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

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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

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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

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