Book Reviews 2005

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (2005)

Started first week of Nov. 2005 - Finished on 11/21/05 A good quick read. As is usual with these books, the world is well thought out and interesting, but the sentence level of the book is fairly simple, sometimes irritating. This book does not end as well as the previous books. It didn't feel to me like it actually wrapped anything up. I think this and the seventh book may actually be more like one book split into two. We'll see. Eventually. Book Reviews 2005 item Posted: 1/2/06; 9:09:29 PM

Anansi Boys (Novel - 2005), by Neil Gaiman

Watched 10/27/05 This was a bit lighter than the previous book, American Gods, which is certainly not a bad thing. It seems like each thing he writes is unique, and all are brilliantly written. I've finally been converted to being a fan of Gaiman after years of being surrounded by worshippers of his. Worship doesn't inspire me to read an author, it just inspires me to move away from the fanatic. I'm sad that I wasn't yet a fan when I saw him at Norwescon in 1998. Oh well. Anyway, this book is funny and it deals with the humor around brothers and father-son dynamics, and it cranks it all up a notch to mythic proportions. The father being a god, you see. I loved the mythic Anansi stories woven into the story line. It didn't stall the story at all, they were instead quite critical to the momentum. Definitely a good read. Book Reviews 2005 item Posted: 11/27/05; 11:30:55 AM

Chocolat (novel), by Joanne Harris
Finished 10/5/05 It was very interesting to compare the book to the movie. The central idea is the same, but a lot of the details are rearranged or flat out different. And frankly, I think the rewrite for the movie is better is a lot of ways. But I enjoyed reading it all the same. Book Reviews 2005 item Posted: 11/10/05; 9:55:04 PM

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctorow (novel)

Finished 9/28/05 This was a pretty quick read. An entertaining piece of science fiction, set in a future where we are all plugged into the internet in our heads, we back our minds/brains up, and if we die they can grow a clone in two days and resurrect you. Some of the consequences include never knowing how old someone might actually be because a young person could decide to age their body and an old person could decide to be young again. Oh and money is gone, along with the need to work. People still do stuff, but they do it for Whuffie, not money. And you'll have to read it for an explanation there. The story isn't deep or complicated, but it's good. It's fast paced, and a page turner. Good stuff. Book Reviews 2005 item Posted: 10/20/05; 10:11:19 PM

Incubus Dreams (novel), By Laurell K. Hamilton

Finished 9/9/05 (after slogging thru it for a few months) Mostly pointless crap. One sex scene after the next, and it was just boring. I think there might have been two interesting sex scenes in there. And it was a fat book too. And nothing much happens. It appears that she's completely lost her ability to include plot in a book. In the past she's pulled together scattered stories, and I've been impressed by the seamless way she's managed it, but this time, the plot was there as an excuse here and there, to tie together far too many sex scenes, that supposedly serve the purpose of Anita gaining more powers, but really, even that is too ridiculous. I've played in enough role playing games to know that dumping dozens of supposedly rare powers on one character is just self indulgent. We've always known that the author is putting too much of her own personal fantasies, and her own persona into Anita (and I hear the heroine of the fairy series is exactly the same), but this is just too much. I won't be reading any more of these unless I hear that the next one actually has more plot than sex, by at least double. I've decided that Anita would be great if she had half the amount of magical powers and half the number of men rotating thru her bed (go back 4 books at least). My fantasy line up would be Jean-Claude and Micah, with maybe Jason and Requiem on the side. As for power it would focus primarily or her necromancy, her power of the dead and the undead. Book Reviews 2005 item Posted: 10/6/05; 11:56:22 PM

Redefining Our Relationships, by Wendy-O Matik

Guidelines for Responsible Open Relationships Read: Sept. 3-4, 2005 This was a very fast read. There was art, blank pages, and otherwise lots of white spaces. I think there may have been about 50 pages worth of content. Which I found to be fairly basic. Nothing earth-shattering, or really all that exciting from my point of view. But it might make a good light-weight intro for someone who is trying to learn just enough to figure out whether or not look any deeper. Book Reviews 2005 item Posted: 9/20/05; 3:07:41 PM

Road to Lisdoonvarna, By Charles de Lint
Read - 8/15-17/2005 I could certainly tell that this was written quite early on in de Lint's career. His story craft was not so stellar yet. But at the same time it was quite the page turner. Book Reviews 2005 item Posted: 9/5/05; 8:50:07 PM

The Fairies of Spring Cottage, by Wendy Froud & Terri Windling

Read 8/10/05 I just love these books. This is the third one in the series so far, and there should be one more (Fall). This time Sneezle accidentally hides in a human girls backpack and finds himself carried off home with her. There he meets many new house fairies, and helps them solve a problem in the cottage that is turning good helpful fairies into boggarts, mean malicious fairies. I adore Windling's writing, and wish she would write more. Froud's dolls are just wonderful too. They make a marvelous team. Book Reviews 2005 item Posted: 8/22/05; 7:16:29 PM

The Lions of Al-Rassan (1995), By Guy Gavriel Kay

Finished 8/7/05 This is a marvelous novel. Kay is an incredibly engaging storyteller. I think I managed to rip thru this in less than two weeks. I picked it up at every opportunity. The story is based in a fictional/fantasy world loosely based on that of Spain in the 1200's. If one knows the history of that place in that time period, then one might recognize some of the characters as being based on real people, but the names of everything have been changed, and I believe this allows him the ability to do what he wants with it. No one can quibble about the details. because you know up front that this is not supposed to be a historically accurate book. People will quibble over whether this is fantasy or not, however. Some will say that it's not, because there isn't any magic. I say that it is, because I don't think fantasy is all about magic. In the end, I don't think the category one puts it in matters much. What really matters is that this is an excellent novel. The plot revolves around three characters, and how they are brought together, how they are different, how they come to care for each other, and how the world hands them a lot of difficult decisions to be made. The characters are so rich, and the plot is so dense, and delivered so well, that it was hard to put it down, and sad when it ended and there wasn't any more to read. Book Reviews 2005 item Posted: 8/22/05; 7:03:52 PM

Swan Sister: Fairy Tales Retold (2003) Anthology

Finished 7/16/05 This is a lovely collection of retold fairy tales. And while I enjoyed all of the tales, I think my favorites are "Golden Fur" by Midori Snyder, "The Fish's Story", by Pat York, and "Lupe" by Kathe Koja. "Golden Fur" is a classic tale of a princess under a spell, and the only way a prince can win her is by passing thru several trials. "The Fish's Story" is that of the Fisherman and the magic fish told from the other side of the lake. And "Lupe" is a wonderful retelling of Little Red Riding Hood that wasn't at all obvious. I really liked the twists made here on the old tale. Book Reviews 2005 item Posted: 8/1/05; 8:09:49 PM

Amphigorey Also, By Edward Gorey

Finished 6/28/05 It's funny how I came to have this book. A couple years back a friend who had no idea what to give me for a gift, gave me a Gorey desk calendar, the page-a-day type. Then another friend saw that on my desk, and thinking that I must like Gorey, gave me this book. I find this all very amusing. Some of it I think is fantastic, and some of it is utterly useless. In this collection my favorite is the very first one, The Utter Zoo. My favorite item in here is the very dragon looking Quingawaga, which "squeaks and moans while dining off of ankle bones." After that the more story like pieces are better. The weirder and more random they get, like the 14 un-captioned panels of people being menaced by giant tassles, the less I care for them. So, it's all a bit hit or miss for me. (Other Gorey books I've liked, that are not in this book are The Gilded Bat, and The Gashlycrumb Tinies) Book Reviews 2005 item Posted: 7/23/05; 4:06:16 PM

Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked, By Catherine Orenstein

Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale Finished 6/27/05 This is an excellent book. It basically shows how a fairy tale changes quite a lot over time and how you can use the different versions to tell you something about the time in which it was written. And how you can't use today's morals to just older versions. You need to read the Charles Perrault version to understand the era in which lived, specifically the aristocracy. She covers the era in which there were not only witch hunts, but also people were being convicted of being werewolves as well. There was a specific period in which the details of the wolf in grandma's clothes were added. And so on. When she get's to the 20th century, it's interesting to look at the difference bettween uses of Little Red Riding Hood in the 1950's, 1970's, and 1990's. Each is quite different. I really don't read much non-fiction, and yet I found this fascinating and very readable. Book Reviews 2005 item Posted: 7/23/05; 3:40:02 PM

The Girl with the Pearl Earring (Novel), by Tracy Chevalier

Started 1/21/05 - Finish 2/16/05 I enjoyed the movie so much, that I wanted to know more. The book was given to me as a birthday present, and it's the first of the books I received as gifts (xmas & bday) that I started. It was marvelous. As expected it was richer, and full of details that weren't in the film. I noticed a few things that had been left out, like her siblings. This sort of thing always happens when a book is adapted to the screen, and it's understandable. In general it seemed that the feel, the atmosphere, the soul of the story, were all the same. Of course, one of the more obvious reasons why I enjoyed this story so much is because it is a 'coming of age' story. The whole thing is told from Griet's point of view. From when she is given a job as a maid in a famous painter's household at the age of 16, until she leaves a couple years later. We see her world expand outside of the neighborhood of her childhood, we see her learn about the world by meeting different people in her own city. A young man starts to court her, and in the beginning she really isn't interested, but it pleases her parents, so she allows it. In the end she matures quite a bit, and we see it develop in several different ways. We also get to visit this imagined world, set in the 1660's, in Delft, Holland. A young maid starts working in the house of Johannes Vermeer. The people, society, everything are very richly spun together for us by the author. Book Reviews 2005 item Posted: 4/7/05; 11:31:13 PM

The Chinese Storyteller's Book: Supernatural Tales, by Michael David Kwan (2001)
Started 12/28/04 - Finished 1/28/05 This is a wonderful little collection of Chinese fairy tales. Richly written, and very engaging. I find it fascinating to read tales from foreign places, I think you can learn a lot from them, about the people behind them. I loved every story, but am particularly fond of the fox-fairy tales. Book Reviews 2005 item Posted: 2/22/05; 10:43:45 PM