty cleverly done, I think. And the answer to the second is that, yes. Yes, it did work just fine for me, even spoiled as I was. I do think it would have been a lot of fun to read this knowing nothing about it and to have to slowly piece together the truth of what's going on, as it was with the movie. But the trick the book is performing is still an impressive one when you know how it works. In fact, there's a certain satisfaction in being able to follow everything it's doing as it's doing it. It kind of reminds me of a video I saw once of Penn & Teller doing the famous cups and balls trick with transparent cups. You can see exactly how everything's working, and it's still damned cool.

But this novel has more going for it than a bit of clever literary sleight of hand. It's got obsession! Irony! Tragedy! Weird science! Not to mention a deep but subtle sense of horror and some interesting lurking philosophical questions. Also, it's just completely batshit crazy. But it a wonderful kind of way.

Anyway. If any of that sounds the least bit appealing, I definitely recommend both the book and the movie, in whichever order you'd prefer to consume them.

Rating: 4.5/5

60RidgewayGirl
Maio 27, 2019, 12:16 pm

>59 bragan: I read the book long before I saw the movie and it was a lot of fun.

61bragan
Maio 27, 2019, 12:30 pm

>60 RidgewayGirl: Which just confirms my thought that it works either way around!

62valkyrdeath
Maio 27, 2019, 7:07 pm

>59 bragan: I saw the film too before reading the book, and I loved them both. The film did change a few things, but in the right ways to fit the change of medium I think. Anything magic related tends to have an automatic appeal to me though! I've been meaning to read some more of Christopher Priest's books but still haven't got round to it yet.

63bragan
Maio 27, 2019, 7:30 pm

>62 valkyrdeath: I was particularly interested to see the framing story in the book that wasn't there in the movie. It did make a difference to the narrative, for sure, but I'm pretty sure doing without it for the film was the right call.

I'm not sure I've read anything else by Christopher Priest, apart from maybe a short story or two that I don't actually remember. (The only other book I have by him is an anthology he edited.) It's possible I should change that.

64bragan
Editado: Maio 30, 2019, 6:36 pm

43. To Be or Not to Be: A Chooseable-Path Adventure by Ryan North, William Shakespeare, and You



Yes, here it is. William Shakespeare's greatest work in the form it was always meant to take: a Choose Your Own Adventure story! Er, sorry, make that a "chooseable-path" story. We don't want to get sued, after all.

But whatever you call it, it offers you the opportunity to choose your own Hamletty adventure. You can play as Hamlet, Ophelia, or (briefly) the king's ghost, and make decisions about where the story goes. Have you always wanted to force Hamlet to just get on with killing Claudius already? No problem! Turn to page 195! Then again, depending on what kinds of actions you take, he might end up taking up a life of piracy instead. Or falling out of a window. There are a lot of endings involving Hamlet falling out of a window. Also a surprising number in which Ophelia just straight-up murders everybody.

It's all highly entertaining, filled with silly humor, little games-within-games, and colorful full-page illustrations (one for each possible ending). It also pokes a lot of fun at the original, but as someone who genuinely loves the play, I found it all mostly pretty hilarious. Although not nearly as hilarious as the moment when I found myself trying to dispose of Polonius's body by eating it. Does it make me a bad person if that made me laugh so hard I started to have trouble breathing?

You can also play this in computer game form, too, by the way, although that format does rob you of the fun of flipping pages back and forth and marking all the choices you want to revisit with a small blizzard of post-it notes. Although it probably does make it easier to read with a cat on your lap and a mug of coffee in one hand. That was a bit of a struggle for me, I'll admit.

Rating: 4/5

65valkyrdeath
Maio 30, 2019, 8:42 pm

>64 bragan: I've had this in both book form and computer game form for quite some time, and for some reason I've not got round to reading/playing it yet. You make it sound really fun though, I think I need to slot it in somewhere.

66bragan
Maio 30, 2019, 9:08 pm

>65 valkyrdeath: I had it sitting around unread for quite a while, too, mostly because it seemed like I should wait to read it until I had a couple of idle days in which to play around with it without having to carry it around with me too much.

67bragan
Jun 4, 2019, 8:27 pm

44. Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou



Elizabeth Holmes was a silicon valley phenomenon, a young woman who was hailed by many as the new Steve Jobs, a role she was extremely eager to fill. And she had an incredible-sounding product to do it with: a machine that could supposedly run an impressive array of blood tests quickly and conveniently in a patient's local drug store or even their own home, all with only a small drop of blood from the finger. It was a great idea, but there was just one problem: it never worked the way it was supposed to. But that didn't stop Holmes' company, Theranos, from bringing these devices to market and using them on real people with real medical problems.

I'd vaguely heard of the Theranos debacle, but didn't really know the details of it. Well, now I do, thanks to John Carreyrou, the reporter who initially brought Theranos' misdeeds to light. (He himself appears as a character in this non-fiction account of Holmes' rise and fall, about three-quarters of the way through the story.) And it's one hell of a cautionary tale about the worse excesses of capitalism, the cult of personality, and the pernicious idea that all one needs to succeed is to sufficiently believe in oneself and the infallibility of one's efforts, no matter what reality might have to say in the matter.

Carreyrou's writing is always very measured, calm, and factual, but the story he's laying out for us is just utterly infuriating. Which may, I suppose, be a good reason to read it.

Rating: 4/5

68wandering_star
Jun 4, 2019, 9:22 pm

>64 bragan: I thought about Ryan North the other day because I saw his How To Invent Everything in a bookshop (it looks quite fun) and was reminded of how much I enjoyed the Machine of Death stories which he put together.

I love the review of the game on the page that you linked to that it's an idea which is “so far past terrible that it wraps around like a comet slingshotting around the sun and comes back as utterly brilliant.”

69bragan
Jun 4, 2019, 9:33 pm

>68 wandering_star: I always enjoy Ryan North. I read his Dinosaur Comics regularly. I do still need to get around to How to Invent Everything and the second Machine of Death book, though. I have both sitting on the TRB shelves.

And, ha!, I didn't see that review, but it's great. :)

70dukedom_enough
Jun 5, 2019, 10:41 am

>67 bragan: I've mostly heard about the horrifying Holmes story via Twitter (which I spend too much time one). One wonders what would the world would be like if we were all much more resistant to hype and fraud.

71bragan
Jun 5, 2019, 10:49 am

>70 dukedom_enough: It might not be a utopia, but, damn, would it be an improvement...

72lisapeet
Jun 5, 2019, 10:54 am

>67 bragan: I enjoyed Bad Blood—Carreyrou didn't treat it like a train wreck, but as a really well structured tale of hubris and willful blindness. That kind of story makes you realize why the Greek myths have endured all this time... human failings and the propensity toward deceit (and he's very careful not to make assumptions about Holmes's motives, so I'd say both of those come into play) are timeless.

73bragan
Jun 6, 2019, 1:09 am

>72 lisapeet: Yes, and I actually am quite impressed by the restrained way he writes about it all. I doubt I could have managed it in his place. But the hubris and deception of it really do just speak for themselves.

74kidzdoc
Jun 6, 2019, 11:04 am

Nice reviews of two books that I own and have been meaning to get to, Elizabeth Is Missing and Bad Blood.

75bragan
Editado: Jun 6, 2019, 6:26 pm

>74 kidzdoc: They're good books to look forward to!

76bragan
Jun 6, 2019, 9:27 pm

45. Exhalation by Ted Chiang



The stories in Ted Chiang's latest collection range from a few pages to a 111-page novella ("The Lifecycle of Software Objects"). If there's a common theme to most of them, it's something about the effect of technologies -- ranging from the plausible to the fanciful -- on how we understand ourselves and our reality, and especially on the question of free will.

I didn't find this collection quite as compelling as Stories of Your Life and Others (aka Arrival), but that's such a high bar that it just means that this one was "only" very good.

My favorites, I think were "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate," which combines a very scientifically-informed take on time travel with a delightful Arabian Nights-style fairy tale feel; "Omphalos," which is set on world for which young-Earth creationism is real and provable and yet science still leads to disappointment with humanity's place in the cosmos; and "Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom," in which people can talk to versions of themselves from parallel universes.

Chaing also includes some interesting author's notes on the stories at the end, which I enjoyed reading.

Rating: 4/5

77dukedom_enough
Jun 7, 2019, 11:38 am

>76 bragan: I'm halfway through. It must be tough to be Ted Chiang. He's only in his early fifties but it's hard to see how he'll ever outdo "Story of Your Life."

78bragan
Jun 7, 2019, 2:31 pm

>77 dukedom_enough: And that collection as a whole was just phenomenal. I actually feel kind of bad comparing Exhalation to it at all. I can't help but wonder if I would have rated it even higher if my expectations weren't through the roof.

79AnnieMod
Jun 7, 2019, 2:38 pm

>76 bragan:

I had been reading the individual stories as they were being published - which makes them feel even better than when you read them in order (they kinda shadow each other when they are in the collection). Does not mean that the collection is not on my shelf already - I just find reading Chiang's stories one after another (when reading for the first time) to be taking something away from them. But that's just me I guess :)

80lisapeet
Jun 7, 2019, 3:01 pm

I'm reading Exhalation and liking it a lot, so I guess I've got to get Stories of Your Life and Others queued up, huh?

81dukedom_enough
Jun 7, 2019, 4:04 pm

>80 lisapeet: I don't generally sort things into best-ever, second-best, etc., but if I did, "Story of Your Life" would contend for best SF novella ever.

82bragan
Jun 7, 2019, 5:44 pm

>79 AnnieMod: That's interesting. I haven't read most of them on their own to compare, but I had much the opposite experience with Stories of Your Life and Others, anyway. I felt that there were interesting running themes through the various stories that made the collection as a whole feel like even more than the sum of its very excellent parts. Exhalation might have had a bit of that for me, too, in a lesser kind of way.

>80 lisapeet: You really, really do!

>81 dukedom_enough: I spent about two seconds trying to think what I would nominate for that honor, then realized I would never be able to decide and gave up. But there's no question that story is a fine choice.

83AnnieMod
Jun 7, 2019, 5:52 pm

>82 bragan:

Don't get me wrong here - reading them together does add something - and I've done that as well. But I am happy I read each of them on their own -- without the others crowding them (and of course I am incapable of just reading one story if they are just there - maybe reading them in order, 1 per day would have worked as well) :)

84wandering_star
Jun 8, 2019, 8:04 pm

>76 bragan: Oh - have been waiting for this to come out!

(rushes off to Amazon to discover there's still a month to the UK publication date)

Thanks for letting me know that it's (almost) here.

85bragan
Jun 8, 2019, 8:08 pm

>84 wandering_star: Aah, differing release dates in different places are so frustrating. Well, it will be something for you to look forward to!

86bragan
Jun 13, 2019, 10:18 pm

46. Time Traders II by Andre Norton



This omnibus contains the second and third novels of Andre Norton's Time Traders series, originally published in the early 1960s:

The Defiant Agents: The Russians and the Americans both want to colonize the planet Topaz, and they both come up with the same strategy: sending people who (using technology that's never very well explained) are given the memories of ancestors who were supposedly better at primitive survival. The Russians send Tatars with the memories of ancient Mongols. The Americans send Apaches.

I think the most reasonable response to this premise, from a 21st-century reader, is, "Oh dear god, no good can come of this at all." In truth, I'll say that it's actually done in a way that's far less cringe-worthy than you'd expect, and Norton, as always, is very, very well-meaning, but the whole thing is still kind of uncomfortable, with lots of unexamined implications about what it means to think of some people as "primitive" and others as not.

As for the story itself, it's fairly standard old-fashioned SF adventure stuff, with knife fights and mind control devices and ancient alien artifacts and such. To the extent that I enjoyed it, it was mostly in a hypothetical sort of way, imagining myself reading it at a less sophisticated age, in a less sophisticated age, and remembering how easily and happily kid-me could get caught up in such things. Because there's no question that Andre Norton was genuinely good at writing things 20th century kids could get caught up in, even if not all of them have exactly aged well.

Key Out of Time: On a beautiful tropical world that shows signs of a great cataclysm in the past, three humans (and two telepathic dolphins) accidentally end up thrown back in time where they must team up with sailors and witches to fight an alien invasion.

This one lacks any of the uncomfortable elements of The Defiant Agents but I have to say that it also failed to hold my interest much at all. I'm not sure if that's entirely the story's fault, although it is a bit more exposition-y than the previous installment. I may just not have been in the right mood for it, or maybe there's just a limit to how many of these I really want to revisit. But whatever the cause, I found my mind wandering a lot while reading it, and I had to keep trying to resist the urge to start skimming.

Rating: a possibly unfair 2.5/5

87dukedom_enough
Jun 16, 2019, 2:38 pm

>86 bragan: Norton was one of very few genre writers portraying Native American characters in the early 1960s, and as you noted did better at that in the previous book of the series, Galactic Derelict. Judith Tarr at Tor.com shares your concerns, and notes that Norton missed the chance to show ancestor-regressed white characters. I guess we should be glad that modern writers are at least sometimes doing better.

88bragan
Jun 17, 2019, 11:57 am

>87 dukedom_enough: It really is kind of interesting, how stuff that by one time's standards is actually quite progressive and enlightened can look backward and unpleasantly stereotyped just a few decades later. But I suppose it's a good sign, really.

89bragan
Jun 18, 2019, 1:19 am

47. Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer by Rob Manning and William L. Simon



Rob Manning was associated with the development of the Curiosity rover in several different capacities, but most notably as the project's chief engineer. And, as the title suggests, this is his account of the rover's development. I can't say the writing is inherently compelling or anything, but the accomplishment certainly is, and Manning and his co-author do a good job of being quite detailed without ever being overwhelmingly technical. Detailed enough, in fact, that I think this is something you have to be very interested in the subject matter to enjoy, but I am definitely part of that particular niche audience, and I certainly found it interesting.

And I'm genuinely impressed by Manning's ego-free candidness in talking about all the difficulties and uncertainties and problems that the project faced, which resulted in it coming in over-budget and missing its initial planned launch window. I also can't help but think there's something that feels very familiar about the process he talks about, in which they'd deal with one problem and it would result in a change that would cause another problem somewhere else that would then need to be dealt with, whereupon that fix would cause still more problems. I think anybody who's worked on any kind of big, complicated project can relate, but at least ours don't usually have to go and work on Mars.

Rating: This one is a little hard to rate, but space nut that I am, I'm going to give it a 4/5.

90bragan
Editado: Jun 20, 2019, 12:44 am

48. The Quite Nice and Fairly Accurate Good Omens Script Book by Neil Gaiman



I watched the new Amazon Prime adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens -- a wonderful little story about the end of the world and an angel and a demon who team up to try to stop it -- when it came out a few weeks ago, and I enjoyed it so much than when I saw this collection of scripts from the show it was something of a "Shut up and take my money!" moment for me.

And I do not at all regret forking over my money, because I found reading the scripts a fun and interesting experience, too. Fun as a way to revisit the series without currently being in front of my TV, and to linger on a few things that I might have missed or forgotten. And interesting because while these scripts are very close to the finished version of things that we saw on screen, there are some notable differences. For instance, as Gaiman himself points out in his (very nice) introduction, the way things were edited together after shooting made for some for some noticeable structural changes. I like getting a little behind-the-scenes glimpse of how that sort of thing happens in the course of making a TV show.

The script also contains some deleted bits (as well as a different version of a particular scene that was cut for budgetary reasons and is included here in its original form at the end), and you can see a few small things that were changed. Some of which I found rather intriguing, really. For instance, the demon Crowley's wings are described here as being gray, where in the show they are very definitely black. The black no doubt makes for a more striking visual, but there would have been some really interesting color symbolism in the gray.

There are actually a few things that I think work better on the page than they did in the show. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are described as being cooler and scarier than I think they ultimately came across, and the descriptions of some of the demons are more grotesque and interesting (and no doubt would have been much more expensive to pull off).

On the other hand, though, I found myself being really deeply struck by just how very much the two lead actors, Michael Sheen and David Tennant, brought to their roles. I mean, I thought I'd appreciated that before, because they were freaking fantastic and had frankly ridiculous amounts of chemistry. But while reading the scripts I kept coming across moments for their characters that felt just incredibly layered and significant and memorable in the show, and it would turn out that what was actually on the page was just some fairly ordinary-looking sentence or a simple stage direction. No shade whatsoever on Gaiman's writing, which I love, but it certainly gave me a new appreciation for how collaborative the process of storytelling is in a visual medium, and how much real creativity there can be in an actor's job. It's particularly striking in this case, because I'm very much left with the sense that when it comes to the relationship between these two characters Gaiman was writing a spy story and the actors were playing a love story, and these two things somehow combine on the screen into something utterly brilliant.

All of which means I need to say that if, for some strange reason, there is anyone out there tempted to pick this up before or instead of watching the series: don't! Seriously, no matter how much I like the story itself their performances are the best thing about it, and it would be the greatest pity in the world to deprive yourself of the sight of Michael Sheen's magical facial expressions or David Tennant's amazing snaky walk.

Rating: 4.5/5

91RidgewayGirl
Jun 20, 2019, 4:52 pm

>90 bragan: I'm reading the original novel now, as it was given to me. I'm enjoying it quite a bit.

92bragan
Editado: Jun 20, 2019, 7:21 pm

>91 RidgewayGirl: I read it many, many years ago, shortly after it came out, which I think is about the right gap between reading a book and watching an adaption of it. Gives you time to forget enough of the details that you're not constantly distracted with comparisons.

I have been idly contemplating re-reading it at some point, though. To make comparisons.

93avaland
Jun 21, 2019, 8:28 am

>90 bragan: A story for our time, eh? Loved your review of the script. I also read Good Omens long ago. late 90s, I think. Enjoyed it then, although other than the basic premise, no details had stayed with me. I enjoyed the adaptation very much but couldn't watch more than one episode at a time. I note what I think is the Terry Gilliam and/or Monty Python influence....

94bragan
Jun 21, 2019, 1:30 pm

>93 avaland: I couldn't watch the whole thing at once, either, but that was the fault of my flaky internet and annoying work schedule. Otherwise, I really think I do might have finished it in one six-hour sitting.

And there are definitely moments that seem rather Python-esque. Speaking of Gilliam, interestingly, he had plans to make a movie version of the novel at one point, apparently (with Robin Williams and Johnny Depp!), but nothing came of it. Which, much as I like Gilliam, I am rather glad about. I don't think a single feature-length movie would have done it justice, and we might not have gotten this version if that one had happened.

95bragan
Editado: Jun 21, 2019, 11:05 pm

49. We Are Still Here by Emily Koon



This is a collection of short stories, plus one novella. The stories are of a kind that seem pretty much up my alley: dark, surreal, and peppered with odd references to pop culture or scientific concepts, and with striking little mundane details.

But I have to say I found it a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the stories left me feeling a bit meh. For one or two, I found myself abstractly admiring the quality of the writing, without really being drawn into it. On the other hand, the title story worked for me really well, and I have no idea why that one struck such a chord with me when some of the others didn't.

And then there's the novella. It feels not quite right, somehow, to say it's about Lizzie Borden, but it's about Lizzy Borden. There's something sort of amazing about the novella, something I may not entirely understand, but which, in its own dreamlike way, really sucked me in. If nothing else, it's doing some really fearless and fascinating things with structure. I'm not positive, but I think it may actually be kind of brilliant.

Rating: My feelings about this were mixed enough that I'm going to give it 3.5/5, but I do feel bad not rating it higher, because there is something impressive about Koon's writing, and however I feel about some of the individual stories, I'm definitely glad I read this collection.

(Note: This was a LibraryThing Early Reviewers book.)

96bragan
Jun 25, 2019, 5:58 am

50. The Science of Sherlock Holmes by E. J. Wagner



This book wasn't quite what I expected. I've read a few other volumes with "The science of..." in the title, and they've generally used some familiar work of fiction or pop culture as a jumping off point from which to discuss current scientific concepts. So I think I was expecting the author to bring up various details from Sherlock Holmes stories and then discuss what modern forensics would have to say about them, or something along those lines.

Instead, the book is much more focused on history, exploring what doctors and detectives of Arthur Conan Doyle's day knew or were learning about scientific ways to investigate crimes, with lots and lots of accounts of actual historical crimes, many of which would have been worthy of Holmes story themselves, and some of which, indeed, may have inspired Conan Doyle. It's interesting, if often somewhat macabre, stuff. More interesting, honestly, than the subject matter I was expecting would have been. I'd say it's well worth reading if you have an interest in history, medicine, and crime, even if you're not necessarily a huge devotee of Holmes.

Rating: 4/5

97bragan
Jun 28, 2019, 7:05 am

51. The Blinds by Adam Sternbergh



Caesura, Texas is an experimental town populated by criminals, all of whom have had their memories of their crimes and their very identities removed. For eight years they've lived in peace, cut off almost entirely from the rest of the world. But now there's been a murder, and it's clear that there are secrets other than the inhabitants' pasts that are being kept.

After reading the first couple of chapters, I was very enthusiastic about this novel. The setup had all kinds of promise, there were some exciting mysteries afoot, and I was already feeling a strong sense of suspense.

Unfortunately, the rest of the book never lived up to that promise. The more I read, the less believable anything seemed to be -- despite the fact that I was happy enough to buy into the memory-erasing premise -- and the less engaging I found the plot. It didn't help, either, that all of the intriguing secrets get revealed by means of lengthy infodumps. Some of them are mildly interesting infodumps, I guess, but they all ended up feeling kind of anticlimactic.

It was at least a very quick read, but that's about all I can say for it.

Rating: 2.5/5. Although it's possible I would have rated it higher if the excellent beginning didn't set me up for quite so much disappointment.

98bragan
Jun 29, 2019, 6:25 pm

52. Exit West by Mohsin Hamid



A short novel about two lovers in a war-torn Muslim country, in a world where random doors sometimes open to elsewhere in the world and provide a chance for escape to a new life.

This is one that's garnered a lot of praise and critical attention, and I'm pleased to report that it is, in fact, every bit as good as everyone says it is. I'm having trouble finding the right words to describe it, though, because every attempt I come up with ends up sounding like bad ad copy -- "prose at once sweeping and intimate!" -- and none of it captures the feel of the novel at all. So I'll just say that almost every time I had to close the book, I found myself just sitting there for a moment afterwards, saying to myself (sometimes out loud), "Wow, that's good." Meaning both the way it's written and the things that it's saying with that writing.

I'm so glad I picked this one up.

Rating: 5/5

99lisapeet
Jun 29, 2019, 8:19 pm

Good to hear. I’ve stayed away at least a little because of all the hype, but if it crosses my path I’ll definitely pick it up.

100bragan
Jun 29, 2019, 9:18 pm

>99 lisapeet: It's always hard to know what to make of hype. It often puts me off, too, but I'm glad it didn't this time.

101bragan
Jul 6, 2019, 8:44 pm

OK, I have started a new thread for the third quarter of 2019 here.