|
Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 27, 2019 0:30:53 GMT -5
The Wonder War Laurence Janifer I was expecting melodramatic space opera by the cover, but instead it's a fun Heller-esque satire. The main characters, called the Overdogs, are tasked with stopping wars on low tech planets for the purpose of keeping them away from atomic weapons so Earth can stay the top dog. Quite a role reversal from the usual fare, it's neat to see Earth as the technical power that can do anything... even if what they do to prevent battles is more akin to Bugs Bunny than anything most 60s sci-fi writers come up with. Very good as a change of pace.
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 31, 2019 15:14:16 GMT -5
Anno Dracula 1999: DaikaijuKim Newman's world of vampires (and other monsters) is back. It's 1999 and along with the Millennium Bug the vampire enclave that Christina Light set up in Tokyo is set to revert to Japanese control at midnight. It's also possible that Light plans to upload her consciousness into the internet at that time something the Diognese Club and a number of other actors want to avoid having happen. So the Party of the Century in the Godzilla-like skyscraper (not Nakatomi Plaza) becomes the scene of hostage-taking, vampire battles and multiple levels of chicanery. I love me some Anno Dracula. But I struggled with this one for the first half. Newman puts in a ton of Easter eggs in his books and part of the fun is picking them out. That has generally not been a huge issue as I'm pretty well versed in Victorian and pulp literature and general pop culture wackiness. Except when it comes to Japanese pop culture. A lot of what was in the previous volume, One Thousand Monsters, I was able to pick up with a little help from Google. But that wasn't happening this time around. Finally I gave up trying to pick out the easter eggs and just sat back and enjoyed the story. And it really is a pretty fun story, which isn't surprising for Newman. That said, if you're well versed in Japanese pop culture of the last hundred or so years you'll probably enjoy this one on a level I wasn't able to. But it's still a rollicking good read even for those of us who are not learned in those areas.
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 3, 2020 10:45:17 GMT -5
Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi. I've seen the movie Goodfellas well over half a dozen times. You'd think then that I'd have gotten around to reading the book upon which it was based. But you'd be wrong. Until now. Wiseguy is the story of Henry Hill who was an associate with the Vario Crew of the Lucchese Crime Family. The book, like the film Goodfellas, covers his life from his start running errands for the wiseguys to his going into witness protection and testifying against Paul Vario, James Burke and others to avoid a drug trafficking charge. What's strikingly different about this book (and Goodfellas upon reflection) is that most mob books look at actual mafia members and the organization. But Hill and most of his associates weren't members and were never going to be. They were associates, hangers on, street toughs who paid obeisance for a little bit of protection. If you've seen Goodfellas there's not a whole lot here that's new. The real names (almost all the names were changed in the movie except Hill's). There's a decent amount more information about the Boston College point shaving scheme, probably Hill's biggest accomplishment as a criminal, that mostly didn't make into the film. And there's a lack of "Am I a clown to you" which was improvised by Joe Pesci. If you're a fan and you want a little more background it's a quick easy read. But Goodfellas is a masterpiece of a film made by one of our greatest directors. Wiseguy is a good book, but it's probably not essential.
|
|
|
Post by berkley on Jan 3, 2020 12:39:13 GMT -5
Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi. I've seen the movie Goodfellas well over half a dozen times. You'd think then that I'd have gotten around to reading the book upon which it was based. But you'd be wrong. Until now. Wiseguy is the story of Henry Hill who was an associate with the Vario Crew of the Lucchese Crime Family. The book, like the film Goodfellas, covers his life from his start running errands for the wiseguys to his going into witness protection and testifying against Paul Vario, James Burke and others to avoid a drug trafficking charge. What's strikingly different about this book (and Goodfellas upon reflection) is that most mob books look at actual mafia members and the organization. But Hill and most of his associates weren't members and were never going to be. They were associates, hangers on, street toughs who paid obeisance for a little bit of protection. If you've seen Goodfellas there's not a whole lot here that's new. The real names (almost all the names were changed in the movie except Hill's). There's a decent amount more information about the Boston College point shaving scheme, probably Hill's biggest accomplishment as a criminal, that mostly didn't make into the film. And there's a lack of "Am I a clown to you" which was improvised by Joe Pesci. If you're a fan and you want a little more background it's a quick easy read. But Goodfellas is a masterpiece of a film made by one of our greatest directors. Wiseguy is a good book, but it's probably not essential. The one thing I remember about it is that Burke came across as a more prominent character in the book than he did in the film, where De Niro I think deliberately played him down in order to let Pesci's and Liotta's roles take more of the centre stage.
|
|
|
Post by EdoBosnar on Jan 4, 2020 5:38:24 GMT -5
Moloka'iAlan Brennert, 2003 A little more free time around the holidays made it possible to resume my reading of Brennert's non-comics prose which I began last September. This is a historical novel, set mainly in the leper colony of Kalaupapa, on the Hawaiian island of Moloka'i. The story begins in the last decade of the 19th century, and more or less closes in the late 1940s (with an epilogue set in 1970), and deals with the life story of its main character, Rachel Kalama, a native Hawaiian who is taken from her family and home in Honolulu at about the age of 7 once she begins to show the symptoms of Hansen's disease (unfortunately better known as leprosy). Brennert did an amazing amount of research to craft this novel, as it incorporates many real world events and several actual historical personalities (and a few analogs for real people) and sheds light on what life must have been like for those who were required to live in Kalaupapa. However, more than anything else, it is a beautifully written, at times deeply moving story. Very highly recommended.
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 4, 2020 13:04:23 GMT -5
Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi. I've seen the movie Goodfellas well over half a dozen times. You'd think then that I'd have gotten around to reading the book upon which it was based. But you'd be wrong. Until now. Wiseguy is the story of Henry Hill who was an associate with the Vario Crew of the Lucchese Crime Family. The book, like the film Goodfellas, covers his life from his start running errands for the wiseguys to his going into witness protection and testifying against Paul Vario, James Burke and others to avoid a drug trafficking charge. What's strikingly different about this book (and Goodfellas upon reflection) is that most mob books look at actual mafia members and the organization. But Hill and most of his associates weren't members and were never going to be. They were associates, hangers on, street toughs who paid obeisance for a little bit of protection. If you've seen Goodfellas there's not a whole lot here that's new. The real names (almost all the names were changed in the movie except Hill's). There's a decent amount more information about the Boston College point shaving scheme, probably Hill's biggest accomplishment as a criminal, that mostly didn't make into the film. And there's a lack of "Am I a clown to you" which was improvised by Joe Pesci. If you're a fan and you want a little more background it's a quick easy read. But Goodfellas is a masterpiece of a film made by one of our greatest directors. Wiseguy is a good book, but it's probably not essential. The one thing I remember about it is that Burke came across as a more prominent character in the book than he did in the film, where De Niro I think deliberately played him down in order to let Pesci's and Liotta's roles take more of the centre stage. Burke was definitely a driving force in the book. He was one of the top hijackers on the East coast and was the brains behind the Lufthansa heist. So he’s certainly prominent in the book. Tommy DeSimone, on the other hand, did not figure nearly as prominently in the book as in the film. I’m sure a lot of that was Pesci’s commanding presence.
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Jan 4, 2020 15:25:12 GMT -5
Anno Dracula Kim Newman
I had noted this to read a while back based on Slam's recommendation.. I was picturing it as a Victorian mash up on the order of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
While there are lots of name drops (both read and fictional), the main actors of the story are of the author's creation..it tells the story of Jack the Ripper in a London where Vlad Tepes has married the Queen and rules the Empire at her side.
Newman's vampires are much more bestial and dirty than most contemporary portrayals these days. In fact, far from glorifying them, it's quite clear that only a select few even have the promised long life. There are some really interesting world building bits of what a society would be if vampires were in it, but other really important things went totally unaddressed, or just barely touched on.
Most importantly, I was very sad that the author felt he couldn't include Holmes in his book... he just shuffled him off to a prison without even being 'on camera'. It was sad to see Mora, Moriarty, Mycoft, the Diogenes Club, and even Lestrade on the scene without him. For that matter, almost all the 'name drops' from literature, with the exception of Stoker's characters, we all villains... as if the author felt his hero would be overshadowed.
And he probably would have been,... Charles Beauregard was thoroughly unimpressive. That is, until the end. The last chapter, were we finally actually see the royal couple, totally redeemed both him and the book as a whole. I'm not going to do and run out and read the rest of the series, but I'm at least curious now as to what happens next.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 6, 2020 2:40:58 GMT -5
Diving back into my pile of vintage paperbacks after taking a month or so off, I pulled the next volume of the Ace Conan series off the pile and plowed through in a couple of days. This volume contains three REH tales-People of the Black Circle, The Slithering Shadow (a.k.a. Xulthal of the Dusk) and Pool of the Black One, and a story which existed as an outline and partial draft by REH finished by de Camp-Tombalku. Black Circle is the strongest of the lot, and one of my favorites by REH, and Drums is the weakest-Conan doesn't appear until nearly halfway through the story, and is more supporting character than lead because of it, which may be why Howard never went beyond an outline and partial draft for the story. In its completed form, it reads like typical de Camp, and the first half feels more like a Howard's Cthulhu Mythos horror tales than a Conan story, or more accurately like one of Howard's desert tales with Lovecraftian elements than a Conan tale. Xulthal and Pool are both solid middle of the road Howard Conan tales. -M
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 7, 2020 15:43:41 GMT -5
Time out of Joint by Philip K. DickThis was a re-read but it's been so long I might as have been reading it for the first time. And it's important to keep in mind that this was published in 1959 because we've seen very similar stories many many times in the ensuing sixty years. I'm struggling, however, to come up with precedents for it. This is vintage Dick and it deals with one of his major themes, the nature of reality and the unraveling of reality for normal people. Ragle Gumm, though, isn't completely ordinary. He' the champion of an on-going newspaper contest to "determine where the green man will land." Gumm sends in his daily entries and stays atop the leader board. But otherwise he has a pretty standard life. He lives with is sister, brother-in-law and his nephew in an idyllic small-town 1959. A WWII veteran he is having an affair with the next door neighbor's wife. But his world is slowly unraveling. He has a collection of slips of paper that had been items (a vase of flowers) that has turned into a slip that reads "vase of flowers." His nephew found a phone book at an abandoned site that has exchanges that don't exist and a magazine with photos of movie stars nobody has heard of. It all unravels more rapidly when Ragle tries to leave town. Anything more would be far too spoilery. This is early Dick. And it was a very clear attempt to break in to the mainstream of science fiction. So, while it's a strong work, it's not among his best works. However, the premise of the work has been used so consistently in the last sixty years it may well be one of his more influential works. Well recommended.
|
|
|
Post by EdoBosnar on Jan 9, 2020 7:39:30 GMT -5
Daughter of Moloka'iAlan Brennert, 2019 Not really a sequel, but more of a follow-up to Brennert's novel Moloka'i, which I mentioned above. As the title indicates, the previous novel's main character, Rachel Kalama, gave birth to a daughter with her husband, a second-generation Japanese man (Nisei) who was also confined to Moloka'i with Hansen's disease. The baby was taken away from them almost immediately after birth (this was the law at the time) to keep her from contracting the illness as well. A few years later, she is adopted by a Japanese immigrant (Issei) couple in Honolulu, the Watanabes, and this novel tells the story of that girl, Ruth. Her adoptive family moves to California when Ruth is about 6, and the heart of the story, about the first 2/3s of the book, covers the period from that point in her childhood until she is in her early 30s just after World War II. Anyone who knows even a little about American history during that period and what being Japanese on the US west coast meant also knows that some pretty unsavory events are dealt with here. The last third of the book, which isn't as strong in my opinion, covers the period after Ruth reconnects with her birth mother (also recounted in Moloka'i) and covers the years of the mid-20th century as she moves into middle age. Even though this one isn't as strong and tightly plotted as the preceding book, it's still well worth reading. Again, Brennert did some top-notch research; the section dealing with the removal and internment of ethnic Japanese residents in the US is particularly effective and well-written.
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Jan 10, 2020 0:37:58 GMT -5
Shards of Honor Lois McMaster Bujold
Bujold is one of the more famous sci fi writers I've never read anything by, and when I found a goodreads group that was discussing the series as a 'challenge' for the year, I figured it was time.. it's been on my radar (but not that high up) for a while.
It's rare when the jacket of a book actually hits the mark completely.. this one totally did.
The characters in this book (not just to two main ones, but throughout) were brilliant... very real people that seemed like they could quite easily inhabit a real universe. I know it predates it a bit, but I could help but picture Cordelia as Deanna Troi and Vorkosigan as Worf.
I can definitely tell it's a first novel.. the pacing is pretty off, and it seems like the last 60 pages should really be the next book. It needs alot more world building to actually have a world, too. There were little bits that could be built on, but mostly it was just scenery for the characters and their romance to shine.
It's never my favorite part, but that was the one aspect of the characters I found annoying... I've never really believed in love at first sight (it's poetic, sure, but silly), and it sure doesn't make sense among enemy combatants. The other stuff was good enough to give it a pass though... looking forward to the next book.
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Jan 16, 2020 23:25:50 GMT -5
Killing Floor Lee Child
There's something about archetypal characters that make a good story.. I guess that's why they become archetypes in the first place.
That's what Jack Reacher is... you can find a guy just like him in 1000 other stories, a big, tough loner with a sense of justice and honor... the kind of character that defined 'hero' for quite a long time in fiction.
There's nothing complicated or fancy about this book, just a straighter forward one about a guy righting wrongs buy beating up the bad guys.
It totally works. I agree with Lee Child in his forward (at least sometimes)... it's good now and then to not have to cheer for the underdog, but rather have a hero that you just KNOW is going to win.. it's just a matter of how.
That's exactly what happens in the book (and most of the series, really). The story is decent, if not spectacular. I definitely found myself figuring out the clues before the characters in the book did, but I'm not sure if that's because they were a bit obvious or if perhaps I read this at some point in the past and didn't realize it was the first one.
The nice thing about these novels is, while Jack Reacher is pretty much invincible, he's invincible in a believable way... he doesn't take loads of damage and work through it, or perform impossible feats of strength or accuracy.. he does what you'd think a ex-military cop that's built like a tank would do. That's why it works well.
As many books around this time do, this one definitely feels more dated than it should.. it was written in 1997, but has alot more in common with 60s pulps than a current novel.. very liitle computer stuff... no cell phones (one of the cops has a pager, but that's it)... Reacher uses a map and a phone book at different points. Pre-9/11, so he goes to the airport and pays cash to get on a plane, and talks about how it's a pain (but not impossible) to get his weapons on with him.
I can't really picture reading a bunch of these back to back, but every now and then they're a fun read.
|
|
|
Post by EdoBosnar on Jan 17, 2020 4:23:35 GMT -5
HonoluluAlan Brennert, 2009 Brennert's second major historical novel, again set in Hawaii, but this time in an entirely different setting (Honolulu, obviously) and dealing with entirely different situations and experiences than in Moloka'i. Most of the story covers the years from the late 19-teens to about the mid-1930s, a time often looked upon nostalgically as a glamorous era for Hawaii and Honolulu in particular. However, Brennert takes pains to show us the other side of that, mainly through the immigrant experience of a Korean woman, Jin, who travels to Hawaii in her late teens to become a 'picture bride' - a reference to a match-making practice common among East Asian, esp. Korean and Japanese, immigrants in the US. They prospective brides and grooms sent photos of themselves to marriage brokers, hence the term (and as with, apparently, online dating profiles, there was often some deception involved, especially on the part of the men). Even more so than in Moloka'i, Brennert incorporates a number of real-life personalities and events, so the novel is pretty epic even while it tells an intimate story. Again, highly recommended (as though I even need to say it).
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Jan 17, 2020 13:01:56 GMT -5
Flashman on the March by George MacDonald FraserAnd thus we come to the last recorded packet from Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC, KCB, KCIE. In which Flashy is shanghaied into government service in the Abyssinian Campaign of 1867-68. Normally this would be right up my alley as I tend to prefer Flashy's adventures in conflicts with which I'm not terribly familiar and this was definitely a blind spot for me. I'm not sure it's fair to blame the book though as the last couple of months have been insanely busy and I've been under the weather for a couple of weeks. I hesitate to blame Fraser or Sir Harry for what may well have been less than ideal reading conditions. That said, this one was written shortly before Fraser's death and I know that he was trying to recapture a more primordial Flashman after some criticism that Flashy had become too soft and not cowardly enough as the series went on. Still it's an enjoyable romp as Flashman travels from Trieste to Abyssinia and then is hooked into a diplomatic/spy mission to help secure success in Napier's campaign against Emperor Theodore. I will say that this is possibly an episode where Fraser's colonialism sticks out more than usual and his history is more one-sided than the norm. On the other hand Sir Harry does have the audacity and insight to remark that the whole thing could have been avoided if Her Majesty's Foreign Office had just answered a damn letter politely. Overall it's a nice send-off for Flashman. And while I'd have loved to have seen more of his adventures I'm fine with moving on again at this point.
|
|
|
Post by berkley on Jan 17, 2020 16:42:26 GMT -5
Flashman on the March by George MacDonald FraserI will say that this is possibly an episode where Fraser's colonialism sticks out more than usual and his history is more one-sided than the norm. One such moment I remember bothering me was in Flashman and the Dragon: I think it was actually in the notes rather than in the narrative itself, but basically Fraser defended the destruction of the Summer Palace deliberately inflicted by England and France as a punishment for some act of "treachery" by the Chinese government against the European powers. I was reminded of it in the news a few weeks ago when Trump threatened to target Iranian historical monuments. I read the Flashman books when I was in my late teens and early 20s, so I wouldn't be surprised if there were more than a few such passages in the series that I didn't notice at the time. I haven't read the last 2 or 3 yet, though, including on the March.
|
|