Fran: B is for Bacigalupi

Paolo Bacigalupi's young adult novel, The Doubt Factory, was my author for B.  It's not my first book by this author--I've read his adult audience novel, The Windup Girl, and another young adult book, Ship Breaker.

Bacigalupi writes really interesting worlds--dark, richly realized, full of fictional tech/society that needs that changed tech.  I often am captivated by the way the plot interweaves through the worlds.  I enjoy the characters in his young adult novels better--they seem more real, more fleshed-out. 

The world of The Doubt Factory is a fictionalized glaze to modern America, making it very different from the dystopias of his other books.  So my annoyance was higher with his Connecticut yuppie-town, boarding school, and factory in Hartford.  The settings felt flatter, more caricatured as "stereotypical".

Bacigalupi sets the antagonist as a PR firm--specialists in creating the doubt that lets shaky science continue, such as the pseudo-science that props up the tobacco industry.  My feeling that the book would have read better if I were 13-17 is partly that Bacigalupi seems like he is trying to awaken the careful skepticism of teens entering a cynical grown-up world of money and power.  I already know that some of these corporations do terrible things in favor of their bottom line, like shoring up sales for drugs that are not as effective or more harmful than admitted to.  Bacigalupi wants his readers to waken along with the main character, Alix, to the idea that a person can be someone you love on a personal level and yet still do things of which we are not proud.  And as Alix must then make ethical decisions in order to go on as her own person, so too will we make choices of morality.  (Yup.  Maybe I'm too old for this book.)  In her research into these companies, Alix never takes a moment to understand how products are developed and go to market.  Bacigalupi calls out companies by name--Dow Chemical, Archer Daniels Midland, Johnson and Johnson--which puts them in this shady context of cover-up.  But no character ever says that there are good products coming out of these companies, to the benefit of humanity.  It seems to be taken as a given but in a work meant to foster reasoned distrust, it feels just as disingenuous as the work of the PR firm to never have a character at least say it.  The companies are flat; they are two-dimensional firms that employ the bad guy.  The bad guy-PR firm consorts with other bad guys--mercenaries for hire as "security firms".  They too fill a flat characterization of modern evil in the world of the teens/young adults learning to fight for their voices and beliefs.

My other complaint of this book is that there is a sense of teenage wish fulfillment in the way the characters build family.  Orphans are not necessarily better but tragedy lets you find your "REAL" family and you love them.  The family you are born with is not necessarily good.  Alix is drawn to the other main figures and they turn out to be her family of choice--the family she connects to, the family that protects her and drives her.  While Alix is close to her biological brother, Jonah, Bacigalupi builds in their development as they see each other not as siblings as people, people who didn't notice things about each other because they were too close as family.  The teenagers/young adults of this novel are extraordinarily talented and successful in their plans.  The smoothness of their plan execution, aided by huge sums of money, exists only in a novel world.

In short (?!), this is not a novel that worked for me.  I do think it has some interesting things to say about money and media if you are being introduced to thinking about these concepts critically; it was a good action-packed read.  Bacigalupi certainly kept me going despite my feelings for the actors in the world.

Max: P is for Pastis

I read Timmy Failure: We Meet Again, by Stephan Pastis.  He's the same author who writes Pearls Before Swine comic strip which I also like.  I've read all three of the Timmy Failure books so that should tell you that I really like them.  And I just found out there's a number four so I'm going to read that too!

I like that the chapter names are funny.  Timmy does both serious and ridiculous things: in this book, he was serious about not liking baseball (he couldn't see out from his baseball cap) and he was ridiculous because he has a polar bear for a business partner (they're a detective agency).  There are TWO arch nemeses: Principal Scrimshaw and Corinna Corinna.  Timmy lies a lot about not ever getting scared (but he's actually scared when he's in Camp Monkeychuck because he has to sleep in the bunk bed in the dark and he's afraid of the dark).

People who collect baseball cards would like THIS Timmy Failure book.  If you like realistic books, this series is NOT for you.  If you like crazy silly books, I think you'd like this series.

Max: F is for Flanagan

I read Siege of Macindaw, book six of the Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan.

Horace, a knight, goes from Areulen to Norgate because Will, the ranger's apprentice, is there.  Along the way, Horace meets John Buttle, the newly recruited second-in-command of Castle Macindaw; the castle had been taken over (in the previous book) and Horace and Will are trying to reconquer it.  Alyss is a courier; she and Will find Malcom the healer to help heal the real Baron of Macindaw and his son.  I liked that with every chapter that had Alyss in it, there was a big element of suspense. The book ends with Alyss prisoner of Sir Keren, the usurper of Castle of Macindaw; Will, Horace and 25 Skandians besiege the castle, reconquering it.  When Will goes to get Alyss, he finds a big surprise!!

What I like about the series is that while it starts off funny, it gets more serious and it has a twist in books 10 and 12.  My favorite character is Princess Cassandra because we are introduced to her really early in the series so it surprises you when she becomes queen in the later books.  In the third book, Cassandra reveals her real identity which I enjoyed because it told us a new fact about the opposing invaders.  I like these stories because they are based on medieval times; I like the way they fight and hunt (medieval weapons are cool!).

Ed: K is for Kingfisher

K is for T. Kingfisher, because we agreed to go by the name on the spine. T. Kingfisher is a pseudonym for Ursula Vernon, and I think of it as an Ursula Vernon book, but it’s not a V, it’s a K, because that’s the rule.

It’s the name on the metaphorical spine, though, because I bought it as a file and read it on my telephone. No spine. No pages, so no title page. Still.

I purchased Seven Brides specifically to read on an airplane, and then didn’t read it on the airplane. Partly because I was still reading Rose in Bloom on my telephone, and partly because I didn’t wind up reading that much. I have grown accustomed, a bit, to reading on the device, but I am more likely to grab hold of a physical book, when I get a chance. Which I largely did, even on the airplane.

Still, there it was on the phone, and eventually it was the book on the phone I hadn’t read yet. And then it was the book on the phone I was in the middle of, and then, surprisingly quickly, it was the book on the phone I had finished. It’s that sort of book. You read a bit, and then a bit more, and then just a little more, and then you find you’ve swallowed the whole thing in a gulp.

It’s not so much because of the plot. There’s a plot, and if it’s enough of a plot to satisfy me it’s got to be a fairly substantial one, but it doesn’t so much twist as unravel. No, what was so engrossing was the feel of the book, the finely evoked spookiness that didn’t descend into gore. It kept up a nightmare horror, coming back to the prosaic to ground itself as a book, much the way that our protagonist comes back to the kitchen to ground herself before another night’s horrible quest. It’s not that I didn’t want to leave the world of the book, either—it’s not a world anyone would want to stay in. It’s just that the book works, in a way that books ought to.

Thanks,
-E.

Fran: S is (Also) for Scalzi

It shouldn't be much of a surprise that Ed and I overlap in our taste for sci-fi, and that we both share a fondness for space opera and action-heavy works.  So I read John Scalzi's Lock In as well.

I liked the adaptation of current technological realities to future ideas.  The ideas of how neural networks function, how sharing occurs between two brains, how prosthetic robot bodies (threeps) work are all anchored in enough current science as to create a believable future world.

Scalzi's characters are...fine.  I read his stories for their plot.  He often gives them back stories which come out in expository lumps when another character needs the information to explain a way the person is behaving.  They don't really remain private or separate and the characters don't really grow and change.  And that's fine, as long as that's what you expect.  The characters are reasonably interesting, and they certainly move the plot along. 

One thing does bother me about the novel set up.  This isn't a spoiler, per se, as it is in the first pages of the novel, is part of the backstory to the world itself, and is described on all the review blurbs of what the novel's about.  But if you care, you might want to stop here.

This is from Scalzi's short piece, Unlocked: An Oral History of Haden's Syndrome, which appears in a VERY changed form as the preface to the novel.

Twenty-five years ago, doctors and hospitals were receiving their first cases of the disease that was initially misdiagnosed as a variant of the Influenza A virus subtype H5N1, and then briefly known as “The Super Bowl Flu,” and “The Great Flu,” and then finally, after the full extent of the damage it could cause was known, named “Haden’s syndrome.” The disease would claim millions of lives and sentence millions more to “Lock In,” a paralysis of the body that leaves the mind fully functional.

Later, he will put the numbers at 400 million dead in the world, 4 million in the US alone.  Yet a mere 25 years later we have a fully functioning society with the locked-in able to use threep technology to move and function, and "integrators" able to host the brains of the locked-in for a human experience. 

What annoys me is the difficulties of the timeline.  Scalzi wants characters who remember what it was like not to be locked in--to be fully functioning humans, as well as characters who have seldom/never known anything else.  But the devastation to society of that many lives lost is glossed over in the novel.  Few people talk about loved ones who died in the waves of disease.  The oral history does some to replace the idea of social disruption that would have occurred with that many people sick/dying but the novel does nothing.  Businesses and politics happen as usual.  The idea of a "moon shot" emphasis on building a subsidiary medical and technical industry is less plausible to me in the wake of the staggering death numbers.  But maybe that's because I find fascinating what happened to the world after the 1340s Black Death and the 1917-18 Spanish Influenza; I wanted something more in my backstory than what Scalzi wanted.  Different priorities, I think.

Once I moved past the 25 years frame, I accepted the idea that a virus swept through and that we have a technological industry that addresses the physical needs of the locked-in; it just became a longer period of time for me between the onset of the disease and the medical industry of the present world.  In no way does this ruin the book for me.  It was an interesting mystery/procedural set in a futuristic world, with an awful lot of action.

Max: M is for McDonald

In Judy Moody Goes to College, by Megan McDonald, Judy Moody gets a new teacher, and needs required help from a tutor. When she finds out her tutor is a college student, she gets all excited. She really likes going to her tutor until her new teacher starts them with word problems. When she goes to her tutor again, the tutor, Chloe, says “Why don't you come here on Saturday? I'll show you around.” Judy Moody agrees and has the best time of her life.

This is a good book for people who like puns. I've only read two Judy Moody books, and I like them. I'm planning to read more of them.

-Max.

Ed: S is for Scalzi

The thing about picking up a book by John Scalzi is that you know what you're getting on a bunch of levels. It'll have snappy, sarcastic dialogue. It'll have intelligent characters. The characters will be in mortal danger, probably with tremendous frequency. It'll turn out OK. It'll be a quick read, with virtually no lengthy passages of poetic description to skim over. And it'll be at the least basically competent.

What I mean is, there's a floor for Scalzi expectations that's fairly high. There's a ceiling that's fairly low, too, I have to say. I think I've said before that I've never been inclined, with a Scalzi book, to grab people by the lapels and say read this book, dammit!. I would say, for those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you'll like. If you were going to grab a book for an airplane ride, without knowing much about it other than the author, I think a Scalzi is a safe bet. I think Mr. Scalzi would be pretty happy with this assessment—I mean, he'd presumably prefer people to have expectations of the books being life-changing lapel-grabbers, and he has made it clear that he can live just fine with other people not liking the books at all, and I don't think Tor is going to slap a safe bet to be worth the read on the next cover. But John Scalzi seems, at least in his public persona, to be above all a professional writer, and he writes professionally, if you know what I mean. And that's a hell of an achievement.

Lock-In definitely meets that baseline for me. It's a good book. I went back and forth between being satisfied with that, and wanting something different from a good book, wanting a risk-taking book, a book with pretentions, a book whose reach exceeds its grasp. My dissatisfaction with the last book I read, though, a nice contrast with this one; I liked the sensibility of the book, as well as the book itself.

Spoilers after the cut.

Brynnen: M is for Martinez

Helen and Troy's Epic Road Trip, by A. Lee Martinez is about an epic road trip. (Wow, REALLY?) But it's also a tale of unrequited love/adoration (and subsequent squishing), health code violation (summoning Gods in hamburger glop), and spoofing the accepted cliches of legends (Dragon preserves--no weapons allowed). It is a hilarious story, and I am deeply sad that there is no sequel in the works, although the author's other works look good... Anyway, this book is especially for those who know a thing or two about myth and legend, especially if they learned it from Rick Riordan. The book is set up so you don't know quite who you should really trust, and the Orc Biker Gang is hilarious. So what are you waiting for? Start reading this great book NOW NOW NOW.

-Brynnen.

Max: G is for Grabenstein

Escape from Mr Lemoncello's Library, by Chris Grabenstein, is a great classic for people who like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It has a very wacky plot, and is very silly. Although it looks in the first part like the second part isn't going to happen, the secret twist will have you glued to the book. I liked that it had a great deal of audience-participation puzzles, so be sure to have a pencil and paper to work them out. Also remember: people who like rebuses are in for a good time.

-Max.

Ed: G is for Grossman

So. Lev Grossman's The Magicians is the critically-acclaimed fantasy-for-grupps at the moment. It made me grouchy.

One problem with it is that it's rather good. Mr. Grossman come up with a really clever line every few dozen pages, and some magnificent images here and there, and I certainly was surprised by what happened, pretty much throughout the book. Well, surprised and irritated, mostly.

The big problem is that our main character, Quentin, is unlikable in all the ways that main characters are unlikable in the kinds of critically-acclaimed books that make me cranky. He's self-critical, misogynist, irresponsible, fearful, small-minded and aimless. Realistically so! It's a triumph of the art, painting a character in words that is so nasty to be with.

The whole thing feels to me like a book written to be a grown-up version of the Harry Potter and Narnia series—as it clearly was. But the reaction seemed to be that the Hogwarts and Narnia, as places, were too charming, too pleasant to read about, and most of all, too much fun. Real magic, Mr. Grossman seems to be saying, wouldn't be fun at all. So he wrote a book chock full of magic with no fun at all. Which I suppose is an achievement, of sorts.

Lois McMaster Bujold, in a review of a book I haven't read yet, wrote something interesting:

There exists a quality of a book that I do not have a name for; it is approached by terms like “mode” and “voice” and “the writer’s world-view”, but isn’t quite any of these. I short-hand it as, “What kind of head-space am I going to be stuck in now? ” And is it one I that will enjoy being stuck in?

I would call it the sensibility of the book, I guess. Some books are charming, some books are melancholy, some books are light-hearted or great-spirited or kind. Some books are mean. This is a mean book.

Thanks,
-E.

Fran: C is for Beth Cato, Clockwork Dagger

Beth Cato’s Clockwork Dagger (http://www.tor.com/stories/2014/03/the-clockwork-dagger-excerpt-beth-cato) is a ripping yarn.  Steampunk dystopia, religious/spiritual magic and medicine, action aplenty.  I grabbed this as a spur-of-the-moment, everyone-else-is-ready-to-leave-the-library read off of the new sci-fi shelf.  The first chapter is really excellent—we follow our main character, Octavia Leander, as she travels through the big city on her way to start a new career as a medician (medic/magician); the incident sets up the cultural technology (with airships and steam cabriolets), her skills (channeling the spirit of the Lady to work the healing magic), her nature (cautious, caring, independent), the political scene (the truce between the two warring states, the downtrodden populace).  I continue to notice how little exposition there is for the reader—or rather how unobtrusive it is—we simply live in this world and the sheltered background of the main character provides us with the slightly innocent worldview we need in order to get the information we need.  It’s an excellent adventure in an alternate universe.  My only complaint is while the story wraps up, it does with the clear idea that it will be followed by another book to move our characters through the larger political intrigue.  Beth Cato better write fast.

Fran: P is for Pakenham

Because I’d heard an interview with her on NPR, I set out to read Beth Moon’s photographic book Ancient Trees: Portraits of Time (2014) (http://www.bethmoon.com/TouchWood00.html) but I ended up reading Thomas Pakenham’s Remarkable Trees of the World (2002).  Blame the West Hartford Public Library which puts recently returned books on carts for browsing and my lousy memory for names.

I did take time to look at Beth Moon’s work and while I like the images of trees, they are not my favorites; of the plant works, I loved the Savage Garden series (plants that lure in insects for food and pollination) and the Odin’s Cove series (Man, ravens are expressive birds!).  Her style is more generally surreal which didn't seem to work as well for the Trees.

Thomas Pakenham’s book is much more casual, a traveler’s writing and a traveler’s photographs.  He wants to give you scale and often climbs over barriers to do so.  The photographs are meant to make you go “wow”, less with a sense of art than with a sense of “what a cool tree”.  The writing that accompanies each is full of little tidbit facts (often measurements) and lore and often anecdotes of his visit.

Packenham, an historian, is clearly fond of the 19^th century naturalists who paved the way for traveling and documenting; Alexander von Humboldt features prominently because some of the trees he wrote about and drew are still around!  The dragon tree at Orotava, Tenerife has a great back story as he goes looking for von Humboldt’s tree, finding a similar one a mere 30’ in girth instead of the 35’ reported.  When he writes about the Kalahari baobab known as Green’s tree because of the expedition having carved its name and 1858, he says “The world and his wife had followed and they had added their signatures—all except Livingstone.  I liked Livingstone for that.  He is rather a hero of mine—he behaved better to Africans than most of his fellow Europeans—and I was glad to find he behaved better to trees.”  (not a bit of a pathetic Anglophile, why do you ask?)  Packenham often hits my historical imagination as I see the ways in which transplanted trees shape trade and culture in their new homes.

I liked the colloquial style—I often had the response Packenham wanted of “Oh cool!”  Learning that dragon trees don’t have rings like other trees, that baobabs could be hollowed out (and indeed one served as a bar back in 1880s South Africa), that there are genetic mutations that reproduce as corkscrew beeches in Verzy France, that there are 4600 year old trees, was fun.  The section on trees as shrines (the Bo tree of the Buddha, etc.) is somewhat disappointing—as if Packenham’s historian hat was a little too tight to marvel too spiritually.  There are some editorial choices I wouldn’t have made—brown line drawings under some of the text is often intrusive; sometimes the photograph is spread over a page and a bit, resulting in the spine cutting into an image.  On the whole, though, a lovely coffee table book of our majestic—and remarkable—trees.

Brynnen: A is for Adams

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, by Douglas Adams.



I chose Douglas Adam's book, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, for A. This book is the second book in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, beginning in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This series concerns the adventures of Arthur Dent, the last human; Ford Prefect, an alien from the vicinity of Betelgeuse and intergalactic hitchhiker; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the three-armed, two-headed, president of the galaxy; Trillian, the other last human and traveling companion of Zaphod; and Marvin, the depressed superintelligent android. It is a hilariously funny book, as are the rest, but rather difficult to follow in a timey-wimey sort of way. But what do you expect from a book titled The Restaurant at the End of the Universe but a fun and funny romp through time and space? Whatever it is, as long as it isn't TOO serious, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe delivers. Love? Check. Heavy drinking? Check. Unexplained Spacio-Temporal mystery that is never touched on again? Check. Funny computers? Check. Surprisingly serious attempt to unravel the meaning of life? Surprisingly, check. (Although you should not be TOO surprised if they quickly say something along the lines of, "Heck with thinking, let's drink heavily again.") I recommend this book (after the first one, of course) to fans of Doctor Who. The space comedy is superb, and while we're at it, did you know Douglas Adams actually wrote some Doctor who for a bit? This is a fine book to be read during lunch hour because, in the words of Ford Prefect, "Time is meaningless. Lunchtime doubly so."-The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.



-Brynnen

Max: V is for Vernon

Knight-Napped, Danny Dragonbreath # 10, by Ursula Vernon.

In this book, Danny finds a message from his cousin Spencer who is stuck in Castle Wanderpol, which just happens to be inhabited by knights who do not like dragons. One of Danny’s best friends, Christina, just happens to be a Vanderpool, descended from the Wanderpol family. You can probably see where this is ending.

I like all the Danny Dragonbreath books. They’re awesome! I like the plots and suspense. OK, there isn’t actually any suspense except in the third book. There’s lots of action. They have good dialogue. My favorite is # 2, Attack of the Ninja Frogs. All the books are really, really funny; anyone who likes funny things should read them.

-Max

Welcome!

Our family stopped by our local public library (the Noah Webster Branch of the West Hartford Public Library) today and noticed one of their displays challenged us to read through the alphabet. We didn't nab any books off the display of authors whose last names started with A, but on the way home, laden with books, we decided to accept the challenge, and read through the alphabet in 2015. The ground rules:

• One book for every letter of the alphabet, by the author's last name as printed on the spine or title page.
• We must write a note about the book to count it.
• All books must be read for the first time and finished between today (10th January 2015) and the end of the year (31st December 2015)
• Books can be read in any order.

So. Here's our 2015 book blog.

Fran Altvater is the Mama—likes to read historical fiction, science fiction and romance. Likes books about food and art and home life.

Ed Bernstein is the Papa—likes to read YA fiction, speculative fiction, Victorian novels, plays and anything else that holds still. Judges books by covers.

Brynnen Bernstein is the Daughter—likes to read distopian novels, post-apolyptic novels, fantasy, and sci-fi. Easily distracted by printed matter.

Max Bernstein is the Son—likes to read graphic novels, funny books, and non-fiction (especially about ecology).

If we stick to it, we'll blog 104 books over the year 2015. Well, probably not quite that many, if there are duplicates, which there probably will be, what with Brynnen scooping my books the minute we get home, curse her.

We'd love your reactions, suggestions and comments. Or join us and read through the alphabet yourself! I don't see how anything could possibly go wrong.

-Ed.