Horror - Yoko Ogawa - Revenge (2013)

Bryan got me this book for my birthday this year. Not because it was on any wishlist or anything, but because he heard them talking about it on NPR. The fact that he heard that and decided that this would be relevant to my interests meant a lot more to me than getting a book that I had put on my list just because.

I read it because he told me to, really. I was floundering over what to read after that library book, and after first pulling The Weird out, he changed his mind and bid me to read the book he got me for my birthday.

This book is super short; at 162 pages, I easily read it over the course of a day. It is made up of a series of interconnected stories, and I do mean interconnected. A bit player in one story is then a childhood friend of another, or a place may appear in two stories, or strawberry shortcake will make another appearance. And all of the tales are dark, but at different degrees: some are subtle, some are not, some are just sad, some are even confusing.

I actually rather liked this book. The fact that almost no one has a name really adds to the sense of interconnectedness, and the fact that emotions are almost never directly described means that you can pull it from the way they talk or think instead. I know it's probably some work by the translator, but the word choices are spot on. Towards the end, however, the complexity of the intertwining stories gets to be a bit much and it's hard to follow how each character relates to another. The last story is actually connected to the first, which I appreciate, but not in a super clear way, which was disappointing.

If you like dark tales and want to see some great examples of how to express emotion without saying "she felt sad", I would recommend this book. $14 seems a bit steep for what you get, but I imagine that will go down the older it gets.

8.5/10

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Thriller - Jeff Abbott - Collision (2008)

Believe it or not, I only recently got a library card. I know, right? Especially with it being within walking distance and with monthly writers' group meetings there. But the fact of the matter is with an extensive personal library, it's hard to justify picking up a book at the public library.

But since I had to do something uncomfortable to practice skills learned in group therapy, I decided to make it something that would reward me. So, fresh and new library card in hand, I picked up the first book in the fiction section that was not a Book # of Many More.

Collision is about two guys on the run from the law and more dangerous guys. Ben Forsberg is a consultant to a security corporation and is a person of interest now because a guy who killed another guy left Ben's business card with the corpse. Pilgrim is a guy who works for a secret government agency that has been ripped apart by bad guys, and is also the guy who left the card. They have to learn to trust each other because they've both been set up to take the fall for a bunch of shit.

This book is like an action movie in book form. If you like CIA dramas, terrorism thrillers, and murderer mysteries, you might find something you like in this book. Personally, I recognize that it isn't FOR me. Also, the theme song of this book should be "It's a Small World" because everyone is being played by someone else regardless of how many years between. Almost no character is used only once, unless as bullet fodder. So don't sit there thinking one person will never show up again until they are dead. Because they will. Ad nauseum.

All in all, I didn't enjoy reading this book. But like I said, it's not FOR me. It's for someone else. So maybe you would enjoy it. But to me it feels very average, almost mediocre.

6.5/10

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Fantasy - Anne Bishop - Daughter of the Blood (1998)

I mentioned before that the Black Jewels series is my absolute favorite, so it should come as no surprise that when I take a book vacation (defined here as a vacation into a favorite book), I default to these. This read-through, however, I went through every single word and actually discovered some points I always missed. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

I bought this book in 2004 at a used bookstore that no longer exists. This was another one of those times when my interest in what was going on on the cover led to a great find. The first time I read this, I blasted through it in a day because I liked it so much.

Daughter of the Blood, being the first book in the series, sets up quite a lot for the future to remark on, but let's just go through it like normal, shall we? A powerful seer named Tersa foretells the coming of a mythological being known as Witch before descending into madness. Witch is dreams made flesh, the wishes and desires of a people known as the Blood. Seven hundred years later, she appears: a child with more power on tap than any other member of the Blood ever before her ascension from her birthright. She is the joy and secret of many people, including a sexually brutal man named Daemon who believes he was born to be her lover, his brother Lucivar (who is featured more in the second book), and their father, who happens to be the High Lord of Hell, Saetan. But there are also those who wish to use her for their own purposes, and the fear that this may happen sows suspicion among her own friends.

Of the three books, this one is probably my least favorite, but let me tell you why. I love these characters. There is a lot here that really turns my crank: the human weapon, the brutality and violence, the wide and sparkling spectrum of color. This book has Jaenelle with her shitty family and occasionally in Briarwood. There isn't as much room for friendly interactions, or the fun of her whirlwind personality as it blows through the lives of these men and her friends. Sure, she spends a great deal of time with Daemon, but the danger of the so-called Light Realm (noted, the danger had to be increasingly present to provide contrast with the Shadow Realm of the other books) takes so much precedence that I don't really like this one. I don't like seeing my book-friends in trouble.

Now, to be fair, I still love it. The detail in the descriptions alone is sensuous and brilliant. But of the three, I dislike this one the most.

It occurs to me that I got a little lost in the details up there, but still. If you like blazing magic and brutal violence, diplomacy and relationships, get thee to your bookstore.

9.75/10

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Fiction - Mark Z. Danielewski - House of Leaves (2000)

Obviously, like any creature of the internet, I heard about this book from this XKCD strip and Wil Wheaton's blog post. But it wasn't until I saw it on a Buy 3 Get the 4th Free table at my local B&N that I bought it. But then there it sat on the bookshelf until a friend of mine saw that I had it, and encouraged me to read it.

House of Leaves is nigh impossible to describe. It starts out being about this one guy having been dealt a poor hand in life, and his friend lives in an apartment complex. And in this apartment complex is an old hermit of a man that has just died. They go into his apartment and find tons and tons of writing, apparently a dissertation on a film called The Navidson Record, where a photojournalist and his family move into a house that is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. At first, this discrepancy could be easily explained away; the difference is only a quarter of an inch after all, so somebody just messed up measuring somewhere. But then a door appears that should lead outside, but instead leads to a dark, cold place that just keeps changing in shape.

More than just being hard to describe, House of Leaves is hard to analyze. First off, I could give two shits about Johnny Truant. This guy is really just a gateway to his mother's letters, of which there is a whole separate book apart from just the insanity at the appendix. But the more fluid language of Johnny is a nice contrast to the highly technical analysis of Zampano. But the odd formatting is only briefly touched on before it HITS like a ton of BRICKS. You'll know it when you see it, but I implore you to power through until at least the Minotaur chapter, which is a work of suspenseful art.

The problem is that then the whole book seems to fall apart.

Too much time is spent after that chapter away from what everyone is interested in, the fucking house, and instead on Navidson and Karen's relationship. Listen, dude. No one gives a fuck. Even the so-called climax is not as powerful as that chapter in the middle of the book.

I know, you're thinking "hur hur, bigger on the inside, it's a TARDIS". And when I read the description on the inside flap, I felt the same way, with a dash of "aren't there a million SCPs that do this?". But it's really more than that. This book really explores what that concept means. If it's bigger on the inside, how big is that? Twice the size? Miles more? Bigger than the earth?

For that chapter and approach alone, I must suggest you get yourself a copy. For the typography tricks, I beg you to read it. The whole thing isn't the best in the world, but you will not regret your time spent on this book.

9.85/10

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Writing - Barbara DeMarco-Barrett - Pen on Fire (2004)

This book was probably purchased during a book buying binge; those are usually the times I pick up writing instruction books. In this case, I only remember what I wanted this book to do, which was help me find time to write in between the moments of my life.

I'm pretty sure I got it while I still had a job.

Now, I have nothing but time, but I still can't really get myself out of this not-writing funk.

However, I pulled this tome off my bookshelf in anticipation of November, which everyone should know by now is National Novel Writing Month. At this point, I've lost more than I've won; a fact that makes me feel so guilty I refuse to go to a meetup organized by my fellow Las Vegans. I always tell myself that this time I will not lose, but then I do something to kick my own ass after week one.

You're not here to hear about this shit. You're here for this book review.

Honestly, this book is very average. It talks a lot about how women make themselves feel bad for taking time to do their own thing, which is true I think of more than just women, and how if you want to write, you have to work past that to carve out your own bits of time. It also tries to give you resources to develop ideas, as well as stuff having to do with the craft of writing like voice and shit. All and all, average.

The most disappointing part, I think, is the "Living the Life" section, which has more to do with literary agents than actually living a writer's life. Listen, the information on literary agents is great and all, but that has actually not much to do with your own section title. And, there are tons of books that work on that subject that you'd be better off just listing.

It may also be that the book is kind of dated, but the self-publishing world is so hopping, even traditional publishers have to rethink their acceptance guidelines or be left in the dust. Basically, what worked for one person does not work for all.

7/10

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Fantasy - Patrick Rothfuss - The Name of the Wind (2007)

I think Steve got me this book for Christmas. I tend to depend on him to tread those new fantasy waters while I deal with my backlog of unread books that fill my shelves, but I may have eventually picked this up on my own, but for a different reason. We didn't go to PAX this year, but Rothfuss was in the DnD Live Show this year, so I likely would have read it for that reason even without Steve's interference. The truth of the matter is, I had plans to read this after A Dance with Dragons, but then Nadia was kind enough to lend me a bunch of her books, so it got pushed back.

The Name of the Wind is a book one of a debut series, so it is covered in accolades that, for the most part, are well-deserved. The story starts out with some drunken bumpkins coming to an inn, encountering some razor-sharp spider creatures, and declaring them demons. That's just brushing over it briefly. Then a guy known as the Chronicler comes up and discovers that the innocuous innkeeper is a legendary hero by the name of Kvothe. It's a great hook, especially once Chronicler convinces Kvothe to relate to him his story. The majority of the book is just that: the first day of Kvothe telling Chronicler his tale.

I could totally see this in so many different media: DnD adventure, TV miniseries, comic serial. The book form is great for relating it in his own words, but I don't doubt that there is potential for more here.

There is one problem. He gives away some of the shit that happens with this method. Kvothe lists some of his accomplishments and failures before you even get started. Since most of this is about him trying to get to the University, and then stay, the fact that you say on the back that he has gotten "expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in" gives some of the story away, now, doesn't it? But that's a problem I tend to have with book backs. They always give too much away. But that line is embedded in the text as well, so there's really no avoiding it. It's just a nitpick.

Here's another: the world is great, the worries of a poor person spot on, and the main character a giant douche.

Don't get me wrong. Kvothe's story is interesting. But he is the MOST Mary of Sues, and if you don't know what that means, maybe you should look it up. This is wish-fulfillment at its most heinous. Why does he have to be some kind of super-genius? Why does he always convince his elders to do what he wants? There's so little opportunity really for Kvothe to fail. I wonder if it is the intention of the author to make Kvothe relate his story with the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia in order to toot his own horn, or if the first-person POV got to Rothfuss when it came to his character.

All in all, it's a great read, especially if you like fantasy. There are some annoying higher fantasy aspects toward the end, and the climax is, for lack of better description, somewhat anticlimactic, but I enjoyed it, despite Kvothe jerking off to himself the entirety of the book.

9.5/10

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Science - Victor J. Stenger - The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning (2011)

You know that stupid thing that comes up on your ignorant relative's Facebook statues where they assert that if the Earth were ten feet closer to the sun we would all burn up? And then you try to explain to them that our orbit isn't a perfect circle and we often drift both closer and farther from the sun throughout the year, and then they accuse you of either not taking a joke or picking on them? (Unless they are truly lost, which is when they say, "Duh! How else would we have summer or winter? Stupid!")

That Facebook argument has taken form.

It is this book.

I told Steve (Sorry Steve!) That The Name of the Wind was going to be the next book I read, but I decided to get this one done and over with. I don't really know the circumstances it entered our library. Most of the science books in our possession (and we have quite a few) are Bryan's, and this one is definitely no exception. It's primarily his because it has been sitting on his nightstand for as long as we've had nightstands, and by the bed before that. It always frustrated me that he wasn't making any progress on it, but he said that it was a snorefest and riddled with too-hard math. I'm here to tell you that he is 100% not wrong when it comes to that.

I don't have any problems with you believing what you want, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else, physically or emotionally. I'm an atheist. I come from Christian stock. I married into a Jewish family. One of my best friends is Catholic. I don't care. Don't proselytize, don't hurt anyone, and I don't care. I will admit that I get frustrated by some of the ladies in group therapy that talk about praying and mantras and reiki, but I don't care, really. My frustration stems from them wasting our valuable time with their bullshit. But I don't go around arguing with people.

This guy not only doesn't believe in a higher power, but he is dedicated to proving that believing, and specifically believing that science has proven the existence of one, is bullshit. Whatever. That's fine.

Apparently, the idea surrounding "science has found God" is that the numbers in physics have been "fine-tuned" by some designer entity to make our universe perfect for life to grow. This book is intending to disprove all of that.

Unfortunately, it is very dull.

What could be an infinitely interesting book is bogged down with all of the math and none of the explanation of what a lot of the holy math even means. He gets so caught up in his equations and constants that the layman's mind reels, and when Stenger finally comes up for air, ages after the reader has already pantingly done so, he speaks in vague terms that he asserts are proved by the math, repeats word-for-word assertions made in the preface, and claims we will understand better in a later chapter.

The whole thing flows more like a textbook that a book for the regular populace. That isn't because it's a science book. There are plenty of science books that still have the ability to hold the interest of the reader. But not this one.

Did some supernatural entity fine-tune the numbers in our physics models for life? Probably not. Would life have been able to form without fine-tuning? Probably. Is there any life to speak of between the covers of this tome?

Absolutely not.

2.5/10

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Franchise Fiction - Richard Castle - Naked Heat (2010)

I've already talked at length in my previous post about how weird it is to be giving authorial credit to a fictional entity, so let's just move on, shall we?

This entry into the series is much longer than its predecessor and flows differently, as if a different writer worked on this one from the last one. While each chapter in the previous entry ended like a commercial break, this one seems to be in love with ending chapters with the characters knowing one important piece of information that the reader will have to read on, even one more sentence into the next chapter to find out.

I'm not a fan.

Don't get me wrong, the story here was, at least for me, more compelling than the previous one, possibly because of the long suspect list to keep you guessing. But this "the characters read a name and then move into action; you want the name? Better read the next chapter" thing is bullshit. I wouldn't have such a problem with it if it just happened once or twice. But as the book goes on and the stakes get higher, the author relies on this device as if it was the only thing he has ever learned from creative writing classes or critiques.

Maybe there's a person out there that eats that shit up. It doesn't appetize me. It just gets my frustrated. Granted, I'm easily frustrated, especially by books, but it feels so much like a cheap trick that I want to rebel against their manipulation. I actually stopped part of the way through for a week to get over being mad about this.

The real lesson here is, if you have a trick, don't overuse it. You'll just piss your audience off.

7/10

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Franchise Fiction - Richard Castle - Heat Wave (2009)

I also borrowed this bad boy from Nadia (which I never would have forgotten because of the mildly saccharine inscription just inside the cover written by her husband). I expressed an interest in watching this show, but at the time that it started it fell off the radar, as many shows did when I moved out.

First off, let's talk about the really weird universe ABC is trying to create with this book. It is a real book that was written by a real person. But everything--acknowledgements, copyright, accolades, even author photo (Nathan Fillion himself)--points to it being the work of this fictional character. So I genuinely had to do some digging, and found this article where an exec asserts that it was the labors of a fictional person who created the book.

I understand the logic of a ghostwriter. Many of those teen novels everyone liked (for example, Sweet Valley High) were written by ghostwriters to share the load. But the dedication to this "fact" is really kind of astounding, if you think about it. The problem is you may end up spending too much time thinking about it.

When you actually read the book itself, the real writer of the novel appears, although not in name or face. This was clearly written by one of the show's scriptwriters. That isn't to say that it is formatted like a script or lacks in description or anything like that. It really does just read like a novelization of an episode of a somewhat humorous crime-drama. Each end of a chapter even feels like a commercial break. But some of the effort put forth by those making sure the book exists doesn't really translate into the effort of writing the book. The Richard Castle allegory in this book is a character named Jameson Rook. Rook? Really? That's hardly trying at all. Was Fortress taken?

At less than two hundred pages, it flies by rather quickly. And I do give them credit for including a scene that could never be on network TV in a million years. But the book is average. And you can't really shake the feeling that some poor bastard is being stiffed with this position that ABC is taking.

7/10

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Chick Lit - Alexandra Potter - Calling Romeo (2002)

This is another title I borrowed from my friend Nadia, two of four. I don't exactly recall why she wanted to lend this one to me, but I'm sure it wasn't to write this scathing review of it.

But scathing it shall be, because it is vile.

First off, note that the genre up there is chick lit, which I will let Wikipedia define here. If that page doesn't give you pause in regarding the novel, allow me to compound it: this book is chick lit for realz. There are more designer names dropped than an outlet mall, and the whole idea list for this book is like a Sex and the City fanfiction checklist. Unmarried, independent women in enviable, high-powered, and creative careers with men issues? Check. Male characters who talk about their feelings and relationships as if they actually give a fuck? Check. Heavy descriptions of clothes and other fancy luxury items, but almost nothing else? Double check. Trying to have it all? Checkity check check. Using too many references to Romeo and Juliet in order to justify the title, including rival advertising companies respectively containing the names Capulet and Montague? Oh yeah.

Mary Sue main character? I think the ink is bleeding through on this checkmark.

I wasn't kidding earlier when I said that it felt like fanfiction. I personally cannot believe anyone actually published this drivel, let alone the fact that this author has eight more novels. The main character, Juliet, is early on established as a victim of shitty-boyfriend-disease (because only the shittiest of boyfriends forget Valentine's Day, right girls? >:( ) and has her high-priced clothes ruined by a fancy car running through a puddle near her. As it goes on, she starts an affair with the guy who soaked her because she felt neglected by her boyfriend and yet didn't say anything to him about how she felt. Like he's supposed to be a mind reader.

There are a couple other storylines here too, but I have to get spoilery in order to talk about the biggest crime of this novel. This is your last warning.

Six chapters (and chapters in this novel are surprisingly long if they are past the average of a page and a half) before the end of the book, her boyfriend, who had decided to stop taking her for granted and proposed, discovers she had been having an affair. Up until this point, it looked like not only was she able to have her cake but also fuck it too, and she was going to get away with it. I was overjoyed to learn that he immediately left her, made her move out of their shared domicile, and didn't want to see her again. Finally, she was getting her comeuppance for this indiscretion.

And then, in the last chapter, on the last page even, he takes her back and they all live happily ever after.

FUCK. YOU.

And the typos! Holy shit. There were so many, including "tirarmsu" for tiramisu. Did an editor even run through this at all? I cannot understand what happened. Somebody failed here. And I can't help but place at least 70% of the blame on the author. You did a bad job. I don't give a shit how popular you are or how many reviews say that your work is hilarious and brilliant. This was garbage.

I can't believe I bought this for my friend's birthday. I am so sorry for that, Nadia.

1.0/10

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Thriller - S.J. Watson - Before I Go To Sleep (2011)

This one I borrowed from my friend Nadia, along with a few others. To paraphrase her selling of it to me, it's basically a thriller version of the movie Fifty First Dates.

If you've never seen that particular Adam Sandler movie, allow me to elaborate further. The main character of this book has a mental condition that does not allow her to transfer the day's short-term memories into long-term memory. As a result, every day she wakes up not knowing what happened the day before, or even in the years since she developed this condition, or (since memory is a tricky thing) who she is.

Upon sneaking to see a doctor about her condition years after it has developed, she has begun writing a journal about her day, including things that she has found out about herself and her long-suffering husband. But things are starting to come back to her, and they are not fitting up with what her husband is telling her. So she is beginning to wonder what else he is lying about, especially since he seems to be the only source of information for her.

I have a few problems with this book, but unfortunately time has given me an opportunity to become kinder towards it.

First off, this book is touted as a debut novel, and it shows; the dialogue-based explanation in the prologue and the Bond-villain style speech by the Big Bad at the end is amateur hour through and through. Even the assurances constantly of when the main character is writing in her journal are unnecessary; we get she's hiding it from her husband. You don't have to keep fucking telling us what she's doing to hide it from him.

The reviews coating the cover put its fast pace on a pedestal, and honestly it's because it's the only thing it really has going for it. The pages really do flip quick, but the coincidences required for this story to work out really challenge a reader's ability to suspend disbelief. It feels written, and everyone knows that writing that feels like writing is garbage sauce. It needed a few more rewrites before it went out to public eyes, but it didn't get that. So we have a lacking novel with a fast pace that is good only because it's stay will not be long.

Sorry, Nadia.

5.0/10

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Fantasy - George R.R. Martin - A Dance with Dragons (2011)

Jesus, I am terrible at this write-the-review-when-you-finish-the-book shit. Fuck. Anyway.

I picked this up the same time I did A Feast for Crows, but just didn't get off my ass to read it until now. Now I'm all caught up on Mr. Martin's Song, and now I understand a little better how the HBO show is going to handle it.

It's hard to talk about this book because even the mention of certain characters may result in spoilers, depending on what book of this series you're on or how far into the show you are. But, how Feast was about half of the characters, this book is primarily about the other half of the characters: what is going on with them concurrently with the events in Feast and their own reactions to events from that book. But that all goes out the window at about the halfway point of this titanic tome. At that point, the two spreads have met back up and you begin to see characters from the other book pop up more as they becoming interspersed with the characters this book was purported to focus on. So you will see a Jaime chapter. You will see some Cersei. And you will see some [REDACTED].

Damn it George, why did you have to make it seem like so many characters are dead while others are actually dead? You make it difficult to talk about your work without bringing down the wrath of the internets.

The moral of most of this story is that if the economy has been gutted for whatever reason, shit gets fucked real quick.

I can't even really tell you whether or not you should read it or buy it though. This being Book 5, you either are dedicated to the series at this point, or it's not what you want, or you feel it's too long to get into now.

8.5/10

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Biography - Mason Currey - Daily Rituals: How Artists Work (2013)

I've actually been procrastinating on this review for a few weeks now. Because of that (and the fact that I am in the middle of Dance with Dragons now), some of the details are a little shot. Apologies.

I preordered this book as a birthday present to myself and received it about a month later. I plowed through those other books you saw me read before deciding that enough was enough and that I really wanted to read this one.

Being nonfiction, there isn't a lot for me to say about it. It does deliver what it promises: any known details of the daily routines of various creatives and thinkers--primarily writers, for obvious reasons--along with photographs where appropriate. I'm not ashamed to admit that some part I thought were kind of boring, but when the subject matter is real people, the truth comes out that not everyone is exciting.

To be perfectly honest, this was a book that I had been wanting for a while for a different reason: a list of different styles of approaching a creative workday to try out for myself. Don't do this. Please. Or at least have a little sense about it. Know if you are a morning person or a night person first. Don't do silly things like work from midnight to dawn just because this book says Thomas Wolfe did. Eat real food, not exclusively donuts and cereal like some of these people.

All in all, it is very interesting, both the details within, and the people included. It just wasn't amazing. But maybe I'm subconsciously grading it on a different curve than it deserves.

8/10

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Writing - Sage Cohen - The Productive Writer (2010)

I want to take a brief moment to talk about GoodReads.

Until a few moments ago I had an account there, and I used it primarily to try to get those precious book recommendations. Unfortunately, you have to rate 20 (!) book in order to begin getting those recommendations. This is one of the reasons I had a problem with it. When I go to Barnes & Noble, the receipt will come with a short list of products suggested to me based on what I just purchased. Why can't GoodReads do that with just the books you just read? I get that it is free, but it was mostly useless.

I bring it up in this book review because I rated this book on there as low, and it was disseminated to my various social media profiles, particularly Facebook and Twitter. Then, someone asked why I didn't like it. I had intended to write this review, so of course I wasn't going to detail it there (or even on GoodReads, which is a feature it has, I guess), but it gave me pause. Wasn't my rating these books as I read them, in order to get the recommendations that I still hadn't earned, giving away the content of my blog, which I wasn't wanting to do?

So, long story short, GoodReads is not for me, and it took me being within 3 books of getting recommendations for me to realize it.

But I digress. The Productive Writer.

I picked this up after that tough first therapy session I mention in my review of The Fault in Their Stars. I expected it to be about heightening your productivity as a writer, which is something I am interested in since my current productivity is firmly planted at zero. I was wrong. But could you blame me for the assumption, when "productive" is one of the words in the goddamn title?

This book really should have been called "The Marketing Writer" because that is what it is about. There is almost nothing about how you have to actually write to be productive. For god's sake, the very first chapter is about developing your "platform". Ms. Cohen is a business writer and a poet, and the former is at the reins here. She gives her own examples of how you develop your platform and business presence, but she only talks about her nonfiction works in these examples. When it comes to fiction, she brushes it off as easy. Um, no. How about telling us how to determine "what you have to offer an audience" when you are writing a fiction novel? Whatever happened to just writing?

The beginning of each chapter is prefaced by a list of things that a "productive writer" does, usually things covered in the following chapter, but they are usually things not actually having to do with being productive at all. I think this woman is confusing productive with well-marketed. Not everyone wants to be a freelance article writer. But this book is making that assumption anyway. Some of us want to get help with writing, not with becoming a self-promoting typist.

Hey, maybe you want to be that. More power to you. This book will do well for you. But if you actually want to be a productive writer, I would say look elsewhere, because this book will have you doing everything BUT writing.

2.5/10

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Graphic Novel - Kristofer Straub - Starslip Crisis Volume 1 (2007)

I bought this book from the man himself at the last PAX Prime, and I was able to get a drawing and an autograph in it as well. I have been trying to read this particular comic of his online for a long time, but I couldn't get into it. Not because it's bad or anything. But because there occasionally happens to be a lot of text, and that's difficult to parse when you just want to read some webcomics.

In book form, however, it's just fine.

Starslip Crisis is a webcomic by the great Kris Straub, lately of Chainsawsuit and Broodhollow fame, that ran for several years. Now that it has ended, I felt like it was time to really dig in, but I had the aforementioned problem. Because while some of the premises of this hard sci-fi comic can be a bit ridiculous, make no mistake, it is hard sci-fi.

Starslip is about a decommissioned warship that has been converted into a high-class art museum, curated by professional artsy douche Memnon Vanderbeam, piloted by ex-space-pirate Cutter Edgewise, and janitorially serviced (among other things) by an alien creature known as Mr. Jinx. Other characters obviously join the fray over the course of the comic, such as Jupiterian princess and ambassador Jovia, engineer Holliday, and rampaging antique robot Vore. The hard sci-fi comes into play primarily in the form of FTL travel, in this case explained by switching places with a parallel universe version of themselves already at the required destination.

Rather than just stick with the concept as infalliable and useful for plot, Straub allows for the logical conclusion of such a mode of travel, even when it becomes inconvenient for the characters; especially when it becomes inconvenient for them. While a bunch of the jokes seem like jokes for the sake of a punchline, the story aspects of this comic are pretty great.

The art... eh, I'm just glad he figured out necks before he started Broodhollow.

Nice work, Mr. Straub. I look forward to acquiring the next volume in your landmark series.

9.5/10

Buy it from Kris Straub's store. 

Science Fiction - Isaac Asimov - The Stars, Like Dust (1951)

Oh shit son! Another post so soon?

So I inaugurated this blog with an Asimov review, and now I have another one for you. I explained in that previous post why I am reading these Galactic Empire novels in this order, so no QQ.

You may be able to tell up there in the title that this book was written in 1951, and god does it feel like it. I don't just mean the scientific missteps (one of which Asimov addresses in an author's note at the end) and the dated ideas like the all-important and much-forgotten "document" occasionally mentioned throughout, but there is something that really does feel like early-fifties science fiction. I get it; the tropes weren't tropes yet, and we weren't so jaded that we needed a better explanation for faster-than-light travel than "HYPERSPACE AND SCIENCE". But it's not even really gosh-wow, like the reviews all over the cover assert. There isn't really much gosh considering that the story begins on Earth (a fallout-riddled Earth at that), and the wow of space is quickly buried in the sheer amount of space travel that takes place. Even the main character, who near the beginning spends almost a whole chapter going on about the majesty of the stars, doesn't seem to really care about it later on. Space travel feels more like taking the bus the longer the story goes on.

But then again, that's Asimov for you. The longer he has to write something, the less enchanted he becomes with it himself, usually resulting in an ending that doesn't hold up to the story hooks at the beginning. This book is only 235 pages, so while the detail begins to slack, the story is all right. But that's all it is: all right.

I know someone may argue that I can't hold it up to the standards of today because it was written so long ago and that it is a "classic", but I really don't think that should preclude it from modern criticism with modern eyes. Sure, it may have been a wonder 60+ years ago, but I read it in 2013. Anyone reading this review is probably reading this book or considering it in this era. The fact of the matter is that it just doesn't hold up as well as other things from that time. That doesn't really mean that it is bad or good. It just means it doesn't have the same feeling to a modern reader that it may have had to a reader contemporary to the time.

8/10

Buy it @ Amazon.
Buy it @ Barnes & Noble.

Young Adult - John Green - The Fault in Our Stars (2012)

I read this book today. I started it on the toilet this morning, and finished it in bed this evening. I plowed through most of it while Bryan was at the gym.

Sorry, I get ahead of things here.

I bought this book after a faulty therapy session, my first, after a very anxious morning. (I have since switched to a different therapist, who I go to see again tomorrow). I went to the bookstore to make myself feel better--not the most healthy way of dealing with my rampant emotions that day, but effective when paired with a nap. I picked this up primarily because it was on one of the bookshelf ends in the sci-fi/fantasy section. Since it was riddled with reviews and bestseller accolades from not the usual suspects for the genre, I knew it wasn't meant to attract the attention of the nerds, but rather the book skimmers who apparently don't go to bookstores to buy books for themselves, but follow someone on their way to their favorite section. I picked it up anyway. I didn't even really bother with what it was about. That's how upset I was that day.

It's now two months later, and I read this book in a day. Primarily because I really liked it.

This story is about teenagers with cancer falling in love. I know, how Lifetime-y, right? But this one is actually worth your time, especially if you like characters. Over the course of the read, you really do begin to love Hazel and Augustus (what unfortunate names!) just as they begin to love each other. When the inevitable happens, it isn't contrived and sigh-worthy as you would think, but instead heart-breaking. I didn't cry, but I came rather close several times. I didn't want Bryan to think I was a pansy or something.

The only thing I have to complain about (oh man, you should see this coming) is the Q&A and "Discussion Questions" at the back of the book. There is no reason at all for an author to explain the symbolism of passages or character names or allegories to other literature bullshit. None. Why? Why do they think that we need to be tutored on the "meanings" of their fucking book? Why can't it just be a heart-wrenching story about two unfortunate young people dealing with shortened lives together without ancient mythology getting involved to symbolize something or whatever.

I still like the story, and the characters, and the trauma you can't help but feel during the course of the novel, but you don't have to make it pretentious for it to matter.

9/10

Buy it @ Amazon.
Buy it @ Barnes & Noble.

Fantasy - George R.R. Martin - A Feast for Crows (2005)

Obligatory haven't-posted-in-a-while blah blah blah.

I know I'm probably the last person on earth to read this installment in the landmark Song of Ice and Fire series, but I had gotten the first three books all together, so it took a while for me to get off my ass and read this one. Several years, in fact. Long enough for me to have forgotten most of the events of the previous books and be depending on the TV show to remind me of some of the shit that went down.

Without further ado, A Feast for Crows.

In the back, Mr. Martin informs us that to cut down on book size, he made an executive decision and gave us all the story for half of the characters in this book, and would do the other half later. Personally, I think that the readers would have been better served by having this information at the front of the book. Not because then readers would skip this book or whatever, but because they wouldn't have to flip through while looking for a Dany or Tyrion chapter to find this out. After all, this book is focused primarily on the southern reaches of Westeros, primarily the King's Landing machinations of the Lannisters. Cersei and Jaime are here in abundance, and their personalities and dynamism really shines in this book.

That being said, a lot of the content in this book felt like filler. I understand the need for all of it; the climax would not have worked out if we didn't have the rest of the book preceding it. But filler, no matter how tasty, is still filler. And because of that, I can't say that this is the best book in the series. Maybe A Dance with Dragons will be better.

Also, how are they going to handle that "all the story for half the characters" shit for the TV show? :/

7.5/10

Buy it @ Amazon.
Buy it @ Barnes & Noble.