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defrog
The first book reports of the year are in. I will post them now for yr pleasure.JUST FINISHED
True Grit by Charles Portis
Would you believe I’ve never seen the film? That’s because I was never a major John Wayne fan, or much of a Western fan once I hit middle school. So with the book being reprinted to tie in with the Coen Brothers version (which I also haven't seen yet), I thought I’d give the source material a shot. I’m glad I did. It’s an interesting take on the revenge-western story, and the main character of Mattie Ross is a great invention: a prim, single-minded 14-year-old Presbyterian with a very naive and narrow mindset that she manages to impose on everyone else mainly by exhausting them. Annoying, yes, but Portis writes her very convincingly, and it’s often funny. It’s also – unintentionally – a kind of roadmap to the roots of the American culture of fundamentalism, guns and Rooster Cogburn’s approach to law enforcement (i.e. “Just shoot ‘em”). Recommended, even if you’ve seen either film version.
JUST STARTED
Day Of The Triffids by John Wyndham
Would you believe I’ve never seen the film version of this either? Not even after it was name-checked by The Lips in Rocky Horror Picture Show? Anyway, I’ve been meaning to try John Wyndham for awhile. Now it’s time.
RECENT TITLES
Our Man In Havana by Grahame Greene
This is my second time out with Greene, and for the second time I’m coming away very impressed, not least for the main idea – an ex-pat vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana is recruited as a spy and, having no idea what or who he’s supposed to be spying on, just makes stuff up for his reports – which then start coming true, with hilarious and increasingly dangerous consequences. It’s a good send-up of the spy game. And I'm pretty much sold on Greene now, so you'll be seeing his name here again.
The Night Sessions by Ken MacLeod
I’ve never read MacLeod before this (not being that big on space operas), but he also writes near-future speculative fiction, to include this book (which I got for cheap, I confess) in which the Faith Wars are over and religion is barely tolerated in the countries that fought it. Meanwhile, robots are self-aware and expressing interest in religion. The idea that religion could be forced that neatly out of mainstream life in the period of time allotted seems a bit far-fetched, but as a plot conceit MacLeod handles it well, and he does a great job both with the religious POVs (apart from the bit where a key character loses his fundamentalist faith, which wasn’t that convincing) and the main plot involving the investigation of the murder of an underground priest. I’ll be trying MacLeod again soon.
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
Doctorow’s Young Adult novel that takes post-9/11 national security paranoia to its logical extreme, with the DHS cracking down on San Francisco and civil liberties in general after a major terrorist attack on the city. Teenage hacker Marcus, after being detained and abused by the DHS, decides to fight back. As with Doctorow’s other books, the main protagonist is annoyingly obsessive, often to his own detriment. Also, Marcus’ political arguments (which are essentially Doctorow’s) sound far too fleshed out for a 17-year-old to be believable. And because its a YA novel, Doctorow spends a little too much time explaining in detail the technology Marcus uses. That aside, it’s a brilliant and convincing look at how easily America could turn into a surveillance police state under the right conditions if certain policy wonks had their way. For that alone I’d recommend it.
Remix by Lawrence Lessig
In which Lessig returns to the arguments he made in Free Culture about the impact of restrictive copyright laws on modern culture, this time with a focus on the way young people use web technology to mash up and remix, and why it’s probably not a good idea to turn an entire generation into instant criminals just because the record companies think posting a 30-second video of yr baby dancing to Prince is no different from selling pirated Prince CDs out of the trunk of a car. If you’ve read Lessig before, you’ve heard a lot of the arguments already, but he puts together a good argument nonetheless.
Dark Entries by Ian Rankin and Werther Dell'Edera
Rankin (whose novels I’ve never read) writes a John Constantine: Hellblazer graphic novel in which Constantine is roped into participating in a Big Brother style reality show set in a haunted house – which turns out to be real in more ways than one. As Hellblazer stories go, it’s pretty good, though the art from Dell'Edera isn’t really my thing, and the ending’s a bit weak. I liked it, but I’m not sure if it will convince me to read Rankin’s other books.
The Nymphos Of Rocky Flats by Mario Acevedo
The first installment of the Felix Gomez series, Gomez being an Iraq War 2 vet who was turned into a vampire there, and now makes a living as a private eye. The idea of being hired to investigate an outbreak of nymphomania at a Department Of Energy facility is a nice hook (especially for people like me), but somehow it never really took off for me. Gomez is pretty flat as a character, and Acevedo doesn’t really make the most of what is otherwise a pretty fun, absurd idea. Plus, the vampire abilities seem cherry-picked to suit the plot. Granted, it’s a debut novel, so maybe Acevedo’s later books get better. And the gimmick of the book being declassified by the US govt is cute. Still, I’m not in any great hurry to try the next Gomez book.
For yr eyes only,
This is dF
