Books Read: 2007
Aug. 7th, 2007 03:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendi72. The Last Colony, by John Scalzi. The final book in the saga of John Perry (or, if you prefer, the journey of John Perry) is a perfect coda to the series. Picking up well after the first two books, it brings many of the more epic plot threads from the second book to a satisfying conclusion, throwing in government conspiracies, information control, Deadworld-style planetary colonization issues, and genuinely interesting alien races (a rarity nowadays) into a very enjoyable story.
I do have one nit to pick. I'll cut, as it technically spoils a wee bit of the second book, and it's entirely a reflection of me as a reader, not Scalzi as a writer:
Throughout this book, Zoe refers to her "real" mother and father. Which is baffling, as John and Jane are her real parents. What she's referring to, of course, are her "biological" or "birth" parents. I'm not picking this nit for the hell of it, but because the words here are loaded. Younger kids might refer to "real" parents innocently, but teenagers would use the term as a way to hurt or as the result of inadvertent insensitivity; conversely, it's nigh-impossible to be an adopted or step-parent and not feel hurt on hearing those words, even when the term's used innocently. We get no indication that Zoe intends any malice, nor does John at any point seem hurt by the term (in fact, he never seems to notice it at all, although I could also have just plain missed a sentence; it happens). It just strikes a minor false note, although it's one that can easily be explained away (this is the future, and language shifts over time, after all).
Stepdad soapbox off.
Scalzi also does a great job of providing enough background information for new readers, without bogging down the plot with pages of "what came before" exposition for the rest of us. That said, even if The Last Colony is accessible for the new reader, you're cheating yourself a little bit if you don't grab Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades first, as Scalzi tells amazing stories in all three books, and the conclusion to TLC becomes a lot more satisfying with the first two books in mind. Highly recommended.
73. Territory, by Emma Bull. About halfway through this novel, I commented to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shadesong that I was reading the best Tim Powers novel of the year. By the end, I was pretty sure that this would be the case even if Tim really did have a 2007 release scheduled. I hadn't forgotten how good a writer Bull is (even though it's been, shockingly, ten years since her last novel, and thirteen since her last non-collaborative one), nor had I forgotten how adept she is at switching genres and subgenres. But Territory, which presents the events leading up to the Gunfight at the OK Coral in a fantasy light, is nothing short of brilliant. Like Powers, Bull weaves fictional events into known history without disrupting (to the best of my admittedly less-than-perfect knowledge) any of the recorded events themselves. We get Doc Holliday, the Earps, Ike Clanton, the McLaurys, and all the rest, seen through the eyes of a reporter and a reluctant magician. In other hands, it would be an above-average adventure novel, but Bull deftly avoids the cliches and gives us an incredibly rich tale of the mythology of the American West.
Bull tells an amazing story here. I'm talking about the sort of "amazing" that should, in a just world, land this book on lots of award ballots and short lists. I'll have to process (and reread) it for a little while before I decide if I think it's her best work, but it should certainly satisfy any fan of Bull's writing. Or, frankly, writing in general.
Highly recommended. And then some.
74. Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay. I still haven't seen the Showtime series based on this novel, but I loved the theme when I heard about it, so I put it in my queue at my library. The concept -- a serial killer who kills other serial killers -- isn't necessarily novel, but Dexter himself is a fascinating character, disassociated from the world, undeniably amoral, but also aware of the need to pass for normal. Lindsay writes with a lively style, throwing lots of snappy dialogue into the mix, as well as some memorable characters. The conflicts -- both Dexter's internal struggles with what he is, and his external battles involving police politics and other serial killers -- drive the plot nicely. Not for the faint of heart, of course, but nothing here was any worse than a typical CSI episode, imho. Recommended.
I do have one nit to pick. I'll cut, as it technically spoils a wee bit of the second book, and it's entirely a reflection of me as a reader, not Scalzi as a writer:
Throughout this book, Zoe refers to her "real" mother and father. Which is baffling, as John and Jane are her real parents. What she's referring to, of course, are her "biological" or "birth" parents. I'm not picking this nit for the hell of it, but because the words here are loaded. Younger kids might refer to "real" parents innocently, but teenagers would use the term as a way to hurt or as the result of inadvertent insensitivity; conversely, it's nigh-impossible to be an adopted or step-parent and not feel hurt on hearing those words, even when the term's used innocently. We get no indication that Zoe intends any malice, nor does John at any point seem hurt by the term (in fact, he never seems to notice it at all, although I could also have just plain missed a sentence; it happens). It just strikes a minor false note, although it's one that can easily be explained away (this is the future, and language shifts over time, after all).
Stepdad soapbox off.
Scalzi also does a great job of providing enough background information for new readers, without bogging down the plot with pages of "what came before" exposition for the rest of us. That said, even if The Last Colony is accessible for the new reader, you're cheating yourself a little bit if you don't grab Old Man's War and The Ghost Brigades first, as Scalzi tells amazing stories in all three books, and the conclusion to TLC becomes a lot more satisfying with the first two books in mind. Highly recommended.
73. Territory, by Emma Bull. About halfway through this novel, I commented to
shadesong that I was reading the best Tim Powers novel of the year. By the end, I was pretty sure that this would be the case even if Tim really did have a 2007 release scheduled. I hadn't forgotten how good a writer Bull is (even though it's been, shockingly, ten years since her last novel, and thirteen since her last non-collaborative one), nor had I forgotten how adept she is at switching genres and subgenres. But Territory, which presents the events leading up to the Gunfight at the OK Coral in a fantasy light, is nothing short of brilliant. Like Powers, Bull weaves fictional events into known history without disrupting (to the best of my admittedly less-than-perfect knowledge) any of the recorded events themselves. We get Doc Holliday, the Earps, Ike Clanton, the McLaurys, and all the rest, seen through the eyes of a reporter and a reluctant magician. In other hands, it would be an above-average adventure novel, but Bull deftly avoids the cliches and gives us an incredibly rich tale of the mythology of the American West.Bull tells an amazing story here. I'm talking about the sort of "amazing" that should, in a just world, land this book on lots of award ballots and short lists. I'll have to process (and reread) it for a little while before I decide if I think it's her best work, but it should certainly satisfy any fan of Bull's writing. Or, frankly, writing in general.
Highly recommended. And then some.
74. Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay. I still haven't seen the Showtime series based on this novel, but I loved the theme when I heard about it, so I put it in my queue at my library. The concept -- a serial killer who kills other serial killers -- isn't necessarily novel, but Dexter himself is a fascinating character, disassociated from the world, undeniably amoral, but also aware of the need to pass for normal. Lindsay writes with a lively style, throwing lots of snappy dialogue into the mix, as well as some memorable characters. The conflicts -- both Dexter's internal struggles with what he is, and his external battles involving police politics and other serial killers -- drive the plot nicely. Not for the faint of heart, of course, but nothing here was any worse than a typical CSI episode, imho. Recommended.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-07 07:37 pm (UTC)*places Darkly Dreaming Dexter in her queue*
I have the first season DVDs in my netflix queue as per
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-07 08:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-07 08:06 pm (UTC)I keep meaning to read the books -- there are what, three? -- and keep forgetting. Maybe if I do a library hold *right now* ...
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-07 08:11 pm (UTC)I think that once Big Love ends its current run, we'll be examining whether we're keeping HBO.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-07 09:04 pm (UTC)I'm enjoying John from Cincinnati but once that ends, I dunno.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-07 08:12 pm (UTC)