Thursday, November 17, 2005

A Feast for Crows

9:07 AM 11/17/2005

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I picked my autographed copy of A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin last night.
It is the 4th book in the "Song of Ice and Fire" series. It is a fantasy series that follows the lives and deaths of the major houses in the world that Martin has created. Martin's approach is gritty, political, harsh, and sparsely supernatural. His characters are well developed yet expendable at the same time. If you pick up this series, try not to get attached to anyone.

It took me a while to warm up to the series, though by the second book I was hooked. I've been eagerly anticipating this book. I head rumor on the net (I haven't been able to find a sourse) that says this book is actually only the first half of what G.R.R.M. originally wrote as one very very large book. This one alone is 684 pages.

On the one hand, the skeptical hand, that brings to mind Robert Jordans middle books that seemed to barely move in 1000 pages. On the other, optimistic hand, maybe it means that the wait until the fifth book will be very short.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

The Narrows

The Narrows by Alexander C. Irvine

For a book that I picked up on a vague recommendation, and saved as filler when I didn't have anything else to read, this turned out to be one of the better reads I've had in quite a while. It did not let me down. I would recommend this book to anyone, it was well written and the character of Jared was developed and complex.

I'm not a genius by any means, but I think I have this nack for predicting the endings of movies and books. Not through and sort of attention to detail, or close observance of the details, because in fiction, the details are just the authors whims and completely malleable. Instead, I think that this useless super power comes from a realization of how the author wants his work to end. You can get a feel for how the author feels about his characters, and more importantly how he feels about his story, and more often than not this can lead you to a pretty good guess at how he wants it to end.

Which is partially why I'm getting tired of the god versus evil clash with the inevitable outcome. I swar, one more book with an evil brother and a good brother.... ug...

But The Narrows has a real characters in a very real world (and there's the part that amazes me, how does an author create such a real world with golems, frost giants and fire imps?) where real things happen to them.

Married couples have problems, but still love each other. People work long days and cherish their weekends. Men stand around talking about sports scores. The boss at work is a jerk. I think that even the racial tensions in the book, set in the 1940s, are portrayed well. Given, I wasn't alive in the 40s so I can't say for sure.

So finally, instead of just being a book that will get you by between Meiville or Gaiman works, this book should be recommend along with them. It's going on my favorite books shelf. 9.0/10

Monday, November 14, 2005

The Narrows

The Narrows by Alexander C. Irvine

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Since I'm taking the vampire stories at a dosage of one a night, I grabbed this book off the shelf.

It was recommended to me by fellow China Mieville fans. I've just begun, but I've must say, the first two lines have me hooked already.

"Midnight in the golem factory. Sweat and clay and blisters."

Here's a longer review.

"From Publishers Weekly
Mixing the fantastic with the historical, Irvine (A Scattering of Jade) shows that heroism is as likely in the factory as on the battlefield in this novel set in WWII-era Detroit. Jared Cleaves, unable to serve in the armed forces due to a childhood hand injury, becomes entangled with factory politics and military espionage. Selected by the Office of Esoteric Investigation to work on the Ford golem production line (the "Frankenline"), Jared remains unsatisfied with his contribution to the war. Looking to do more, he falls into a complicated series of plots to unearth a supernatural power trapped below Detroit. Drawing his supernatural elements from folklore, Irvine convincingly imagines a world in which sabotage is as likely to be caused by imps as by German agents—and makes the 1943 Detroit race riot a scarier monster than any of the fantasy creatures stalking the city's streets.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved."

Sunday, November 13, 2005

God's Politics

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I should add to the list of books that I'm currently working though God's Politics, why the right gets it wrong and the left just doesn't get it by Jim Wallis .

I've been working on it for a while, almost a month now. I had been excited to read this book, I'd heard so many good reviews about it, and it ad been reccommended to me by a handful of people. People talked about it "flipping a light on" for them. They spoke of a broiling inner conflict and how this book was like a cool salve on painful wound.

Without going too far into my own personal turmoil.... I've been bothered recently by what would seem to be a disconnect between my spiritual self and political beleifs. How can the half of the nation that raises the banner of "christian morals" at every rally consistnently behave in such an un-Christ like manner. Why to thy get to keep the title of the "Christian Right" when anyone who has given Christs teaching even a cursurary reading would see that they are the very establishement Jesus preached against? And how had the political stream that i had come to affiliate myself with become the godless pagans? Why would I feel ashamed to pronounce myself christian at a democratic gathering? I really would.

I'm about three quarters of the way through the book. And so far I have agreed with nearly every word that the author has said he speaks about how poverty, social justice, honesty in politics, healthcare, debt, and foreign relations are all moral issues. That the "Right" has boiled moral issues down to gays, abortion and prayerin school. He's right, and I couldn't agree more, but I already knew that. And that's the reaction I'm having to the vast majority or the book, "you're right, I agree, I know this already, so what next?" If you've closely followed politics in the past 6 years this will probably be your reaction as well.

If you've kept half an ear open to politics, and you've started to feel that maybe something isn't right with our political climate as a whole (not neccessarily just ont he right or left, but a bit on both sides) then this book will probably be that wake up call that you need.

Case in point. Wallis tells the story about the run up to the Iraq invasion. He tells of how he, along with the religious heads of nearly every major denomination in America, wrote up a plan that would ensure the security of the United States, and legally remove Sadam from power without going to war. You'd be surprised to see the cooperation not only amongst christian denominations, but also non Christian affiliations as well. And equally surprised to see that your church leaders probably signed on.

I had already heard this story though. I heard of how they presented it to Tony Blair and how excited he was about the idea, how political leaders in the United states from both sides of the isle found the plan viable and preferrable to war, and I had already heard about how, just weeks before the invasion, this group of religious leaders was told by the white house that the president was not willing to see them. He had turned away leaders from his own Methodist church, refusing to listen to them when they put forth an alternative to war.

If your reaction is "ya, I heard that already" then you've probably heard most of the other things in this book. If you're reaction is "Our President? He really did that?" then by george go out and get this book and get to reading on it.

100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories

100 Vicious Little Vampinre Stories edited by Weinberg, Dziemianowicz, & Greenberg

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Grabbed this one off the shelf. I picked it up some time ago off a bargain shelf for $7.00

I'm a little skeptical about 100 stories in about 600 pages. I'm hoping that it isn't one of those anthologies that takes excerpts from novels. But I didn't really look that close when I bought it. It was a vampire anthology that I didn't have yet, and for seven bucks.... how could I say no?

Dark Cities Underground

I finished Dark Cities Underground by Lisa Goldstein last night.

It was better than I expected it to be, but I hadn't been expecting much. I was expecting a quick loose read at best. And it was still a quick read, but it held together much better than I thought it would.

The story in a nutshell:
There is a boy, Jereremy Jeremy Jerome Gerontius Jones, who has grown up to be a man called Jerry. When Jerry was young he would tell his mother stories about a world underground and a secret door in a tree. His mother made these stories into best selling childrens books, claiming the stories as her own. Fast forward. Jeremy is Jerry living a quiet little life. 2 people visit him in one day asking questions about his childhood. Ruth Berry and Sattermole. Devling back into his much repressed childhood memories, Jerry starts to realize that the stories he told to his Mother might have been real. That maybe there is a door in tree an entire hidden world underground.

The book weaves legends and myths into its own story rather nicely. From Egyptian myths to childrens stories like Peter Pan and the Wind in the Willows. The story is surprisingly credible, and the author writes with authority on the subject. I'm not an expert in Egyptian legends, or childrens books, so I don't know if her authority is the result of knowledge, or the ability to bluff like a celebrity hold 'em star. Either way, it pulls you quickly through the story. The end is left a little open, but that's okay. There is only one loose end that still bugs me. I'll leave myself a comment (that way it's like someone is actually reading this) and mention it there.

All in all, even though Dark Cities Underground was hard to find - I ended up having to special order it - and the cover art was bad enough that I hid it when I was reading in public, I would reccommend it for fans of "Urban Fantasy", or "Elfless Fantasy" as I like to call it. Fans of Gaiman's Neverwhere will enjoy it. Fans of Mieville's Perdido Street Station might like it, but will probably find it a simplified version of a story that is being retold quite a bit these days.

5/10

okay... off to peruse the book shelves and pick my next book.

Friday, November 11, 2005

Dark Cities Underground

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I just started Dark Cities Underground by Lisa Goldstein


"Lisa Goldstein tells the story of Ruthie, a young journalist sent to interview Jeremy, a man in his forties, who as a child was the central character of a series of classic children's books written by his mother, the Adventures of Jeremy in Neverwas. But the scary, fantastic world of Jeremy's youth is real, and sucks them into strange adventures underground, where love and death threaten."

I can't remember where I heard about the book, but it was highly recommended for fans of China Mieville. I had to special order the book, and it's sat on my shelf for quite a while now. I finally picked it up yesterday.

I've gotta admit, I judged this book by the cover. And I have been expecting a smoldering pile of crap. But it's not that bad. I'm about halfway through already, it's a quick easy read so far. It's not as complex as Mieville, and maybe not as enchanting as Gaiman, but it's still a fairly interesting story that's easy to read.

I just finished The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (a book I highly recommend for vampire genre fans) and I was in the mood for something light.

So, like a green chili and shredded beef burrito - extra cheese - on a late Friday night, this book hits the spot.

About Me

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I'm just a guy... pretty boring over all. Nothing all that special. Frustrated and growing older (I've hit 30, but i think i'm in denial). I work a job, middle management I guess. We are always broke though. Got a wife, and a daughter, love them both more than i've ever found the words to express. I go to church, sometimes. I bike to work, if i get up on time. I like the rain, always. But I have this nagging feeling that there should be more to life than this...