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Still reading. Still writing half-assed capsule book reports. Still posting ‘em.
And so.
Deus Irae by Philip K. Dick
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I’ve read a lot of Dick (yes), but I’ve only read Zelazny once (and that was in the 80s). So I thought I’d try this collaboration, which takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where some survivors worship Carleton Lufteufel, the govt official who invented and used the weapon that destroyed most of humanity. Limbless cyborg artist Tibor McMasters is commissioned by the Servants Of Wrath to find Lufteufel (who is believed to still be alive) and paint his likeness for a church mural. His Christian acquaintance Pete Sands vows to stop him at any cost. It might have made an interesting story, and sometimes it is. Unfortunately the narrative suffers from uneven pacing, extremely clunky writing and a tendency to get bogged down in pretentious musings about art and theology. And it really doesn’t really deliver on the concept of Christianity being supplanted by a God Of Wrath, the difference between the two and the nature of godhood. There was just enough here to keep me interested but apart from a few scenes, I didn’t really enjoy it. If Goodreads supported half-stars, I'd give it 1.5.
UFO in Her Eyes by Xiaolu Guo
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Satire from novelist/filmmaker Guo about a Chinese peasant named Kwok Yun whose life and small Chinese village of Silver Hill are changed forever after she sees a UFO in a rice field and rescues an American backpacker who was bitten by a poisonous snake. The novel is written in the form of documents and interviews with various villagers conducted by government agents investigating the UFO sighting. Readers expecting a story about actual aliens will be disappointed, since the story focuses more on how China’s modern “capitalism with socialist characteristics” conflicts with the lives of small-town peasants raised on Mao and the Cultural Revolution, as well as the ever-present constant of govt bureaucracy and surveillance. In that sense, it’s more or less on the mark. On the downside, the interview format is stretched thin across over a dozen characters, so it’s somewhat superficial. In fact, it reads more like a film treatment, though that makes sense given Guo’s other career as filmmaker (and she did in fact do a film version of the book after its publication). Anyway, as satire goes, it’s a decent read.
Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’d never read Eric Ambler before, but his name kept coming up as a must-read for anyone interested in the spy genre, so I took a chance with this. In this case, the main character, Josef Vadassy, isn’t a spy, but a Yugoslavian refugee and language teacher on vacation who is suspected of being a spy after a roll of film he drops off at the chemist is discovered to have pics of secret French naval installations. Threatened with deportation if he doesn’t cooperate, Vadassy must root out the real spy, who is staying at the small Riviera resort where he’s on holiday. It’s equal parts suspenseful and frustrating, the former due to excellent pacing and the latter due to Vadassy’s complete ineptness as a detective. On the other hand, most people in his situation – who also didn’t have the benefit of decades of espionage pop culture to rely on – wouldn’t do much better, which at least makes it realistic. And indeed, Ambler’s aim was to make espionage stories more realistic and human, as opposed to the patriotic he-man bluster of writers like John Buchan. Anyway, it’s pretty good, and I’ll be trying Ambler again.
Butcher's Moon by Richard Stark
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The 16th Parker novel that would also turn out to be the last one for 25 years before Stark revived the series. But it’s a hell of a finale – at 300+ pages, it’s epic by Parker standards, and brings back many of the recurring (and surviving) characters in the series. Parker goes back to the amusement park where he stashed $73,000 in Slayground, only to find someone got to it first. Needless to say, that’s bad news for whoever took it, as Parker stops at nothing to get his money back – not even getting in the middle of a mob takeover. Well told and well plotted, it’s one of the best in the series and would have been a great note to go out on if Stark had decided to leave it there.
The Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Part surreal mad science, part satire of Soviet Russia, this is Bulgakov’s tale of Professor Preobrazhensky, a rich surgeon in Moscow who transplants the testicles and pituitary gland of a human into a dog, which then unexpectedly transforms into a man who gradually turns the professor’s life into a living hell – mainly by being rude, uncivilized and a Bolshevik. Like with the other Bulgakov books I’ve read, some of the satirical bits only work if you have a little knowledge about the Russian Revolution, but that’s not a prerequisite for reading and enjoying this. Which I did – I like Bulgakov’s surreal sense of humor, and I like that much of the story is told from the dog’s point of view. Readers who are sensitive dog lovers may find parts of it a little hard to take (especially the surgery scene), and hardcore cat lovers may not find it very funny. But if yr a fan of mad-science books like Frankenstein and The Island Of Dr Moreau, I highly recommend this.
Giving the dog a bone,
This is dF
And so.
Deus Irae by Philip K. DickMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
I’ve read a lot of Dick (yes), but I’ve only read Zelazny once (and that was in the 80s). So I thought I’d try this collaboration, which takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where some survivors worship Carleton Lufteufel, the govt official who invented and used the weapon that destroyed most of humanity. Limbless cyborg artist Tibor McMasters is commissioned by the Servants Of Wrath to find Lufteufel (who is believed to still be alive) and paint his likeness for a church mural. His Christian acquaintance Pete Sands vows to stop him at any cost. It might have made an interesting story, and sometimes it is. Unfortunately the narrative suffers from uneven pacing, extremely clunky writing and a tendency to get bogged down in pretentious musings about art and theology. And it really doesn’t really deliver on the concept of Christianity being supplanted by a God Of Wrath, the difference between the two and the nature of godhood. There was just enough here to keep me interested but apart from a few scenes, I didn’t really enjoy it. If Goodreads supported half-stars, I'd give it 1.5.
UFO in Her Eyes by Xiaolu GuoMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Satire from novelist/filmmaker Guo about a Chinese peasant named Kwok Yun whose life and small Chinese village of Silver Hill are changed forever after she sees a UFO in a rice field and rescues an American backpacker who was bitten by a poisonous snake. The novel is written in the form of documents and interviews with various villagers conducted by government agents investigating the UFO sighting. Readers expecting a story about actual aliens will be disappointed, since the story focuses more on how China’s modern “capitalism with socialist characteristics” conflicts with the lives of small-town peasants raised on Mao and the Cultural Revolution, as well as the ever-present constant of govt bureaucracy and surveillance. In that sense, it’s more or less on the mark. On the downside, the interview format is stretched thin across over a dozen characters, so it’s somewhat superficial. In fact, it reads more like a film treatment, though that makes sense given Guo’s other career as filmmaker (and she did in fact do a film version of the book after its publication). Anyway, as satire goes, it’s a decent read.
Epitaph for a Spy by Eric AmblerMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’d never read Eric Ambler before, but his name kept coming up as a must-read for anyone interested in the spy genre, so I took a chance with this. In this case, the main character, Josef Vadassy, isn’t a spy, but a Yugoslavian refugee and language teacher on vacation who is suspected of being a spy after a roll of film he drops off at the chemist is discovered to have pics of secret French naval installations. Threatened with deportation if he doesn’t cooperate, Vadassy must root out the real spy, who is staying at the small Riviera resort where he’s on holiday. It’s equal parts suspenseful and frustrating, the former due to excellent pacing and the latter due to Vadassy’s complete ineptness as a detective. On the other hand, most people in his situation – who also didn’t have the benefit of decades of espionage pop culture to rely on – wouldn’t do much better, which at least makes it realistic. And indeed, Ambler’s aim was to make espionage stories more realistic and human, as opposed to the patriotic he-man bluster of writers like John Buchan. Anyway, it’s pretty good, and I’ll be trying Ambler again.
Butcher's Moon by Richard StarkMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The 16th Parker novel that would also turn out to be the last one for 25 years before Stark revived the series. But it’s a hell of a finale – at 300+ pages, it’s epic by Parker standards, and brings back many of the recurring (and surviving) characters in the series. Parker goes back to the amusement park where he stashed $73,000 in Slayground, only to find someone got to it first. Needless to say, that’s bad news for whoever took it, as Parker stops at nothing to get his money back – not even getting in the middle of a mob takeover. Well told and well plotted, it’s one of the best in the series and would have been a great note to go out on if Stark had decided to leave it there.
The Heart of a Dog by Mikhail BulgakovMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Part surreal mad science, part satire of Soviet Russia, this is Bulgakov’s tale of Professor Preobrazhensky, a rich surgeon in Moscow who transplants the testicles and pituitary gland of a human into a dog, which then unexpectedly transforms into a man who gradually turns the professor’s life into a living hell – mainly by being rude, uncivilized and a Bolshevik. Like with the other Bulgakov books I’ve read, some of the satirical bits only work if you have a little knowledge about the Russian Revolution, but that’s not a prerequisite for reading and enjoying this. Which I did – I like Bulgakov’s surreal sense of humor, and I like that much of the story is told from the dog’s point of view. Readers who are sensitive dog lovers may find parts of it a little hard to take (especially the surgery scene), and hardcore cat lovers may not find it very funny. But if yr a fan of mad-science books like Frankenstein and The Island Of Dr Moreau, I highly recommend this.
Giving the dog a bone,
This is dF
