October 2006 books
Feb. 5th, 2007 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jinianStrange Devices of the Sun and Moon, Lisa Goldstein. From the Great Queer Fantasy Canon. I liked but didn't love it, and the queerness seemed tangential (though of course it is nice to have it there).
Poisons, Peter MacInnis. Bookstore in Whistler. Finally a good explanation of the bean-eschewing philosophers. A fun collection, reasonably well written, of historical and modern facts on poisons.
Tales of Pirx the Pilot, Stanislaw Lem. Wim's. I was just getting into the deadpan amusing stories (though even those had some disturbing points) when the plots took a distinct turn for the creepy. Interesting stuff, though. Will definitely read more Lem.
Corpse Suzette, G.A. McKevitt. Library shelf. I couldn't resist the title, but this turned out to be annoying and stupid.
[skippable body image rant]
The protagonist is "voluptuous and proud of it" and she eats absurd amounts of junk food, yet supposedly she shops at Victoria's Secret and wears the results. As someone with excessive breasts, I object. VS bras go up to D, and it's a SMALL D. If you want the cups-runneth-over effect, fine, but it really doesn't look good under clothing, which is how Savannah was wearing hers. Other fat/fit issues in it bugged me, though I admit that the fattest chick does get [spoiler, like you care] with the bishounen at the end.
[rant off]
(Also, Wim promptly came up with "Crime Brulee" when he saw this, so clearly I can get my dippy-pun fix without having to read dumb books.)
Cue the Easter Bunny, Liz Evans. Another library-shelf mystery, but this one's pretty good. Decent plotting, obligatory romance, pieces of investigations coming together in unexpected but honest ways. I liked that it was British rather than oh-so-American, too.
Trouble Under Oz, Sherwood Smith.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sartorias is doing good work here; this and her previous Oz book have self-contained plots with good amounts of shiny world exhibition, plus there's a multi-book plot arc getting up momentum. Honestly I've never been crazy about Oz, but these are worth reading anyway.
The Vintner's Luck, Elizabeth Knox. Wow. Someoneoracne's way mentioned this a while ago, and it really is amazing. Life-spanning, with nonstandard relationships that are realistically difficult and change the participants immensely.
Catherine, Called Birdy, Karen Cushman. I'm too old for this one; it pissed me off that the heroine escapes the dismal fate of marriage to a man she doesn't care for, but there was no acknowledgement of the other women who had the same problem and didn't luck out.
"Jury Service," Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow. The too-self-aware zippiness of the Doctorow I've read was mitigated here, and the tech was fun. The plot was okay.
Alphabet of Thorn, Patricia McKillip. I think this is my new favorite McKillip. Librarians and magic and something I can't describe about the plot.
Jumper, Steven Gould. Frompleonastic. I found it dissatisfying but don't have a good reason for that.
Far Traveler, Rebecca Tingle. Fromgwyneira. Liked it.
Lady of Mazes, Karl Schroeder.
Annoyances: I found Livia too passive and resentful, like that Donaldson Mirror of her Dreams chick, and where were all the other women in part 1? Bog-American-Indian spirituality is still annoying, even with a good plot reason.
Accolades: Very readable. The manifolds are a good concept well elaborated. Some very pleasing surreality with the incarnate Government.
Thoughtful bits: But life doesn't have meaning now either (pages in the 180s). And what's the nature of reality now?
Water: Tales of Elemental Spirits, Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson. As usual, I like McKinley a great deal and find Dickinson's characters very distant. (They didn't put the names on the individual stories here, but I checked the ToC.) The last one, with Damar in, made me cry, but it was pretty late at night and I was tired. Worth a library hold.
Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, Lois-Ann Yamanaka. Wiscon dealers' room. Lots of joined stories about a poor Japanese-Hawaiian girl and her community. Almost all contain awful things, but it's a really good look at being working class in a place I've never lived, which does have a pretty different culture to the rest of the U.S.
Bleach, Tite Kubo. Through the Soul Society arc. That was pretty fun, but if I'd been reading it as it came out, or any less good at keeping characters straight, I'd have gone somewhere else long since.
Dracula graphic novel, Becky Cloonan ill. Bounced.
Dramacon 1, Svetlana Chmakova. The plot hooked me like a fish, though I didn't especially like the writing on the micro-level. Wanted more but stupid comic store doesn't carry it and was annoying at me. Do they want to drive me into the den of evil that is B&N?
Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden 3, Yuu Watase.
Land of the Blindfolded 1-5, Sakura Tsukuba. Sweet and cute episodes in the life of one girl who sometimes sees people's future when touching them, mostly to do with the adorable Arou-kun, her past-seeing boyfriend, who has vaulted to near the top of my cutest manga boys list. (Actually, I think he caused there to be a cutest manga boys list.)
Leap Years, Ian Bennett. Messy brush-drawing thinks it's a lot more charming than it actually is, and the story (high-school boy meets invisible frog who helps him cheat to become a basketball star) is morally incoherent.
The Lost Colony, Book #1: The Snodgrass Consipracy, Grady Klein. I liked the look of the art, but the story was a little hard to follow. Robots are always a plus, though, and I liked the magical-absurdist ending. Unclear if it's actually critiquing racism or just taking part in it. Might be going somewhere, but it's not close enough yet that I can be bothered to keep track.
Nana 3-4, Ai Yazawa. YAY NANA.
Qwan 1, Aki Shimizu. Like it so far, though it's all setup. Waiting for that thing on his forehead to do something scary.
The Rabbi's Cat, Joann Sfar. Fromcoffeeandink. Adorable. Also read Little Vampire Does Kung Fu! by the same author, which was just bizarre.
Tsubasa 5. Reread on getting my own paper copy.
XXXholic 7. At least one character in every CLAMP story apparently must lose eye function. WTF?
Y the Last Man: Paper Dolls (#37-42).
Poisons, Peter MacInnis. Bookstore in Whistler. Finally a good explanation of the bean-eschewing philosophers. A fun collection, reasonably well written, of historical and modern facts on poisons.
Tales of Pirx the Pilot, Stanislaw Lem. Wim's. I was just getting into the deadpan amusing stories (though even those had some disturbing points) when the plots took a distinct turn for the creepy. Interesting stuff, though. Will definitely read more Lem.
Corpse Suzette, G.A. McKevitt. Library shelf. I couldn't resist the title, but this turned out to be annoying and stupid.
[skippable body image rant]
The protagonist is "voluptuous and proud of it" and she eats absurd amounts of junk food, yet supposedly she shops at Victoria's Secret and wears the results. As someone with excessive breasts, I object. VS bras go up to D, and it's a SMALL D. If you want the cups-runneth-over effect, fine, but it really doesn't look good under clothing, which is how Savannah was wearing hers. Other fat/fit issues in it bugged me, though I admit that the fattest chick does get [spoiler, like you care] with the bishounen at the end.
[rant off]
(Also, Wim promptly came up with "Crime Brulee" when he saw this, so clearly I can get my dippy-pun fix without having to read dumb books.)
Cue the Easter Bunny, Liz Evans. Another library-shelf mystery, but this one's pretty good. Decent plotting, obligatory romance, pieces of investigations coming together in unexpected but honest ways. I liked that it was British rather than oh-so-American, too.
Trouble Under Oz, Sherwood Smith.
sartorias is doing good work here; this and her previous Oz book have self-contained plots with good amounts of shiny world exhibition, plus there's a multi-book plot arc getting up momentum. Honestly I've never been crazy about Oz, but these are worth reading anyway. The Vintner's Luck, Elizabeth Knox. Wow. Someone
oracne's way mentioned this a while ago, and it really is amazing. Life-spanning, with nonstandard relationships that are realistically difficult and change the participants immensely.Catherine, Called Birdy, Karen Cushman. I'm too old for this one; it pissed me off that the heroine escapes the dismal fate of marriage to a man she doesn't care for, but there was no acknowledgement of the other women who had the same problem and didn't luck out.
"Jury Service," Charles Stross and Cory Doctorow. The too-self-aware zippiness of the Doctorow I've read was mitigated here, and the tech was fun. The plot was okay.
Alphabet of Thorn, Patricia McKillip. I think this is my new favorite McKillip. Librarians and magic and something I can't describe about the plot.
Jumper, Steven Gould. From
pleonastic. I found it dissatisfying but don't have a good reason for that.Far Traveler, Rebecca Tingle. From
gwyneira. Liked it.Lady of Mazes, Karl Schroeder.
Annoyances: I found Livia too passive and resentful, like that Donaldson Mirror of her Dreams chick, and where were all the other women in part 1? Bog-American-Indian spirituality is still annoying, even with a good plot reason.
Accolades: Very readable. The manifolds are a good concept well elaborated. Some very pleasing surreality with the incarnate Government.
Thoughtful bits: But life doesn't have meaning now either (pages in the 180s). And what's the nature of reality now?
Water: Tales of Elemental Spirits, Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson. As usual, I like McKinley a great deal and find Dickinson's characters very distant. (They didn't put the names on the individual stories here, but I checked the ToC.) The last one, with Damar in, made me cry, but it was pretty late at night and I was tired. Worth a library hold.
Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers, Lois-Ann Yamanaka. Wiscon dealers' room. Lots of joined stories about a poor Japanese-Hawaiian girl and her community. Almost all contain awful things, but it's a really good look at being working class in a place I've never lived, which does have a pretty different culture to the rest of the U.S.
Bleach, Tite Kubo. Through the Soul Society arc. That was pretty fun, but if I'd been reading it as it came out, or any less good at keeping characters straight, I'd have gone somewhere else long since.
Dramacon 1, Svetlana Chmakova. The plot hooked me like a fish, though I didn't especially like the writing on the micro-level. Wanted more but stupid comic store doesn't carry it and was annoying at me. Do they want to drive me into the den of evil that is B&N?
Fushigi Yuugi Genbu Kaiden 3, Yuu Watase.
Land of the Blindfolded 1-5, Sakura Tsukuba. Sweet and cute episodes in the life of one girl who sometimes sees people's future when touching them, mostly to do with the adorable Arou-kun, her past-seeing boyfriend, who has vaulted to near the top of my cutest manga boys list. (Actually, I think he caused there to be a cutest manga boys list.)
Leap Years, Ian Bennett. Messy brush-drawing thinks it's a lot more charming than it actually is, and the story (high-school boy meets invisible frog who helps him cheat to become a basketball star) is morally incoherent.
The Lost Colony, Book #1: The Snodgrass Consipracy, Grady Klein. I liked the look of the art, but the story was a little hard to follow. Robots are always a plus, though, and I liked the magical-absurdist ending. Unclear if it's actually critiquing racism or just taking part in it. Might be going somewhere, but it's not close enough yet that I can be bothered to keep track.
Nana 3-4, Ai Yazawa. YAY NANA.
Qwan 1, Aki Shimizu. Like it so far, though it's all setup. Waiting for that thing on his forehead to do something scary.
The Rabbi's Cat, Joann Sfar. From
coffeeandink. Adorable. Also read Little Vampire Does Kung Fu! by the same author, which was just bizarre.Tsubasa 5. Reread on getting my own paper copy.
XXXholic 7. At least one character in every CLAMP story apparently must lose eye function. WTF?
Y the Last Man: Paper Dolls (#37-42).
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 06:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 08:05 am (UTC)Re: October 2006 books
Date: 2007-02-06 10:10 pm (UTC)you know, i did too when i reread it upon finding the sequel. it left an empty place inside.