Catching up - new (to me)
Mar. 14th, 2010 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyphomandraThese are all the rest of the books I've read for the first time this year, leaving me with five re-reads and however many books in progress. I'm still a bit ambivalent about where to put graphic novels that aren't manga, but I'm reading so few of them at the moment that they're ending up here.
Edie Campbell, The fate of the artist. Short graphic novel by the guy who illustrated Alan Moore’s From Hell, and The Birth Caul; this is about the mysterious disappearance of the author, investigated largely by his family and friends. It’s cute, and the mixed media aspect is very well done, but the points about how artists use those around them for material ultimately don’t feel all that original (which may be part of the point, given the incorporation of an O Henry story that says the same thing).
Ellen Wittlinger, Sandpiper. Wittlinger is a very good YA author and I really must review one of her books sooner than two months’ after reading it, because this happened with Hard Love as well, and I end up doing shorter reviews than they deserve. Anyway. Sandpiper Ragsdale has a bad reputation at school, having discovered (like her friends) that offering guys oral sex gets them interested in her and gives her power. She doesn’t, however, actually like them, and so she drops them a few days later; this creates problems when one of them, Derek, begins to harass her. At the same time, her mother Colleen is getting married again, and her new husband has an apparently perfect daughter Sandpiper’s age (mid-teens); her biological father, a player from way back, is unable to deal with having a teenager daughter with breasts, and avoids her. The only person Sandpiper gets on with is the mysterious Walker, a guy who is the first Sandpiper has actually wanted to get to know rather than just hook up with.
In the background, other plot-lines and characters tick along, like Colleen’s friend Adrienne, invited to be in the wedding party but struggling with her weight and reluctant to show up next to two teenage girls, and Sandpiper’s younger sister Daisy, who has had to deal with her sister’s reputation in her own way. It’s all very well done and well handled, and the treatment of sex is so much more matter-of-fact than it could have been (while still being appalling – at no point does it seem to occur to Sandpiper that she might be entitled to expect reciprocation). Both Derek and Walker are less three-dimensional than the other characters and everyone is possibly just a little too articulate once they actually get round to expressing their feelings, but this is mainly just nit-picking. Googling has just established that there’s now a sequel out to Hard Love, so I will track that down, as well as consider acquiring the rest of her backlist in a more leisurely fashion.
Hilary McKay, Indigo's Star. Sequel to Saffy’s Angel, which I haven’t read, by the author of The Exiles series, which I have. Humorously eccentric family (children all named after paint colours) with modern issues (dad, an artist, has basically left, although the youngest daughter Rose refuses to admit it), with this book being mainly about bullying (of Indigo and his new friend, Tom, who is over from America due to being unable to deal with his own family) while various family issues run on in the background (for example, Caddy, the oldest daughter, works through a series of boyfriends, and Eve, their absent-minded artist mother, has various successes and disasters with her artwork). Entertaining but a bit obvious, and the various character quirks also feel a little too forced (and cosy) at times. Nicely done, though, and I’m particularly fond of this bit where Eve, teaching an art class for slightly disturbed college students, is keeping a list of words and phrases unsuitable for the T-shirts they are making.
Diana Wynne Jones, Enchanted Glass. Andrew Hope, a history lecturer, inherits his grandfather’s house and magical field-of-care on his grandfather’s death; this brings him into contact with the inhabitants of a village within which odd things are happening and eventually also gives him the responsibility of looking after Aidan, an orphan looking for shelter who is being pursued by some very strange creatures, none of whom can get his name right.
My favourite DWJ books are all from her early/mid-period writings, from The Ogre Downstairs (1974) through to the absolutely stunning Fire and Hemlock (1984). When (aided by this chronological list in another window) I look at everything she published after that, the only one I really love is The Time of the Ghost (1987) – I’m actually a bit ambivalent about Howl’s Moving Castle, because although I like it a lot I find Howl as romantic interest more than usually (for DWJ) problematic. Maybe The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988) should also be there, largely for Milly, but although I’ve read all the 1990s/2000s books so far, they’re just not the same. The Game (2007) has probably come the closest.
Enchanted Glass is pretty solid – nice worldbuilding, nice magical concept with the glass, manages to have fairies in it without driving me batty – but it also has some odd choices that didn’t necessarily work for me. The narrative seems to be a bit unsure whether it’s a book about Andrew (and thus more adult themes – responsibility, relationships etc) or about Aidan (and thus about finding your identity and place in the world), and at times the point of view choice appears to be based on picking the one that’s easier to deal with. I also found the village itself just slightly oppressively retrograde (and very homogeneous – there’s a brief flurry of racial diversity at Aidan’s foster home, but the village itself isn’t having any), with the set-up of the paternal magician looking after everyone, and the appeal to authority solution doesn’t come at the cost that it does in earlier DWJ books (Drowned Ammet, for example). On the other hand, I do like Rolf, and Tarquin kept making me think he’d wandered in from a Dick Francis novel (he’s a competent ex-jockey missing a leg, so obviously I kept expecting him to take over).
Stephen King, Under the dome. Doorstop sized novel in which a mysterious and impenetrable dome appears around a small town in (much to my surprise) Maine. After the obligatory bloody fatalities this immediately creates, the presence of the dome acts as a catalyst for the pre-existing tensions in the town to crank up to toxic levels, primarily as a result of “Big Jim”, second selectman on the town council, who runs a highly profitable illegal meth manufacturing operation, seeing this as the ideal chance to take control and settle old scores. Up against him is ex-army captain Dale Barbara (“Barbie” – almost all the male characters have these sorts of nicknames), still dealing with his own lack of action in response to a situation of injustice in Fallujah, and Julia Shumway (no nickname), who runs the local paper and has inconvenient ideas about freedom of the press.
It’s a fast read, and in terms of scope and individuation the cast work well. But Barbie is not a typical Stephen King character – the military aspects, for a start, but also the bit where he’s singled out as the main contact by the US military on the outside (the dome does not block the internet, although this is used less than I thought it would be) as the man to save them all. What felt real was the lack of understanding by the outside about how that could work, behind the dome; what didn’t was the fact that it does actually (sort of) turn out to be true. Julia, also, feels not quite there, and the two of them aren’t really enough to hang the story on. There are also – and I was deeply amused to see them – a few shout-outs to Jack Reacher, with him being mentioned in a military context. Amusement aside, though, they made me think that the set-up King was going for with Barbie would have worked for a Jack Reacher type of character – but, with the story he ended up with, referencing him just makes Barbie look weaker. There is also, apparently, a Simpsons episode involving a dome, but not having seen that what I thought of instead was the Bujold short story, “The Borders of Infinity”. I realise Miles would make most people look as if they lacked any ability to be pro-active, but again Barbie doesn’t come through that well here. He’s an oddly realistic hero, but those tendencies work against each other.
I am about to spoil some of the ending, so stop reading now if you don’t want to know.
What did work, really well, was the set piece of the dome and the explosion. The build up to this – the increasing heat in the dome, the haze of pollution, the change in light – is done really well, and highlights how the inhabitants are trapped. But when the meth lab goes up it’s an amazing bit of writing, in narrative and imagery, and almost everything after that is tight, urgent and gripping. As well, obviously, as underscoring the whole environmental metaphor of the book.
Edie Campbell, The fate of the artist. Short graphic novel by the guy who illustrated Alan Moore’s From Hell, and The Birth Caul; this is about the mysterious disappearance of the author, investigated largely by his family and friends. It’s cute, and the mixed media aspect is very well done, but the points about how artists use those around them for material ultimately don’t feel all that original (which may be part of the point, given the incorporation of an O Henry story that says the same thing).
Ellen Wittlinger, Sandpiper. Wittlinger is a very good YA author and I really must review one of her books sooner than two months’ after reading it, because this happened with Hard Love as well, and I end up doing shorter reviews than they deserve. Anyway. Sandpiper Ragsdale has a bad reputation at school, having discovered (like her friends) that offering guys oral sex gets them interested in her and gives her power. She doesn’t, however, actually like them, and so she drops them a few days later; this creates problems when one of them, Derek, begins to harass her. At the same time, her mother Colleen is getting married again, and her new husband has an apparently perfect daughter Sandpiper’s age (mid-teens); her biological father, a player from way back, is unable to deal with having a teenager daughter with breasts, and avoids her. The only person Sandpiper gets on with is the mysterious Walker, a guy who is the first Sandpiper has actually wanted to get to know rather than just hook up with.
In the background, other plot-lines and characters tick along, like Colleen’s friend Adrienne, invited to be in the wedding party but struggling with her weight and reluctant to show up next to two teenage girls, and Sandpiper’s younger sister Daisy, who has had to deal with her sister’s reputation in her own way. It’s all very well done and well handled, and the treatment of sex is so much more matter-of-fact than it could have been (while still being appalling – at no point does it seem to occur to Sandpiper that she might be entitled to expect reciprocation). Both Derek and Walker are less three-dimensional than the other characters and everyone is possibly just a little too articulate once they actually get round to expressing their feelings, but this is mainly just nit-picking. Googling has just established that there’s now a sequel out to Hard Love, so I will track that down, as well as consider acquiring the rest of her backlist in a more leisurely fashion.
Hilary McKay, Indigo's Star. Sequel to Saffy’s Angel, which I haven’t read, by the author of The Exiles series, which I have. Humorously eccentric family (children all named after paint colours) with modern issues (dad, an artist, has basically left, although the youngest daughter Rose refuses to admit it), with this book being mainly about bullying (of Indigo and his new friend, Tom, who is over from America due to being unable to deal with his own family) while various family issues run on in the background (for example, Caddy, the oldest daughter, works through a series of boyfriends, and Eve, their absent-minded artist mother, has various successes and disasters with her artwork). Entertaining but a bit obvious, and the various character quirks also feel a little too forced (and cosy) at times. Nicely done, though, and I’m particularly fond of this bit where Eve, teaching an art class for slightly disturbed college students, is keeping a list of words and phrases unsuitable for the T-shirts they are making.
“Have you learned any you didn’t know before?” one student asked her.
“No, darling,” said Eve, a little wistfully. “Not for years and years and years.”
Diana Wynne Jones, Enchanted Glass. Andrew Hope, a history lecturer, inherits his grandfather’s house and magical field-of-care on his grandfather’s death; this brings him into contact with the inhabitants of a village within which odd things are happening and eventually also gives him the responsibility of looking after Aidan, an orphan looking for shelter who is being pursued by some very strange creatures, none of whom can get his name right.
My favourite DWJ books are all from her early/mid-period writings, from The Ogre Downstairs (1974) through to the absolutely stunning Fire and Hemlock (1984). When (aided by this chronological list in another window) I look at everything she published after that, the only one I really love is The Time of the Ghost (1987) – I’m actually a bit ambivalent about Howl’s Moving Castle, because although I like it a lot I find Howl as romantic interest more than usually (for DWJ) problematic. Maybe The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988) should also be there, largely for Milly, but although I’ve read all the 1990s/2000s books so far, they’re just not the same. The Game (2007) has probably come the closest.
Enchanted Glass is pretty solid – nice worldbuilding, nice magical concept with the glass, manages to have fairies in it without driving me batty – but it also has some odd choices that didn’t necessarily work for me. The narrative seems to be a bit unsure whether it’s a book about Andrew (and thus more adult themes – responsibility, relationships etc) or about Aidan (and thus about finding your identity and place in the world), and at times the point of view choice appears to be based on picking the one that’s easier to deal with. I also found the village itself just slightly oppressively retrograde (and very homogeneous – there’s a brief flurry of racial diversity at Aidan’s foster home, but the village itself isn’t having any), with the set-up of the paternal magician looking after everyone, and the appeal to authority solution doesn’t come at the cost that it does in earlier DWJ books (Drowned Ammet, for example). On the other hand, I do like Rolf, and Tarquin kept making me think he’d wandered in from a Dick Francis novel (he’s a competent ex-jockey missing a leg, so obviously I kept expecting him to take over).
Stephen King, Under the dome. Doorstop sized novel in which a mysterious and impenetrable dome appears around a small town in (much to my surprise) Maine. After the obligatory bloody fatalities this immediately creates, the presence of the dome acts as a catalyst for the pre-existing tensions in the town to crank up to toxic levels, primarily as a result of “Big Jim”, second selectman on the town council, who runs a highly profitable illegal meth manufacturing operation, seeing this as the ideal chance to take control and settle old scores. Up against him is ex-army captain Dale Barbara (“Barbie” – almost all the male characters have these sorts of nicknames), still dealing with his own lack of action in response to a situation of injustice in Fallujah, and Julia Shumway (no nickname), who runs the local paper and has inconvenient ideas about freedom of the press.
It’s a fast read, and in terms of scope and individuation the cast work well. But Barbie is not a typical Stephen King character – the military aspects, for a start, but also the bit where he’s singled out as the main contact by the US military on the outside (the dome does not block the internet, although this is used less than I thought it would be) as the man to save them all. What felt real was the lack of understanding by the outside about how that could work, behind the dome; what didn’t was the fact that it does actually (sort of) turn out to be true. Julia, also, feels not quite there, and the two of them aren’t really enough to hang the story on. There are also – and I was deeply amused to see them – a few shout-outs to Jack Reacher, with him being mentioned in a military context. Amusement aside, though, they made me think that the set-up King was going for with Barbie would have worked for a Jack Reacher type of character – but, with the story he ended up with, referencing him just makes Barbie look weaker. There is also, apparently, a Simpsons episode involving a dome, but not having seen that what I thought of instead was the Bujold short story, “The Borders of Infinity”. I realise Miles would make most people look as if they lacked any ability to be pro-active, but again Barbie doesn’t come through that well here. He’s an oddly realistic hero, but those tendencies work against each other.
I am about to spoil some of the ending, so stop reading now if you don’t want to know.
What did work, really well, was the set piece of the dome and the explosion. The build up to this – the increasing heat in the dome, the haze of pollution, the change in light – is done really well, and highlights how the inhabitants are trapped. But when the meth lab goes up it’s an amazing bit of writing, in narrative and imagery, and almost everything after that is tight, urgent and gripping. As well, obviously, as underscoring the whole environmental metaphor of the book.
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a question
Date: 2010-03-14 09:45 pm (UTC)Re: a question
Date: 2010-03-15 04:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-14 10:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 05:16 am (UTC)(and hi, fellow NZ person with a nicely creepy icon. Your dissertation sounds very interesting - are you looking at any of Maurice Gee's later books? I tried to map Salt and Gool on to various bits of NZ, but could not convince myself it worked.)
no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 07:41 am (UTC)(I'm thinking of focussing on familiarising the unfamiliar alternative fantasy landscape with local referents, relating to the O books and Elizabeth Knox's Dreamhunter duet. As part of that I'll need to at least mention what the two do in their other books, but my supervisor is insistent I not overextend and end up with enough ideas for a Master's, yet! Also have been slack and not yet read the Salt books, alas.)
no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 01:18 am (UTC)I liked Sandpiper too.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-15 04:32 am (UTC)Are there any of her other earlier ones I should specially go after? The library has a few, but not all.
(and hi! how's it going? I thought of you recently when playing the BSG board game...)
no subject
Date: 2010-03-20 06:05 am (UTC)