book list, October 2008
Nov. 1st, 2008 12:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingIt's time for the continuing adventures of Liz and her reading list! These are the books I read in October 2008. (Click on the cuts for summaries and reactions.)
Is anyone still reading these lists? Inquiring minds want to know.
New: 5
---A Member of the Family: Cesar Millan's Guide to a Lifetime of Fulfillment with Your Dog, Cesar Millan and Melissa Jo Peltier (nonfiction: the third of Millan's books about dogs, this one focused more on how to integrate a dog into your family. The chapters by his wife and kids are unnecessary, though they are kind of cute.)
---Homegrown Democrat: A Few Plain Thoughts from the Heart of America, Garrison Keillor (nonfiction: in which Keillor expounds on his life history and his vision of what being a Democrat means. Written for the 2004 election; oddly more timely now, when the party seems to have something to work for rather than just seething with anger against Bush. I disagree with Keillor on various points, and I find his writing a bit too showy -- odd for a Minnesotan, but maybe it reads better aloud? he does work in radio, after all -- but it's always a relief to find other people declaiming the importance of community bonds and civil society. I do worry about that, these days. *is instantly branded as a hopeless fuddy-duddy out of tune with her own generation*)
---Reserved for the Cat, Mercedes Lackey (fantasy: part of the Elemental Masters series, in which Lackey retells fairy-tales in turn-of-the-century England, in a world where magic is real and is based on the tired old Earth-Air-Fire-Water elemental division. This one is "Puss in Boots," only the person with the magical cat is a young ballet dancer, Ninette Dupond, rather than a man, and the story is mostly set around a music hall in Blackpool. Cute and sweet, and I particularly like the twist Lackey gave the traditional ending, while still keeping the shape-changing.)
---Star Trek Academy: Collision Course, William Shatner, Judith Reeves-Stevens, and Garfield Reeves-Stevens (sci-fi: Anything with a title like "Star Trek Academy: Collision Course" is not great literature and has no pretentions in that direction, but that doesn't justify slopping plotting or characterization. This book suffers from both, though more of the former than the latter.
On the characterization front, the story glorifies Jim Kirk, which, considering Shatner's one of the writers, should surprise no one. I think the annoying POV quirk that sometimes makes his own brother think of Jim as 'Kirk' rather than the more logical 'Jimmy' is part of this. I also think Spock's portrayal is weighted too much toward telling as opposed to showing, but it can be lived with.
A more serious issue is the way the plot depends on Kirk and Spock being -- despite Kirk's street-smarts and technical aptitude, and Spock's scientific brilliance -- complete blockheaded idiots. It takes far too long for Spock to realize that his father might have been set up, and after the fifth ridiculous contortion of logic Kirk uses to justify his distrust of Starfleet, I was about ready to tear my hair out. But they're teenagers, so I suppose the idiocy is not as far-fetched as it would be during series canon.
My final objection -- and this one can't be explained away by general teenage insanity, since the people making this decision are adults -- is that during the climax of the story, the Starfleet ships (that are later revealed to have been in position around Neptune for several hours) wait and do nothing until the absolute point of no return, instead of doing something sensible and proactive, such as taking out the Orion ships the minute they fly up out of Neptune's atmosphere. That is the worst kind of deus ex machina plotting, and no vague talk about 'Project Echion' will justify it.
But if you can get past those flaws, the book is a breezy, enjoyable read. The pacing is good, the revelations about Kirk's past on Tarsus IV are interesting, and the subplot about his brother, Sam, is sadly all too believable. (Spock gets less development, though he does have a cute moment with a midshipman during the plot climax.) There are a lot of threads left open for a sequel -- the immediate villain was defeated, but the guy behind him is still at large -- and I care enough about what happens next that I will keep my eye out for the sequel at my local library.)
---The Northern Crusades, Eric Christiansen (nonfiction: a history of the conversion and conquest of northeastern Europe, and what happened to Finland, Prussia, and Livonia after the waning of the crusading cultural pattern. Not the lightest reading in the world, but basically accessible to a non-academic, though a bit of background knowledge is valuable. I've read bits and pieces about the various northern crusades in other books -- notably in a concise history of Poland -- but I think this is the only single-volume study of its type in English, which is a shame, considering how much disproportionate attention the various Middle-Eastern crusades and the Spanish Reconquista get. I read Christiansen's revised 1997 edition, which is, apparently, noticeably different from the original 1980 version; scholarship has unearthed new information, and various events and ideas have been reinterpreted.)
Old: 1
---Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J. K. Rowling (fantasy: oh, look, you know what it's about. Second year at Hogwarts, Petrifications, mysterious voice in the walls, Tom Riddle's diary, plot-device!Ginny, Lockhart the idiot, the Dueling Club, etc. Fun, but you can tell Rowling was still learning about writing novels; CoS is a very compressed book compared to the later volumes.)
October Total: 6 books (plus several magazines, a few newspapers, and a lot of fanfiction)
Year to Date: 92 books (62 new, 30 old)
---------------
In other news, chapter 12 of "Secrets" is now at 12,525 words. That's 1,375 words written in one evening! (Okay, so I copied maybe 500 of them out of CoS, but I still had to play around with those to switch the POV from Harry to Ginny and work them smoothly into Ginny's thought process. Sometimes making Ginny's canon actions reconcile with any sort of rational internal character motivation is very tricky.)
...And after all that progress, I am still not done. *headdesk* I only got half the key scene, because it has decided that it really wants to be two scenes -- one where Ginny works up the nerve to follow a certain course of action (and fails to carry through), and one where she scrambles for a fallback plan (which goes horribly wrong).
Is anyone still reading these lists? Inquiring minds want to know.
New: 5
---A Member of the Family: Cesar Millan's Guide to a Lifetime of Fulfillment with Your Dog, Cesar Millan and Melissa Jo Peltier (nonfiction: the third of Millan's books about dogs, this one focused more on how to integrate a dog into your family. The chapters by his wife and kids are unnecessary, though they are kind of cute.)
---Homegrown Democrat: A Few Plain Thoughts from the Heart of America, Garrison Keillor (nonfiction: in which Keillor expounds on his life history and his vision of what being a Democrat means. Written for the 2004 election; oddly more timely now, when the party seems to have something to work for rather than just seething with anger against Bush. I disagree with Keillor on various points, and I find his writing a bit too showy -- odd for a Minnesotan, but maybe it reads better aloud? he does work in radio, after all -- but it's always a relief to find other people declaiming the importance of community bonds and civil society. I do worry about that, these days. *is instantly branded as a hopeless fuddy-duddy out of tune with her own generation*)
---Reserved for the Cat, Mercedes Lackey (fantasy: part of the Elemental Masters series, in which Lackey retells fairy-tales in turn-of-the-century England, in a world where magic is real and is based on the tired old Earth-Air-Fire-Water elemental division. This one is "Puss in Boots," only the person with the magical cat is a young ballet dancer, Ninette Dupond, rather than a man, and the story is mostly set around a music hall in Blackpool. Cute and sweet, and I particularly like the twist Lackey gave the traditional ending, while still keeping the shape-changing.)
---Star Trek Academy: Collision Course, William Shatner, Judith Reeves-Stevens, and Garfield Reeves-Stevens (sci-fi: Anything with a title like "Star Trek Academy: Collision Course" is not great literature and has no pretentions in that direction, but that doesn't justify slopping plotting or characterization. This book suffers from both, though more of the former than the latter.
On the characterization front, the story glorifies Jim Kirk, which, considering Shatner's one of the writers, should surprise no one. I think the annoying POV quirk that sometimes makes his own brother think of Jim as 'Kirk' rather than the more logical 'Jimmy' is part of this. I also think Spock's portrayal is weighted too much toward telling as opposed to showing, but it can be lived with.
A more serious issue is the way the plot depends on Kirk and Spock being -- despite Kirk's street-smarts and technical aptitude, and Spock's scientific brilliance -- complete blockheaded idiots. It takes far too long for Spock to realize that his father might have been set up, and after the fifth ridiculous contortion of logic Kirk uses to justify his distrust of Starfleet, I was about ready to tear my hair out. But they're teenagers, so I suppose the idiocy is not as far-fetched as it would be during series canon.
My final objection -- and this one can't be explained away by general teenage insanity, since the people making this decision are adults -- is that during the climax of the story, the Starfleet ships (that are later revealed to have been in position around Neptune for several hours) wait and do nothing until the absolute point of no return, instead of doing something sensible and proactive, such as taking out the Orion ships the minute they fly up out of Neptune's atmosphere. That is the worst kind of deus ex machina plotting, and no vague talk about 'Project Echion' will justify it.
But if you can get past those flaws, the book is a breezy, enjoyable read. The pacing is good, the revelations about Kirk's past on Tarsus IV are interesting, and the subplot about his brother, Sam, is sadly all too believable. (Spock gets less development, though he does have a cute moment with a midshipman during the plot climax.) There are a lot of threads left open for a sequel -- the immediate villain was defeated, but the guy behind him is still at large -- and I care enough about what happens next that I will keep my eye out for the sequel at my local library.)
---The Northern Crusades, Eric Christiansen (nonfiction: a history of the conversion and conquest of northeastern Europe, and what happened to Finland, Prussia, and Livonia after the waning of the crusading cultural pattern. Not the lightest reading in the world, but basically accessible to a non-academic, though a bit of background knowledge is valuable. I've read bits and pieces about the various northern crusades in other books -- notably in a concise history of Poland -- but I think this is the only single-volume study of its type in English, which is a shame, considering how much disproportionate attention the various Middle-Eastern crusades and the Spanish Reconquista get. I read Christiansen's revised 1997 edition, which is, apparently, noticeably different from the original 1980 version; scholarship has unearthed new information, and various events and ideas have been reinterpreted.)
Old: 1
---Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J. K. Rowling (fantasy: oh, look, you know what it's about. Second year at Hogwarts, Petrifications, mysterious voice in the walls, Tom Riddle's diary, plot-device!Ginny, Lockhart the idiot, the Dueling Club, etc. Fun, but you can tell Rowling was still learning about writing novels; CoS is a very compressed book compared to the later volumes.)
October Total: 6 books (plus several magazines, a few newspapers, and a lot of fanfiction)
Year to Date: 92 books (62 new, 30 old)
---------------
In other news, chapter 12 of "Secrets" is now at 12,525 words. That's 1,375 words written in one evening! (Okay, so I copied maybe 500 of them out of CoS, but I still had to play around with those to switch the POV from Harry to Ginny and work them smoothly into Ginny's thought process. Sometimes making Ginny's canon actions reconcile with any sort of rational internal character motivation is very tricky.)
...And after all that progress, I am still not done. *headdesk* I only got half the key scene, because it has decided that it really wants to be two scenes -- one where Ginny works up the nerve to follow a certain course of action (and fails to carry through), and one where she scrambles for a fallback plan (which goes horribly wrong).
