6/12/2009

6/12/2009

chad: richard k morgan. the steel remains.
1. verdict: +
2. review:
  
  the first of a trilogy in the epic fantasy genre. well-known for his
  sf work primarily, has not entered into fantasy before, as far as chad
  knows. there is an amusingly incomplete quote from joe abercrombie on
  the jacket. "this book is the song of the sorcelator to joe
  abercrombie's the epic legends of the hierarchs." i think that pretty
  much says it all, but some of you may not read penny arcade, so the
  review continues. everything is totally macho. like, abercrombie is
  macho, too. but abercrombie is macho because he's a sissy. this is
  "not for sissies at all." supposed to take place super far in the
  future, probably, the moon has been destroyed and there are lizards
  and, let's be honest, fucking WITCHALOKS. the main character, let's
  call him GRIMM SHADO, meets up with the WITCHALOKS, and... i can't
  keep typing this. anyway when grimm shado meets the witchalok king,
  suddenly there's a ton a really graphic homosexual sex, which you may
  not have expected, based on the macho setup. that's sort of where the
  tension comes from. he sort of liked it, may read the rest. (he really
  doesn't seem sure.) there were no funny parts, and basically it was
  way too macho. "oh and there's also a wolfoid!!!"
interlude

a long exploration of eloth:tes follows, along with dinner.
adam: hero of the ages. brandon sanderson.
1. verdict: ++
2. review:
  
  doesn't want to spend a lot of time on this, he's already spent enough
  time on this series. there was one totally fuck-yeah moment in the
  middle of the book, but all in all... it was good! he would recommend
  the entire trilogy. it's not heavy or trying to push any boundaries,
  it's just pulp fantasy. his only real problem with the book is that
  his religion comes through too clearly in the end. he would like to
  downgrade his review, but i will not allow it as he clearly enjoyed
  the book.
oliver: max brooks. world war z: an oral history of the zombie war.
1. verdict: -
2. review:
  
  this is a novel by the zombie survival guide guy. no shit. "there were
  a lot of pages, so it was probably a novel." anyway this is told some
  years after the outbreak of world war z, and it's a history of how the
  various countries rid themselves of the zombie menace after this
  plague sweeps the world. a series of vignettes collected by a folk
  historian. a good strategy for him as a writer, since it allows him to
  avoid characterization. so basically it's a silly us-centric view of
  all these other countires, "hackneyed" is oliver's well-chosen word.
  that's pretty much the program, you can imagine how it works out. "it
  gets the job done." once you start turning the pages, you want to get
  to the end. high praise.
jen: brian francis slattery. spaceman blues.
1. verdict: ++
2. review:
  
  she recounts the plot, which i will not record, since i've already
  reported on this book, although now that i think of it, i almost
  certainly did not record my own plot summary, and in this amount of
  space, i could more than likely be typing every word she says. oh
  well, what's done is done. moving on. she likes this story more than
  liberation, and she liked liberation when she read it, and this book
  made her like liberation more in retrospect.
brandon: trenton lee stewart. the mysterious benedict society and the perilous journey.
1. verdict: -
2. review:
  
  a graduate of the iowa writer's workshop, "which is where the problems
  start, in my opinion." recommended by his wife sarah, this is the
  second book in a possibly open-ended series. brandon did not read the
  first. there's a long story here, but i won't tell it. he read it on
  the plane. it's pretty typical kid literature, there's an all-loving
  dumbledore, he has narcolepsy, etc. basically, it made him appreciate
  harry potter. if you have any chance of reading anything better in
  this genre, take it.
brandon: m t anderson. the astonishing life of octavian nothing.
1. verdict: ++
2. review:
  
  we heard about this review, so i won't review. the story picks up
  halfway through, it's pretty good, he writes some really good
  sentences. if you took his ability to write sentences and j k
  rowling's ability to structure a whole novel, you'd have something
  really good. anyway this is basically a series of tableaux, but it's
  very smart about it. sarah thinks it's great, brandon thinks it could
  be a little better. but good.
matt: michael swanwick. the dog said bow-wow.
1. verdict: +
2. review:
  
  a book of short stories. i'm not done with this yet, but so far it's
  good.
coda

can it be steampunk if it was written in 1908? survey says: no!
that's all, folks.