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Book Reviews
Oct. 17th, 2016 10:07 pm#72: Pyramids by Terry Pratchett. 4. While not Pratchett's best work, still loads of fun. The Assassin's Guild final exam is most likely the best part. It's funny--I'm not sure how I missed this one, but I'm pretty certain I never read it. (Also, dear lord, the cover--apparently the artist's idea of an Egyptian prince who's studied to be an assassin is to dress him like the most racist cariacature of a ninja you can imagine, down to a headband with a rising sun, and stick slippers on him. The chainmail bikini babe in his lap is at least slightly more accurate to the character. It's like the entire 80s worth of wrong in one cover. It...does not do the book a favor.)
#73: Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. 3. I read these as a child and adored them. I read them as an adult to see if the were salvagable to let my own kid read them. Umm...maybe some of them. If I read them out loud and strategically skip a couple of sentences. They're incredibly charming--the voice is adorable. The racism/sexism/imperialism rather less so. Which is a shame, because about half of them really are very cute.
#74: The Woman Who Died a Lot by Jaspar Fforde. 4.5. You really do have to have read the previous Thursday Next installments, but I have to appreciate how well he reminds the reader of stuff they read a decade ago. (These come out rather spaced apart, I'm afraid.) Fforde continues to be relentlessly clever, with densely knotted plots that all come together perfectly and a light enough touch it seems effortless. In this one, Thursday tries to deal with a mindworm that's corroding her memory and half a dozen clones that keep replacing her, her teenage son's disillusionment after his future career in the ChronoGuard is retroactively dissolved, an incoming asteroid, and a vengeful God who has scheduled a Smiting on her home town later in the week. And a dodo, but she always has to deal with the dodo.
#75: Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi. 3.5. A light, fast-paced read about a prospector of dubious principles facing off against an intergalactic mining company over whether aliens are intelligent or not, that turns out to be mostly about a courtroom battle. It's not a great work of literature, but it's a small impressive feat to turn a character who I'm pretty sure I'd despise in real life into a fairly entertaining protagonist.
#73: Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. 3. I read these as a child and adored them. I read them as an adult to see if the were salvagable to let my own kid read them. Umm...maybe some of them. If I read them out loud and strategically skip a couple of sentences. They're incredibly charming--the voice is adorable. The racism/sexism/imperialism rather less so. Which is a shame, because about half of them really are very cute.
#74: The Woman Who Died a Lot by Jaspar Fforde. 4.5. You really do have to have read the previous Thursday Next installments, but I have to appreciate how well he reminds the reader of stuff they read a decade ago. (These come out rather spaced apart, I'm afraid.) Fforde continues to be relentlessly clever, with densely knotted plots that all come together perfectly and a light enough touch it seems effortless. In this one, Thursday tries to deal with a mindworm that's corroding her memory and half a dozen clones that keep replacing her, her teenage son's disillusionment after his future career in the ChronoGuard is retroactively dissolved, an incoming asteroid, and a vengeful God who has scheduled a Smiting on her home town later in the week. And a dodo, but she always has to deal with the dodo.
#75: Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi. 3.5. A light, fast-paced read about a prospector of dubious principles facing off against an intergalactic mining company over whether aliens are intelligent or not, that turns out to be mostly about a courtroom battle. It's not a great work of literature, but it's a small impressive feat to turn a character who I'm pretty sure I'd despise in real life into a fairly entertaining protagonist.
