Week of August 27-September 2

[mrissa]

One acceptance. Batting a thousand this week -- very cool.

Books read in the last half of August:

Jim Butcher, Summer Knight. Fourth in this series, definitely a middle book, but with a plot arc of its own. I don't recommend starting this series in the middle, but the middle is worthwhile so far. Harry Dresden grows as a person, and sometimes he screws up royally, and I like how it's all handled. (And I really like Murphy.)

Charles de Lint, Widdershins. I don't know whether to be happy or annoyed about liking this book as much as I did. As many of you know, I've been frustrated with de Lint books lately. They've felt like same-old same-old. This didn't. He begins it talking about how he wanted to write with new characters but people kept asking for Jilly and Geordie's continued story, and frankly I think this is part of what worked for me. It wasn't "yet another de Lint fiddler, yet another de Lint painter" -- it was the same ones from before, doing other things. That was good.

We can go two ways from here: he can write more books I enjoy again. Or he can do more same-old, and I will groan, "Why am I still reading this?" And then I will look at Widdershins and know why: because even when he slips for a book or two, he's still got it. He just has to find it again from time to time. And I can sympathize with that.

Shannon Hale, Princess Academy. I liked the ending of this book in some ways, but I wasn't overwhelmed with it in general. If you're going to subvert tropes, it's best to be careful of what you're replacing them with.

Frederick P. Hitz, The Great Game: the Myth and Reality of Espionage. Okay, people? Can we refer to something besides Kim in a book title about espionage, Central Asia, or empire-building? Thanks so much. Also, on an unrelated note while I'm asking for favors, can we please stop using the suffix "-gate" to indicate anything even mildly scandalous? I don't hold out much hope for this, but maybe once a year for my birthday? ANYway, this was more the kind of book that makes you scribble down the titles of other interesting books to read than the kind of book that's interesting much in itself. Or maybe I am jaded on this subject.

Scott Lynch (scott_lynch), The Lies of Locke Lamora. My favorite line: "My name's Jean Tannen. I'm the ambush." This is not coincidental; Jean was my favorite character. It felt like the parts of this story that most interested me were the ones that this book didn't get to. This is a fixable problem.

John D. MacDonald, The Dreadful Lemon Sky. Yikes, the rule of having color-words in each title is really biting him in the butt by now. Anyway, this was a McGee book like the other McGee books. It didn't make my flesh crawl like some of them. I expect that it will mostly blend in with the rest in my head. If this was a bad thing, I wouldn't continue reading them.

Tim Powers, Three Days to Never. Mossad, Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, time travel, ghosts, everybody sing! Not in the rarefied upper eschelon of Tim Powers books, but worth reading if you like that sort of thing. timprov commented that he hasn't read Powers because I've gone on and on about the Eye Thing in The Last Call, and okay, yes, the Eye Thing freaked me out rather permanently. But this book contained no Eye Thing. Some other nastiness. But no Eye Thing and no real new equivalent -- well, maybe the Throat Thing. Um.

Geoff Ryman, Air. Oh, I really liked this. Middle-Asian peasant futures. I was immediately interested in Mae's life and the SFnal conceit's effects thereon. This is a book that actually does what people theorize SF does. I have a couple more Rymans on my pile, and I'm glad.

Rex Stout, And Be a Villain and Too Many Women. Nero Wolfe is -- surprise! -- Nero Wolfe. He has hit a stride here, I think, and has not run into too many weird time dilation effects yet.

Jack Turner, Spice: the History of a Temptation. Mostly about European cultures' use of spices. Not as juicy and specific as I would like, interesting in spots and quite wrong in a few details.

Jo Walton (papersky), Farthing. There are two reasons to say, "Oh, no, no," at the end of a book. One is because the author has done something unpleasant to the story to make it go the way she wanted it to, and ruined the rest thereby. The other is because the world -- the one we live in, I mean -- is wrong, and the only right ending possible, the only one true to the story, makes you want to put your head down and howl, and the author has not flinched away from that right ending. This was the latter. I was quiet inside for days after reading this book. I was already convinced I would want to read whatever Jo wanted to write after her reading at Minicon in '04. This book made that conviction stronger.

Kate Wilhelm, The Price of Silence. For once, the character relationships didn't grab me. Since that's why I read Kate Wilhelm, this was a problem. But Kate Wilhelm -- like Charles de Lint -- has enough of a track record with me that I will still go read her next one. If you're not a Kate Wilhelm completist, though, you can probably skip it.

I'm also a little ways into a big thumpy brick called The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War. It's not at all comfortable to read, physically I mean, so it'll take me awhile. I was caught up on periodicals for a day, and then I got two more in the mail. Magazine subscriptions: the to-do list that refreshes itself.

Comments

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting these. For a couple that you mentioned, I've been waffling on whether to get copies of my very own, but I think I'll make a bookstore trip in the next few days. :-)

[applewoman.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear that this particular de Lint book is worth reading. I've eyeballed it a few times but haven't picked it up; the last book I read of his was disappointing.

Jean Tannen was my favorite character too. I wanted more of him and less of Locke, really. I couldn't quite get a grip on the why of Locke; he wasn't whole in my head. But Jean felt very real to me.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

There are writers whose work I sometimes like very much and sometimes bounce off.
Jo Walton and Charles De Lint are among them.

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

If you want to read more along the lines of The Deceivers, I'd highly recommend Philip Gerard's Secret Soldiers: The Story of World War II's Heroic Army of Deception, which answers the question "just what were all the gay fashion designers doing during WW2?" :-) (Not that you really need more books on your "to-read" list, but I enjoyed this one so much that I've been recommending it to anyone I think might enjoy it.)

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

What you said about a movie that would feel in your head like Gaudy Night does? I've only read a tiny it of the beginning and the end yet, but I get the feeling that Farthing feels something like that. After all, GAUD 's ending can be upsetting too, depending on how you view it - I mean, not the "Placet" bit of course, but eveything else around them. What do you think?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Locke felt less real to me, too, but I have the sense that he was aiming at "larger than life" rather than "true to life" with Locke. And that was hit-and-miss for me: some sections of the book made it work admirably well, others less so.

[scott-lynch.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear it didn't suck... I think?

Also: "Eye Thing?"

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Indeed, it did not suck. But we were just getting into the bits I found most interesting when the book ended. And yep, the immediate plot was done there, so it was the right place to end the book. This happens sometimes. I am a middle-book person mostly, starting with imprinting on "The Empire Strikes Back" when I was a toddler.

And the Eye Thing...um. I don't want to spoil it, but the reason why one of the characters has to have an artificial eye in that particular Powers book freaked me out. A lot. It still kind of makes me squirm thinking about it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, a fair amount of the same part of my head.

But I would be extremely skeptical of a movie of Farthing, too.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I always need more books on my to-read list!

Well, maybe need is the wrong verb there....

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Actually, two movie companies have asked to see the book.

I don't expect this to come to anything, and I'm not sure what I'd do if it did.

Unlike everything else I've ever written, where I know I'd refuse permission for a movie in all circumstances, Farthing does strike me as theoretically filmable, even Hollywood filmable, and I have been told that it is possible to stipulate that permission is granted only if they don't change the end. But... would I trust them even so? Money would be very nice, and we don't have any, but I'd much rather not have any money ever than see a book of mine screwed over, and especially the end of Farthing changed because that is essential.

I mean, what could I do? I wouldn't have any recourse at all. I'd have to kill them, and then that would be the rest of my life in prison on two books a week and half an hour of internet alternate Thursdays.

So probably I'd have the strength of mind to turn an offer down.

Lots of times people buy an option but never make the movie, and the author gets the money without having to have the film... but you can't count on that.

Robert Altman could make it. Merchant-Ivory could have. David Mamet?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, rysmiel and I were talking about a stage play of it on e-mail just last week. It's not that I doubt its filmability. It's that I doubt the world's movie-makers severely. Having seen the end of the "Brave New World" miniseries where John Savage and Lenina are holding hands running on a beach and all.

I would send you a cake with a file baked in, but I still applaud your decision to avoid making that necessary if reasonably possible. So the ending clause seems like a quite sensible one to me.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, but I'm skeptical of (and not a huge fan of) movies in general.

All the comments lauding the later harry Potter movies for departing more from the books and this being better qua movies just baffles me, though I do understand the need to cut. I think the movie of A River Runs Through It succeeds in large part because it's faithful to the book, though also because the "book" is novella length to start with. (Also it's got a younger cuter Brad Pitt.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think the later HP books needed cutting, so I can kind of see those comments in that context.

I don't know. Some books need to be significantly changed to be movie-ish. Others are pretty cinematic to begin with.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Can you send asci files in cakes? It doesn't seem a sensible way around even the most dire internet shortage.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of the time in college when my senior friends were talking about stringing cable down the halls to play networked computer games and how easy the freshmen had it. One of the said freshmen piped up, "In my day, we didn't have the internet! We just had to shout ones and zeros into the phone!"

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. It's easier to picture a stage play having the necessary kind of stark looming menace behind the social rituals. Maybe North American audiences are (are perceived to be?) more tolerant of uncertainty and ambiguity and tough endings in plays than in movies? Or with a play, it doesn't matter whether a million people like it because it doesn't cost that much to produce?

I have no idea how one would *show* (in a movie or play) the fascinating parts of seeing things through Lucy's eyes as she changes in the book. And I don't think the story would be nearly as good without that.

Although it must be even harder to have artistic oversight to each production?

I feel like I've seen a lot of plays with that kind of mix, but all that comes to mind is that one about the biography of Alan Turing, which maybe is not relevant at all except for WWII and queer and England.

Farthing

[elisem.livejournal.com]

The other is because the world -- the one we live in, I mean -- is wrong, and the only right ending possible, the only one true to the story, makes you want to put your head down and howl, and the author has not flinched away from that right ending. This was the latter.

*nods vigorously*

Yeah. That.