Friday, February 20, 2009

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Book 8: The Shack (Young)

Poorly written, low-quality theodicy. Protagonist does not have his wits about him, for which I blame the author.

Book 7: The Light Ages (MacLeod)

Average fantasy. Victorian era + Magic + Revolution should have been awesome, like Susanna Clarke meets China Mieville, but it was kind of flat.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Book 6: Dream (Selby)

Very good. Introductory comments by Aronofsky are just wrong, but author's preface is interesting ("Living the dream" v "Living the life")

Book 5: Hamlet (Shakespeare)

Canonicity puts it beyond categorization.

Book 4: The Phoenix Exultant (Wright)

Excellent sequel to The Golden Age. Hero's a bit more sympathetic now. And a couple of funny parts.

Book 3: The Golden Age (Wright)

Excellent far-future post-Singularity SF. Good stuff on remaining human (or not). And a kind of cool lost-memory detective story. Cliffhanger ending.

Book 2: Pirate Freedom (Wolfe)

Very good historical novel. Doesn't seem as weird and layered as usual for Wolfe, but maybe it's just going over my head.

Book 1: The Birth House (McKay)

OK historical novel.