1) “And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
Reasons: Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

2) The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Violence

3) “Olive’s Ocean,” by Kevin Henkes
Reasons: Sexually Explicit and Offensive Language

4) “The Golden Compass,” by Philip Pullman
Reasons: Religious Viewpoint

5) “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain
Reasons: Racism

6) “The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language,

7) “TTYL,” by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou
Reasons: Sexually Explicit

9) “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris
Reasons: Sex Education, Sexually Explicit

10) “The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

I’m kind of sad I’ve only read four of those, actually.

The Vatican on Wednesday condemned the film “The Golden Compass,” which some have called anti-Christian, saying it promotes a cold and hopeless world without God.

In a long editorial, the Vatican newspaper l’Osservatore Romano, also slammed Philip Pullman, the bestselling author of the book on which the family fantasy movie is based.

It was the Vatican’s most stinging broadside against an author and a film since it roundly condemned “The Da Vinci Code” in 2005 and 2006.

“In Pullman’s world, hope simply does not exist, because there is no salvation but only personal, individualistic capacity to control the situation and dominate events,” the editorial said.

In addition to the part where the books are teh awesome!!1!11!!1 (and only mouthbreathing ijits actually think they’re anti-god (they’re gnostic at the core, and anti-dogma and anti-formal structure. “god” is a nice dude with a bitchass major domo)… where was I? Oh yeah, anything that has Dobson, Robertson, and Popeferatu against is a must-experience. Must.

AN EMBUGGERANCE
Folks,

I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but because of upcoming conventions and of course the need to keep my publishers informed, it seems to me unfair to withhold the news. I have been diagnosed with a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s, which lay behind this year’s phantom “stroke”.

We are taking it fairly philosophically down here and possibly with a mild optimism. For now work is continuing on the completion of Nation and the basic notes are already being laid down for Unseen Academicals. All other things being equal, I expect to meet most current and, as far as possible, future commitments but will discuss things with the various organisers. Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there’s time for at least a few more books yet )

PS I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should be interpreted as ‘I am not dead’. I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else. For me, this maybe further off than you think – it’s too soon to tell. I know it’s a very human thing to say “Is there anything I can do”, but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.

Tor Books announced today that novelist Brandon Sanderson has been chosen to finish the final novel in Robert Jordan’s bestselling Wheel of Time fantasy series. Robert Jordan, one of the greatest storytellers of the 20th and early 21st centuries, died September 16th

Robert Jordan may be dead, but this craptacular series will. go. on. forEVAH.

What authors have you given up on for good? And why?

Now, we’ve got two people saying Dan Simmons so I can’t use him. Which is unfortunate, since he certainly deserves to be on the list, both because of the GWOT malarkey and his horrible second-novels in each series he’s done. So… here’s my list of authors that started off great. Our relationship was perfect and my love for them burned brighter than two suns … only to fizzle when they kept publishing past their expiration date. These authors are dead to me, our love a dry, barren, scorched earth of place where only the unlikeliest of seeds may take root henceforth:

Chuck Palahniuk. Invisible Monsters, Fight Club, and Survivor were fantastic. Choke was good. But Diary, Lullaby, and Haunted were all empty nothings that lacked the energy, vision, and genius of his earlier work. I was pretty sure I was done after Diary, but I’m certain I’m done after Haunted.

Neal Stephenson. There, I’ve said it. Quicksilver was such an awful book that it overwhelmed the truly awe-inspiring works of Snow Crash and Diamond Age. and I liked the Big U, Zodiac, and Cryptonomicron as well. Interface… not so much (it was a long way to go just to get a black woman as president). Visionary, meth-and-death-metal fueled genius… toppled under it’s own weight and affectation of writing three massive tomes longhand.

Orson Scott Card. Three of his works were fantastic – Ender’s Game, Seventh Son, and Red Prophet. Some were pretty good (like the first two in the Homecoming series), but every book after the second in each of his series was just awful. The returning to former glories with Ender’s Shadow and the like is just pathetic. The well is dry, Orson. That and the freaking incessant pounding of the Mormon mythology drums just gets tiresome.

On the bubble: Neil Gaiman, Greg Bear, George R. R. Martin, Jim Butcher, Stephen King
Definitely on the list, but too trite to mention: J.K. Rowling, Robert Jordan, Michael Moore, Anne Rice

Update: Just found out about OS Card’s warporn book. Feeling very secure with my pick there.

FSM, I love the Nac Mac Feegle (what are they good for? Drinkin’! Drinkin’ and what? Drinkin’ and fightin’! Drinkin and fightin and what? Drinkin’ and fightin’ and stealin’!). Don’t know who Terry Pratchett is? Why, he’s only the wittiest, funniest, satirical writer in like… ever. His most famous and successful construct is a fictional universe called Discworld. It’s a flat planet that sits on top of four giant elephants who stand on the shell of the great space turtle A’Tuin. The series is inspired storytelling and genius disguised as satire. I’m such a fanboi, I’ve even reviewed and provided capsule summaries of all 30-something Discworld books, feel free to peruse at your leisure. But comment so I can feel some lurve.

Anyway, books are always cool gifts and Pratchett is good fun for the whole family. So he’s going on my wishlist as well as the Deals n’ Gifts list. Pratchett and Susanna Clarke’s The Ladies of Gracie Adieu are the books I’m most looking forward to these days. Well, that and the next 3 from Steven Erikson.

The recent literary analysis reminded me that I still need to unpack my review trapped in the old phpNuke db… no, wait, I’ll do it now. Here it is. It’s not as rage-fuelled as I remember it. Damn that reasonableness thing!

Davinci Code – 2/5
You’ve probably seen this book around, goodness knows I sure did. It was everywhere, in every store. I figured it was one of those Oprah book club things, so I didn’t pay much attention. Then there was a glowing review in my forums and my wife just happened to buy it for me a couple days later. So I thought I would read it.

Let me summarize my review before continuing: this book is a craptastic exercise in total schlock, and unremarkable even by those low standards. The DaVinci Code is drivel, but it didn’t make me want to hurl it across the room so it gets two stars rather than one. The book is a modern Hardy Boys mystery, but nothing more.

You can take all the mystic hoodoo and religio-inspired jacket text and throw them out the door; they are about as relevant to the plot as the Xerox machine is in The Firm. The book is crap from page one and crap until the very end. Though it is your basic crap book, it wasn’t horrible (unlike, oh, say Potter 5) and was even enjoyable at times so I don’t hate it. It’s just nothing special and it’s popularity over other equivalent books is surprising to me.

Theoretically it’s about the Holy Grail which consists of actual documentation of Jesus’ marriage and offspring.

If you’ve ever read a Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew book, you’ve read the DaVinci code. Brown is a total hack who relies primarily upon stock characters, cliche, absurd “puzzles”, and most annoying of all: “cliffhangers”. Add in a cop-out ending and dialogue that would make Tom Clancy proud, and you’ve got yourself one crappy book.

The stock characters are what you expect.

• Protagonist: middle aged white male ivy league professor with a baritone voice. Check. Quirky trait? Of course! A Mickey Mouse watch.
• Female lead: younger than protagonist. Check. Beautiful with [insert color here... auburn] flowing hair. Check. Smart and with attitude. Check. Character loses definition, primary characteristics, and does a 180 into helplessness and childishness? Check (for example, she’s a super cryptographer but can’t figure out an anagram. Or she goes from being capable to helpless, whenever the protagonist needs to be the Protagonist. More on this later). A Big Secret? Check! Bonus points for revealing it in the last five pages, though it was obvious for the last 300.
• Friend/Rich benefactor/[redacted]: yep. Disfigured or impaired? Check. Rich? Check. Quirky trait? Of course! He was an actor.
• Bad Guys: multiple layers? Check. Code names? Check. Could be good guys? Check.

and so on. I’m sure you get the idea.

The cliches and stereotypes are no better than the stock characters (who are themselves cliches by definition, but whatever). The French police? Drive Citroens. The Professor? Wears a tweed jacket. The head cop? Vain, officious, and trying to frame the protagonist. Butler? Evil. Church? Evil and/or misguided (though Brown is careful not to piss off the Catholic establishment and instead paints Opus Dei as his Evil Organization of Doom). Plus the Bad Guy #1 is an albino. Behold, the genius at work!

The female protagonist has the most egregious lapses of character. For example, when coming home to her grandfather’s house as a 21-year old college student, she walks in on him having sex (which she has both presumably had by now and presumably should know that he had to do at some point in order to begat one of her parents). You should know that this is a French woman who is obviously very capable and has had an adult-type relationship with her grandfather since she was a little girl. But somehow, someway, walking in on him having sex causes her to be so disturbed that she never speaks to him again. Ever. Even though he writes her all the time, she just keeps the letters in her dresser unopened. You ready to cry “bullshit” yet? Because I sure was.

The puzzles, these oh-so-”witty” (to Dan Brown) clues that were created by the great masters and are so, so, so! difficult… are completely assinine. Yo, I’m going to spoil some things here, but not major points. The first puzzles? Fibonacci sequence and some anagrams. Yawn. The others? single-pass cypher and some blindingly obvious verse, along with mirror writing which amazingly (or, out of characterly if you are thinking like I am) no one is able to decipher. Because, you know, DaVinci never, ever was famous for writing his diary in mirror script. Even better, this mirror script is in fuckin english (because english is a “pure” language, I’m sure), so it’s not even cypher text or a non-native language. That one was a real boner of a “puzzle.”

All of the above pales in comparison to the sheer abrasive power of the cliffhangers. Each chapter is approximately four pages long, on average. I am not making this up. Four pages. Nearly every chapter ends with a cliffhanger or tease, and nearly every one of these is clumsy to the point of absurdity. The Hardy Boys did it better. Here are a couple examples:

“Um, sir?” The agent pointed to a nearby pegboard on which hung several sets of keys. The labels above the keys bore familiar names.

DAIMLER . . . ROLLS-ROYCE . . . ASTON MARTIN . . . PORSCHE . . .

The last peg was empty.

When Collet read the label above the empty peg, he knew he was in trouble.

That’s on p. 282. Six pages later, you get this groaner:

“Robert?” Sophie was still watching him. “A funny look just crossed your face.”

Langdon glanced back at her, realizing his jaw was firmly set and his heart was racing. An incredible notion had just occurred to him. Could it really be that simple an explanation? “I need to use your cell phone, Sophie.”
“Now?”
“I think I just figured something out.”
“What?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute. I need your phone.”
Sophie looked wary. “I doubt Fache is tracing, but keep it under a minute just in case.” She gave him her phone.
“How do I dial the States?”
“You need to reverse the charges. My service doesn’t cover transatlantic.”

Langdon dialed zero, knowing that the next sixty seconds might answer a question that had been puzzling him all night.

The DaVinci code is 449 pages long. My rough estimate is that there are approximately 2 million cliffhangers similar to the above. But wait! There’s more!

Here’s my favorite cliffhanger wannabe, and the one that made me decide to save these for posterity. It gets double bonus points for the tense change and unclear subject (check out the second paragraph). Triple bonus points for another stylistic annoyance of Brown’s, the awkward intrusion of his research notes into the text (also see: brand name recognition, overly-descriptive architecture, and ostentatious display of adjectives concerning fashion and other couture):

Aringarosa had heard of this place – the Vatican’s Astronomy Library – rumored to contain more than twenty-five thousand volumes, including rare works of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Secchi. Allegedly, it was also the place in which the Pope’s highest officers held private meetings . . . those meetings they preferred not to hold within the walls of Vatican City.

Approaching the door, Bishop Aringarosa would never have imagined the shocking news he was about to receive inside, or the deadly chain of events it would put into motion. It was not until an hour later, as he staggered from the meeting, that the devastating implications settled in. Six months from now! he had thought. God help us!

Note, this is a flashback, so the tense is triply screwed.

In the end, Brown’s book is somewhere between LeCarre and Grisham, with dialog that approaches a Tom Clancy-level wince factor at times. The plot is inane, the puzzles retarded, and the whole thing is contrived and trivial. I can see why it is popular: you don’t need to think – ever – when reading this book, and the 4-page chapters make for great during-commercial reading.

It wasn’t total dogshit like Potter5, so I’ll give it a 2. The DaVinci Code totally sucks, but if you’re on a plane or the beach and need something and don’t want to be challenged with creativity or novel (in the adjectival sense) characters and you liked the Hardy Boys or Drew novels when you were a kid, go ahead and pick it up.

Addendum: Another thing that annoys me is that the book plays it safe with its outrageousness. The DaVinci Code is heretical, but in a way that won’t discomfort too many people, just like a meal at Dennys or a show on Lifetime. Though there is far more evidence to support the assertion that Jesus was a myth created by the church as a nice, if necessary, moral tale, but the book never addresses it. Instead, the existence of Jesus the man is taken as fact, which is a lot more palatable to your average American. The heresy here is that he was married and had offspring, which is a far easier thing for indoctrinated people to accept than the idea that their entire belief system is based upon a myth. Brown’s “academicians” who are seers and seekers of the truth, able to pierce any mystery, knowing the truth from history, ignore the 5-ton elephant sitting in a room (that Jesus of Nazareth never existed) with some hand-waving “everybody knows…” and “no serious person disputes his existence…” -type statements. Believe in Jesus the man or not, but to have the scholars assume his existence without question strains my suspension of disbelief. Sure, a Jesus who had sex and offspring is fun, but it’s still just as likely to be a myth as Jesus’ existence. You wimp, Brown.

Kings of Infinite Space – 3/5.
Starts off well, fades badly. Goes from creepy Lovecraftian/Wellsian to Carroll-esque plus cheese.

The Golden Compass – Philip Pullman – 4/5.
Excellent surrealish British fantasy/adolescent novel. There are two more in the series, which I hear turns more into some Manichean religious end times type deal, but the first book was just fine. The Golden Compass is a charming book, though not nearly so excellent as Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (admittedly, they are aiming at different audiences), which I link in my head because they both have that indefinable fantasy Britishosity, or at least what I consider to be the archetypical examples of such.

Memories of Ice – Steven Erikson – 5/5.
With this book, Erikson passes George Martin as the best hard fantasy series ever. A world so detailed, so incredibly well envisioned by the author that it requires no extemporaneous explanations. Erikson (a pseudonym) is the Salman Rushdie of the fantasy authors – complex, rich works that require investment on the part of the reader to complete, but are well worth it nonetheless. Like Rushdie, you need a break after one of these novels before you can go on to his next one

The Little Sister – Raymond Chandler – 3/5.
My first Chandler book. The misogyny that comes through so well in the movies is definitely present, but the movies miss the misanthropy, alienation, dissociation, and depression of the novels. It’s a good, quick read with lots of active verbs and not a lot of fluff in the prose… but the plot is as disjointed and jumpy as the worst of the movies, like say The Big Sleep. You want deus ex machina and massive leaps of logic? Chandler’s your guy. On the plus side, he doesn’t laboriously paint every step in the ladder, which is a nice change of pace.

Amnesia Moon – Jonathan Lethem – 3/5.
I loved Lethem’s Gun with Occasional Music, and this was his followup novel. They are completely unrelated. Amnesia Moon deals with the subjective nature of reality, dreams, human society, and forms of dominance. It feels incomplete.

Blood Music – Greg Bear – 3/5.
Greg Bear’s first book, and you can see why he became a successful author and one of my favorites (at least up until Dinosaur Summer, but there are at least 4 of his early works that I call great without hesitation). This one is the biological version of the nanotech nightmare of a grey goo planet. It feels somewhat like a bastard child of To Marry Medusa with an update written in the 80′s by a scientist.

Three months ago, in what the talk show host termed a “radical departure,” Winfrey announced that “A Million Little Pieces,” author James Frey’s nonfiction memoir of his vomit-caked years as an alcoholic, drug addict, and criminal, was her latest selection for the world’s most powerful book club.
…
Police reports, court records, interviews with law enforcement personnel, and other sources have put the lie to many key sections of Frey’s book. The 36-year-old author, these documents and interviews show, wholly fabricated or wildly embellished details of his purported criminal career, jail terms, and status as an outlaw “wanted in three states.”

I’m glad she’s got a book club and that she pushes books she thinks are worthwhile. Even if most are middlebrow-at-best warm family homily pablum with a redemptive ending, it’s better than endorsing manufactured products or exercise equipment. Dont’ get me wrong, Oprah’s still an insensitive wealthy alien idiot prone to blaming things on racism, but I’m all for reading.

Literature is not like the Special Olympics. You don’t get points just for trying and not everybody is a winner.

This is true for everyone except, apparently, Christopher Paolini. He is a winner in the same way that Dan Brown is a My Pet Rock winner for fad o’ the nonce, or the Lemony Snickets are for the Must Find the Next Potter land grab.

The backstory behind Eragon is a whole lot more interesting than the book itself. Paolini wrote the book as a 15 year old. Apparently the “good job kid” pat on the head turned into massive number of book orders by a desperate publisher. Too bad they didn’t choose a book worth publishing.

Want to know how bad it is? Here’s the first sentence:

Wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that would change the world.

That’s right, people, a scent is going to change the world. Only it turns out not to be the scent that changes the world at all. Shocking misdirection or amateur hour at the word processor, you make the call.

In the realm of literature, as defined by the words you can read on the page in front of you, works are judged by what is on those pages rather than the backstory of the author. There was no reason for the utter piece of tripe to be published. Ever. In anything outside of a vanity publishing house. Where Paolini’s parents paid.

Look, the book shows that Paolini is a decent writer for a 15 year old. He can construct sentences fairly well and the grammar is straightforward (simplistic would be my term, but then “you’re picking on a 15 year old!” comes into play). I admire the dedication it took for this home schooled geek to create and finish his novel.

But that’s as far as it goes. Outside of the proper sentence construction, there is nothing to recommend this book. At all. There is not one ounce of originality, interest, arc, insight, or vision evident. There is no character development. There is inconsistent and frequently poor writing. There is no motivation. There is a book written by someone who would feel right at home on a TV action series or any recent Hollywood offering (motto: “where plot creates the characters, not vice versa!”)

Every plot device, every being that populates Paolini’s world is lifted from some other fantasy book, Tolkien most of all. Even the main character’s name – Eragon – is dangerously close to a straight life of Tolkien’s “Aragorn” (not to mention one letter from “dragon”). You’ve got elves who came from across the sea, and who are the fair folk, and the best the world has to offer. Dwarves live underground with towns that are one letter removed from actual places in Norway. None of the races were native to this continent. The Mystical Mark makes an appearance. And pretty much every other cliche in the fantasy universe, yadda yadda yadda. The writing is not that remarkable either – I was a better writer at age 15, and I’m nothing on the literature scale. The best I can come up with is that this book exemplifies the middlebrow lowered expectations of the modern pop lit market. It’s depressing, really.

Paolini may develop an original vision or may actually prove to be an astute observer of human nature and interactions at some point, but if so, as evidenced by Eragon, that day is long in the future. Life’s too short to waste my time reading crap, so I will not be reading the rest of the series (too bad I already bought the second one stupid Costco fad pushers).

As a (home) school project, Eragon would get you an A for the semester. As a work of literature, it makes a great doorstop. I strongly advise against shelling out cash for this book.

‘Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion’

Children won’t get the Christian subtext, but unbelievers should keep a sickbag handy during Disney’s new epic, writes Polly Toynbee

I admit, when I read the series I had no idea there were religious overtones to it. I think it was third grade and all I really remember is that I learned that a “wireless” in England was called a “radio” by me and my kind. Oh, and in one of the later books, I learned about the lisping thing to do at night when you’re scouting or about to attack or need to hide, because the sibilance of esses carries. I remember mothballs too. Maybe I only remember the first couple chapters of the first book because that was the only thing that motivated me.

I do remember not being very excited about the series after the first one. It just kept dragging on, and on, and on…. like a sermon.

This new Disney film is a remarkably faithful rendition of the book – faithful in both senses. It is beautiful to look at and wonderfully acted. The four English children and their world are all authentically CS Lewis olde England. But from its opening scenes of the bombing of their Finchley home in the blitz and the tear-jerking evacuation from their mother in a (spotlessly clean) steam train, there is an emotional undertow to this film that tugs on the heart-strings from the first frames. By the end, it feels profoundly manipulative, as Disney usually does. But then, that is also deeply faithful to the book’s own arm-twisting emotional call to believers.

But, hey, maybe it’s just a great good v. evil thing, right? Some gland, glorious epic, only without elvish or booger-flavored beans, right?

All the same, children may puzzle over the lion and ask embarrassing questions. For non-CS Lewis aficionados, here is a recap. The four children enter Narnia through a wardrobe and find themselves in a land frozen into “always winter, never Christmas” by the white witch, (played with elemental force by Tilda Swinton). Unhappy middle child Edmund, resentful of being bossed about by his older brother, broods with meanness and misery. The devil, in the shape of the witch, tempts him: for the price of several chunks of turkish delight, rather than 30 pieces of silver, Edmund betrays his siblings and their Narnian friends.

The sins of this “son of Adam” can only be redeemed by the supreme sacrifice of Aslan. This Christ-lion willingly lays down his life, submitting himself to be bound, thrashed and humiliated by the white witch, allowing his golden mane to be cut and himself to be slaughtered on the sacrificial stone table: it cracks in sympathetic agony and his body goes missing. The two girls lay down their heads and weep, Magdalene and Mary-like. Be warned, the film lingers long and lovingly over all this.

Oh yeah. Forgot about that. Nevermind.

Then again, I would probably enjoy it if I were with kids who would ask afterwards “why did the lion come back to life? That makes no sense.” Or the ones that would question the rigid fascist hierarchy that is so beloved by Lewis and Tolkein. Then I’d give the Madeleine L’Engle’s ouvre and tell ‘em to go at it.

The review gets extra double bonus points for paragraphs like this:

Tolkien hated Narnia: the two dons may have shared the same love of unquestioning feudal power, with worlds of obedient plebs and inferior folk eager to bend at the knee to any passing superior white persons – even children; both their fantasy worlds and their Christianity assumes that rigid hierarchy of power – lord of lords, king of kings, prince of peace to be worshipped and adored. But Tolkien disliked Lewis’s bully-pulpit.

Over the years, others have had uneasy doubts about the Narnian brand of Christianity. Christ should surely be no lion (let alone with the orotund voice of Liam Neeson). He was the lamb, representing the meek of the earth, weak, poor and refusing to fight. Philip Pullman – he of the marvellously secular trilogy His Dark Materials – has called Narnia “one of the most ugly, poisonous things I have ever read”.

Why? Because here in Narnia is the perfect Republican, muscular Christianity for America – that warped, distorted neo-fascist strain that thinks might is proof of right. I once heard the famous preacher Norman Vincent Peel in New York expound a sermon that reassured his wealthy congregation that they were made rich by God because they deserved it. The godly will reap earthly reward because God is on the side of the strong. This appears to be CS Lewis’s view, too. In the battle at the end of the film, visually a great epic treat, the child crusaders are crowned kings and queens for no particular reason. Intellectually, the poor do not inherit Lewis’s earth.

A Feast for Crows is like Middle School – it’s that uncomfortable bridge between the two better bookends of your primary education. You have to muddle through it, but it’s not very fun while you’re in it, and you are unlikely to look back upon the time fondly.

It’s hard to like a bridging novel, and the loftiest role A Feast for Crows could hope to fill would be that of bridging novel. You see, it’s not really a novel, it’s a novel that’s been cut in half. It shows. There’s no arc, very little tension, and even less action. Much of the interesting bits that I really want to know about (such as Ser Loras’ assault on _____ (don’t want to spoil it)), or characters I am interested in (such as the Onion Knight), happens off-page and you just read the summary after the fact. It’s still Martin, so it’s interesting and a good read, but… nothing much happens. The other half of the unified novel – A Dance of Dragons – will hopefully make up for all of this waiting and buildup.

A Feast for Crows feels like it was a tough novel to write, like Martin was sweating and fighting through every page. The lack of ease shows and strains what little goodness there is in this book. All of which is not to say that I’m any less enthralled with the series; I’m still eager for A Dance of Dragons. Quite eager. Hurry it up, Martin! Chop chop!

For the Martinologists, here’s what you can expect from A Feast for Crows:
Jaime, Cersei, Brienne (lots and lots of Jaime, Cersei, and Brienne), two Sansa chapters, two Arya chapters, some Samwell, some Iron Men, and some Dornish bits

… and here’s what you don’t get:
Tyrion, Danaerys, Jon Snow (except for a tiny portion in Samwell’s chapter), Stannis, Melissandre

Oh, and the ending? Is excruciating. It’s almost like a mid-sentence stop. An interrupted kiss. A yawn half-finished. Quite jarring and, worst of all, not a cliffhanger. George! You’ve got to have a cliffhaaaaangeeerrrr!

Susanna Clarke’s novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell has been extraordinarily successful, and for good reason. It’s won both the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards, but has also won a vast readership among people who don’t usually care for fantasy. On the one hand, Neil Gaiman describes it as “unquestionably the finest English novel of the fantastic written in the last seventy years” (with the emphasis on the adjective “English”; see more below), on the other, Charles Palliser, author of the wonderful historical novel, The Quincunx, describes it as “absolutely compelling” and “an astonishing achievement.” We’ve been fans at Crooked Timber since the book came out – not least because it has funny, voluminous and digressive footnotes which seem near-perfectly calculated to appeal to a certain kind of academic….

Oh, and if you haven’t read JS & Mr. N, you’re missing out.

Dammit!

1. The HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy — Douglas Adams 85% (102)
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four — George Orwell 79% (92)
3. Brave New World — Aldous Huxley 69% (77)
4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? — Philip Dick 64% (67)
5. Neuromancer — William Gibson 59% (66)
6. Dune — Frank Herbert 53% (54)
7. I, Robot — Isaac Asimov 52% (54)
8. Foundation — Isaac Asimov 47% (47)
9. The Colour of Magic — Terry Pratchett 46% (46)
10. Microserfs — Douglas Coupland 43% (44)
11. Snow Crash — Neal Stephenson 37% (37)
12. Watchmen — Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons 38% (37)
13. Cryptonomicon — Neal Stephenson 36% (36)
14. Consider Phlebas — Iain M Banks 34% (35)
15. Stranger in a Strange Land — Robert Heinlein 33% (33)
16. The Man in the High Castle — Philip K Dick 34% (32)
17. American Gods — Neil Gaiman 31% (29)
18. The Diamond Age — Neal Stephenson 27% (27)
19. The Illuminatus! Trilogy — Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson 23% (21)
20. Trouble with Lichen – John Wyndham 21% (19)

I consider myself a fair expert on geek novels, so I have tons of quibbles with the list. First, 1984, Brave New World, and American Gods aren’t geek novels, at least not by my definition. From the books that I know on the list, apparently, “geek” only means scifi, which rules out a ton of books that would have displaced others here on the list. American Gods is a vastly inferior novel to Gaiman’s own Neverwhere. I’m assuming The Color of Magic is meant to represent the whole of Discworld, since it is not the strongest entrant in that series by a long shot. Microserfs is a geek novel, sure, but in my not humble opinion… it sucked major donkey balls. It’s like listening to a 15 year old talk about their self-obsessed life and how hard they have everything. Oh, and I’m assuming the I, Robot votors are doing a name recognition thing, since it’s really a collection of short stories and not overly compelling short stories at that.

20 is a lot to come up with, but my personal geek list – and here, I’m defining geek as the non-pop-culture normative societal misfit geek. So… fantasy as well as tech. Also, only one entry per author, will note if I mean for the entry to stand for the author’s whole ouvre or that series.

Actually, these aren’t meant to be in order because I’d have too hard a time deciding between apples and oranges. Numbers are just to keep track of how far I’ve gone.

1. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings. I hate the series and I can’t abide Tolkien, but you have to give the series its due.
2. Adams, HHGttG. From the list above, who am I to argue?
3. Pratchett, Discworld.
4. Stephenson, Diamond Age. Also included here would be Snow Crash and maybe, maybe Cryptonomicon. Definately not the latest trilogy. P’tooie!
5. Lovecraft, collected works. C’mon, only geeks read Lovecraft.
6. William Gibson, Neuromancer. Collected works. Yes, I put the cyberpunk originator below the copy (Stephenson). That’s what I thought of first.
7. George RR Martin, Song of Fire and Ice series.
8. Aasimov, Foundation series.
9. Arthur C. Clarke, Rama series.
10. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land and a few other stories. Again, hate the guy and most of his works, but he wrote some enduring classics.
11. O. S. Card, Ender’s Game. He’s written a lot of books, all generally with some form of his Mormon philosophy, but EG and the first two books of the Alvin Maker series kicked ass.
12. Mists of Avalon. I haven’t read it, of course, but every woman I know has so that must mean something. I’m going to throw in TH White’s The Once and Future King here too, just because.
13. Greg Bear, Eon, Eternity, Moving Mars, Forge of God. Just those four books, but they were good enough to put him on the permanent list.
14. Gaiman, Sandman series and Neverwhere. Haven’t read Anansi Boys yet, but most of his other work has been shyte. Except for Good Omens (with Pratchett). That ruled.
15. Alan Moore, Watchmen, V for Vendetta.
16. Jordan, Wheel of Time series. First three books only, before each book turned into a parody of the books before it, with increasing one-dimensional characters and ever more detailed discussions of food. Stop me if I’ve mentioned this before, but man.. after the third book… stinky poo series.
17. Erikson, Gardens of the Moon series.
18. Connie Willis, Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog.
19. Philip K. Dick, collected works, though I prefer the pre-crazy Valis trilogy.
20. Herbert, Dune. I thought it was OK, but longevity gets it in.

Well, that’s the first 20 geek books/authors/series that first came to mind. Differences of opinion welcomed.

In the great green room, there is a telephone, and a red balloon, but no ashtray. “Goodnight Moon,” the children’s classic by Margaret Wise Brown, has gone smoke free.

In a newly revised edition of the book, which has lulled children to sleep for nearly 60 years, the publisher, HarperCollins, has digitally altered the photograph of Clement Hurd, the illustrator, to remove a cigarette from his hand.

This is smart, because… because… pretending something doesn’t exist means that no one will ever find out about it and you’ll totally be safe from it. This is worse than Ted Turner colorizing the classics. This is worse than Lucas modifying the original Star Wars so that Greedo now shoots at Han first. This is worse than the Black Knight in Python’s Holy Grail. This is worse than the administration’s ever-changing rationale for an elective invasion of a sovereign nation. No, wait, not so much on that last part.

So for the Danaerys fans out there, you’ll have to wait for the sixth book.

Bummer, huh.

I wish I had been turned on to Bill Hicks when he was still among us (he died of pancreatic cancer in 1993), because he was very, very funny. We would have been great friends had we met, but since we didn’t and since he’s dead, I’m totally stealing his best lines and calling them my own. At least, the ones that I heart Huckabees didn’t already steal.

This book is a collection of articles about him and scripts of his stand up routines, so it’s not much as a book per se, but it is still a worthwhile read. Hicks was taken from us too soon, but he believed we were all part of the same whole and life was just a momentary illusion, so he’d probably say he wasn’t taken anywhere. Bill, if you can reform in this reality, I’d like to say that your “wisp of cotton candy and a papercut” line was pure poetic genius. Also, outrageous. Which is what makes for good comedy.

First, Christopher Moore has to usurp my name. Then he has to go and compound this transgression with evidence of actual talent and tremendous humor.

Bitch.

Whether or not you believe in Joshua of Nazareth’s existence, this is one of the better myths about his life. Biff (real name: Levi, “biff” is the sound a fist makes when it hits him upside the head) is Josh’s smartass pal. Joshua’s moral anticompass, really.

Biff tells the Gospel (he’s resurrected in modern day and stuck in a hotel with Raziel the angel, who is addicted to soaps and wrestling shows) of him and jesus. Together, they get into scrapes, fall in love with the same girl (Mary of Magdala, well, Josh loves everyone) and go on a trek so Josh can learn how to be the Messiah. Along the way they meet the three magi, learn Chinese, Daoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, the Divine Spark, meet a Yeti, meet a demon or three, learn about sin, go to Afghanistan and India, and learn kung fu. Among other things.

To give an example of the humore of this author, kung fu is too violent for Joshua and he refuses to strike anyone. So they come up with a new form that uses the opponents own energy against them. It’s called “Jew-do”.

Yeah, yeah, groan away, but that’s the kind of humor I love. Weird that this CMo would be just like me in the witty wordplay department. Weird, I say. It would be really weird if I wrote a novel, because then you’d have competing CMo’s in similar genres with similar styles and that would… well, he’s just going to have to get a psuedoname, that’s all there is to it.

In sum, they go do a bunch of things, you’ll laugh out loud multiple times, and Joshua gets crucified. I hope that didn’t spoil the ending for anybody. Heartily recommended.

Imagine if Raymond Chandler and Terry Pratchett had a love child, and you’ll be in the right ballpark.

No good in love, circles of thieves, always in trouble from every angle… Harry Dresden’s got his work cut out for him. I found the first book utterly charming; the universe is enjoyable and strange enough to keep me coming back for more (ordered the other six in the series today).

If you like noir or like quirky fun titles, this may be right up your alley. About the only thing missing from the classic noir formula in this book was the femme fatale, but I’m sure one will turn up shortly.

If you like noir in non-mid-20th century/our universe settings, I would recommend Gun, with Occasional Music before Storm Front, but I would recommend them both.

4/5 stars

Man, I really need to catch up on my reviewing here.