Transition, not death

Because nothing really dies in this electronic age. But this blog has been superceded by my AllConsuming and other 43 things exploits.

So long blog, we hardly knew ye.

Stephen Donaldson - Lord Foul's Bane

• Publisher: Del Rey; Reissue edition (June 12, 1987)


• ISBN: 0345348656


• Rating: 4 out of 5


• Amazon Link: here

The Verdict
A very strange situation: never have I liked a book this much while completely disliking the main character. On top of that its a fantasy book, too. Not my favorite genre. Still the unwilling hero drags you along with him, doing good, questionable and plain bad deeds and ultimately... well I don't know yet as this is the first book of a trilogy. Donaldson is a fine writer and his writing style worked well for me, but I can imagine this book is not for everyone. As for me, on to the next!

From the Publisher
These books have never received the recognition they deserve. It's one of the most powerful and complex fantasy trilogies since Lord of the Rings, but Donaldson is not just another Tolkien wanabee. Each character-driven book introduces unexpected plots, sub-plots, and a host of magical beings so believably rendered you'd believe you might bump into them on your way to the bookstore. --Alex Klapwald, Director of Production

Book Description
The first book in one of the most remarkable epic fantasies ever written, the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever.
He called himself Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever because he dared not believe in the strange alternate world in which he suddenly found himself. Yet he was tempted to believe, to fight for the Land, to be the reincarnation of its greatest hero....
THE CHRONICLES OF THOMAS COVENANT THE UNBELIEVER
Book One: LORD FOUL'S BANE
Book Two: THE ILLEARTH WAR
Book Three: THE POWER THAT PRESERVES

Cory Doctorow - Eastern Standard Tribe

• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (March 1, 2004)


• ISBN: 0765307596


• Rating: 2 out of 5


• Amazon Link: here

The Verdict
I read Down and Out and liked it, it was a fresh breath in a sometimes stale genre. I am currently reading Somebody comes to town, somebody leaves town and having a great time. But this is a little essay around a core idea that regulars of Boing Boing are already intimately familiar with and it offers not much else. I mean, it's a good point and train of thought, but why the wooden characters and thin plotlines? I don't know, it didn't work for me. Maybe I expected too much? Still, there is clever stuff in here so it wasn't a total loss.

ps. In what remains an incredibly cool move almost all Cory's stories are also available for (free) download in a variety of formats. It has worked well for him, and makes for an interesting contrast with old-schoolers like Harlan Ellison whose response to 'piracy' (Arrrr!) has not earned him my respect. Since that was a rather old link (2001 article) I wondered if Harlan's point of view has changed since then; this subsection of his homepage convinces me it has not. Dinosaur, Tarpit, I've seen this before somewhere. Blub, blub, baby.

From Publisher's Weekly
John W. Campbell Award-winner Doctorow lives up to the promise of his first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003), with this near-future, far-out blast against human duplicity and smothering bureaucracy. Even though it takes a while for the reader to grasp post-cyberpunk Art Berry's dizzying leaps between his "now," a scathing 2012 urban nuthouse, and his "then," the slightly earlier events that got him incarcerated there, this short novel's occasionally bitter, sometimes hilarious and always whackily appealing protagonist consistently skewers those evils of modern culture he holds most pernicious. A born-to-argue misfit like all kids who live online, Art has found peers in cyber space who share his unpopular views-specifically his preference for living on Eastern Standard Time no matter where he happens to live and work. In this unsettling world, e-mails filled with arcane in-jokes bind competitive "tribes" that choose to function in one arbitrary time or another. Swinging from intense highs (his innovative marketing scheme promises to impress his tribe and make him rich) to maudlin lows (isolation in a scarily credible loony bin), Art gradually learns that his girl, Linda, and his friend Fede are up to no good. In the first chapter, Doctorow's authorial voice calls this book a work of propaganda, a morality play about the fearful choice everybody makes sooner or later between smarts and happiness. He may be more right than we'd like to think.

Yann Martel - Life of Pi

• Publisher: Harvest Books; Harvest edition (May 1, 2003)


• ISBN: 0156027321


• Rating: 4 out of 5


• Amazon Link: here

The Verdict
What a clever little tale! This story sets up such an unlikely premise; a man and a tiger stuck on a lifeboat after their ship sinks. The book goes on to detail the survival of the man and the tiger. If I had to pick a bit I did not like it would be the religious overtures involved; the story would have worked perfectly well without them. Still, a most well-written book, funny, tragic, strange and wonderful.

From the Publisher
A fabulous romp through an imagination by turns ecstatic, cunning, despairing and resilient, this novel is an impressive achievement "a story that will make you believe in God," as one character says. The peripatetic Pi (ne the much-taunted Piscine) Patel spends a beguiling boyhood in Pondicherry, India, as the son of a zookeeper. Growing up beside the wild beasts, Pi gathers an encyclopedic knowledge of the animal world. His curious mind also makes the leap from his native Hinduism to Christianity and Islam, all three of which he practices with joyous abandon. In his 16th year, Pi sets sail with his family and some of their menagerie to start a new life in Canada. Halfway to Midway Island, the ship sinks into the Pacific, leaving Pi stranded on a life raft with a hyena, an orangutan, an injured zebra and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. After the beast dispatches the others, Pi is left to survive for 227 days with his large feline companion on the 26-foot-long raft, using all his knowledge, wits and faith to keep himself alive. The scenes flow together effortlessly, and the sharp observations of the young narrator keep the tale brisk and engaging. Martel's potentially unbelievable plot line soon demolishes the reader's defenses, cleverly set up by events of young Pi's life that almost naturally lead to his biggest ordeal. This richly patterned work, Martel's second novel, won Canada's 2001 Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. In it, Martel displays the clever voice and tremendous storytelling skills of an emerging master.

Irvine Welsh - Glue

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1st American Ed edition (May, 2001)


• ISBN: 0393322157


• Rating: 3 out of 5


• Amazon Link: here

The Verdict
It was really, really hard to read. Harder than trainspotting. The Scottish slang words were sometimes hardly decipherable, and I found myself saying them out loud sometimes (which helps) only to utter the most horrible profanities to innocent bystanders. Fun for the entire family! The stories are dark and violent at times, sometimes depressing, with the odd moment of triumph. It's a good read if you can get past the lingo.

From the Publisher
Spanning four decades, Welsh's first full-length novel since 1998's Filth chronicles the friendship of four boys from the Edinburgh projects who cling together through football brawls, "shagging" ordeals, encounters with the law, drug experimentation and loss. The POV of this brutally dark tale shifts smoothly among the friends, showcasing Welsh's finely tuned ear for dialect as well as his ability to craft rich, memorable characters. Although the lads differ in many ways Juice Terry Lawson is a bawdy ladies' man with an eye for resalable goods; Billy "Business" Birrell is a rational-minded, all-around athlete with an iron fist; NSIGN Carl Ewart is a philosopher king and a talented disc jockey; "wee" Andrew Galloway (aka Gally) is a warmhearted but luckless drug addict they are bound by the same set of principles: never hit a woman, always back up your mates and never snitch on anyone. Welsh's prose is sometimes coarse and sometimes surprisingly introspective as he describes the introduction of new technologies into factories and contemplates changing mores in Scotland. These general observations give depth to the foreground adventures of Terry, Billy, Carl and Gally, who, despite changing circumstances, strive to stay mates as they approach middle age and the new millennium. A character from Trainspotting makes a cameo appearance during a bungled heist, and readers will note other correspondences with Welsh's cult classic. Stocked with his usual quirky, sympathetic characters, this rollicking new tale sparkles with the writer's trademark satiric wit. Its heft and narrative breadth should convince any remaining skeptics that Welsh now effectively the grand old man of in-your-face Scottish fiction is a writer to be taken seriously. (May)Forecast: Considerably longer than any of Welsh's previous efforts, this brick of a book will sit well on display tables. Loyal readers will likely pack readings on a nine-city author tour; if critics pay homage, too, this could be Welsh's biggest seller since Trainspotting.

William Goldman - The Princess Bride

• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 25th Anniv edition (November 17, 1998)


• ISBN: 034543014X


• Rating: 5 our of 5


• Amazon Link: here

The Verdict
Sometimes I feel like such an idiot. I never knew this amazing movie was preceded by a book. (Although the screenplay was also written by the book's writer). But I finally made good, and read the book. If you've never seen the movie or read the book, stop reading. Go do that first. Then come back and agree with me that this is the definitive fairy tale. It has everything: true love, heroes, villains, a princess, the list goes on. A classic.

Book Description
Once upon a time came a story so full of high adventure and true love that it became an instant classic and won the hearts of millions. Now in hardcover in America for the first time since 1973, this special edition of The Princess Bride is a true keepsake for devoted fans as well as those lucky enough to discover it for the first time. What reader can forget or resist such colorful characters asWestley . . . handsome farm boy who risks death and much, much worse for the woman he loves; Inigo . . . the Spanish swordsman who lives only to avenge his father's death; Fezzik . . . the Turk, the gentlest giant ever to have uprooted a tree with his bare hands; Vizzini . . . the evil Sicilian, with a mind so keen he's foiled by his own perfect logic; Prince Humperdinck . . . the eviler ruler of Guilder, who has an equally insatiable thirst for war and the beauteous Buttercup; Count Rugen . . . the evilest man of all, who thrives on the excruciating pain of others; Miracle Max. . . the King's ex-Miracle Man, who can raise the dead (kind of); The Dread Pirate Roberts . . . supreme looter and plunderer of the high seas; and, of course, Buttercup . . . the princess bride, the most perfect, beautiful woman in the history of the world.

S. Morgenstern's timeless tale--discovered and wonderfully abridged by William Goldman--pits country against country, good against evil, love against hate. From the Cliffs of Insanity through the Fire Swamp and down into the Zoo of Death, this incredible journey and brilliant tale is peppered with strange beasties monstrous and gentle, and memorable surprises both terrible and sublime.

Tagged williamgoldman, princessbride, bookreview, books, book

Ursula K. Le Guin - Earthsea Trilogy

• Publisher: Various


• ISBN: 0553262505, 1416509623, 0553137662


• Rating: 4 out of 5


• Amazon Link: book 1, 2 and 3, between 1968 and 75

The Verdict
A reread, really. I have the paperbacks somewhere but came across the first three books in electronic format, so on a whim (and because carrying a PDA is less cumbersome than lugging around a lot of dead trees) I loaded them in my favorite ebook reader (isilo) and read them while traveling in Ireland. This trilogy (I didn't know, but my amazon searches revealed that she added more books starting around 1990, I haven't read them yet) makes Tolkien look like a hack. The writing is extremely pleasant, the descriptions vibrant and the characters full of life. The first book is my favorite, the story sucks you in and never lets go. I never really liked the main character of the second book, but the third book is great again. I suspect even people who are not really into fantasy might enjoy this book.

From the Publisher
Often compared to Tolkien's Middle-earth or Lewis's Narnia, Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea is a stunning fantasy world that grabs quickly at our hearts, pulling us deeply into its imaginary realms. Four books (A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore, and Tehanu) tell the whole Earthsea cycle--a tale about a reckless, awkward boy named Sparrowhawk who becomes a wizard's apprentice after the wizard reveals Sparrowhawk's true name. The boy comes to realize that his fate may be far more important than he ever dreamed possible. Le Guin challenges her readers to think about the power of language, how in the act of naming the world around us we actually create that world.

Tagged ursulaleguin, earthsee, books, bookreview, leguin, book