1/14/2010
- josh: ed. sumana harihareswara and leonard richardson. thoughtcrime experiments.
- verdict: meh
- review:
the guy editor wrote a python library called beautiful soup that josh
was a big fan of, and that's how he found this book. this is
self-published book based on a personal ideology of the editors
involving the quality of literature and its relation to the quality of
editors. this goes on for a bit, but i can't keep up. anyway it's a
tolerable collection of stories, he enjoyed a couple of them but would
not really recommend it.
- megan: defender. c j cherryh.
- verdict: +
- review:
this is the sixth book in an older series, the foreigner series. there
is a huge and incredibly complicated explanation of this series, she
thought she wouldn't make it through the first book but she's read six
so far. sounds like space opera of a sort with a couple of humanoid
alien races. i can't try to sum up a series like this, but megan
recommends them.
- adam: neverwhere. neil gaiman.
- verdict: +
- review:
feels like this has sort of a "first novel" feel to it. similar themes
and tropes to the rest of his book, but not paced or written as well
as his later novels. great characters, great story, but was sometimes
distracted by the writing. (megan offers a counterpoint, she really
likes this book.) he gives a summary but i shan't replicate it. he
liked it and would recommend it, but it's not gaiman's best.
- chad: infected. scott sigler.
- verdict: +
- review:
supposedly has the "most popular science fiction podcast on the
internet." chad's dad recommended this, and he does not have the very
best records. nonetheless... we listen to a "killswitch engage" song
and chad tells us that "that gives us the feel of this book."
charming. the main character is a failed football player from ann
arbor who injured his knee in the big game and now he's a network
technician. seriously, wow. anyway it's about an alien infection, i
guess, but i'm losing track. there are dead psychopaths infected with
an alien virus, the cia gets involved, i dunno. there's a woman. a
large part of this book involved the linebacker dude "talking to the
triangles" and stabbing himself, and his dad beat and abused him so
he's not gonna take any shit from the triangles. anyway as amazingly
ridiculous as this sounds, it actually sounds like chad liked it a
fair amount. i mean, maybe in an "ironic" way or whatever, but i think
he enjoyed it. ("there was one on his testicles, one in his asscrack,
...", i'm just reporting here, folks.) this is amazing. "so, the next
novel is called contagious, and... um... my dad also sent me that."
- paul: before they are hanged. joe abercrombie.
- verdict: meh
- review:
the same as book one in pretty much every way. he found the vast
majority of the main quest painfully boring, it just went on and
on. he did a good job for awhile cycling between the storylines, but
he couldn't keep it up. he liked the dagoska and west storylines.
- interlude.
in which we discuss gene wolfe and whether josh is a fool for not
having grasped the true significance of pirate freedom. we conclude
that while josh is indeed a fool, it wouldn't necessarily follow from
this.
- chad: transition. iain (m?) banks.
- verdict: ++
- review:
the new banks book, sci-fi in the us and lit fic in england, i
guess. whatever. anyway, it takes place on earth ostensibly, "around
now." anyway it seems like a direct rebuttal of anathem, in a
sense. it sort of "takes the many worlds interpretation seriously,"
and concludes that everything about neal stephenson's conclusions is
evil and wrong. it's sort of a spy novel written from the view of a
few main characters. they work for the concern, which has some agenda
throughout the many worlds, which is of course very vague. it's
supposed to be good, but of course there are insinuations that it's
actually wrong and evil. it goes on, there's some power struggle and
he doesn't want to give it away because i myself, the editor, plan to
read it. (and i think you for that, sir.) anyway he liked it, he
thought it was very good. recommended.
- coda
chris promises to review a book about mermen, and with this we
adjourn.
- that's all, folks.