Articles with the Tag books and books review

Yup, you guessed it: time for another list of books read. We’re now exactly six months into 2008 and I’ve read exactly seventyfive books. Fortysix of these were fiction (of which thirtyone were science fiction even), twentynine non-fiction, with history taking hte lion’s share of that with nine books. Of last month’s crop, I was most impressed with Hal Duncan’s second novel, Ink, as well as Paul Cornell’s British Summer Time which I started with low expectations but which turned out to be pretty good.

Ink — Hal Duncan
The sequel to Vellum. Less coherent, slightly disappointing in the end but a worthy followup to Duncan’s first novel.

The Later Roman Empire — Averil Cameron
I’ve become somewhat obsessed by Late Antiquity and the later Roman Empire this year and this is another book on this subject, focusing on the fourth century in particular.

Whose Body? — Dorothy L. Sayers
The first novel in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. It’s not as good as a her later works of course, but still entertaining and with hints at greatness, though oddly defensive about being a detective novel.

Clouds of Witness — Dorothy L. Sayers
I thought I reread the entire Lord Peter series –or at least the novels, not being too fond of the short stories– in order of publication. This is the second in the series, in which Lord Peter has to save his brother, the Duke of Denver, from the hangman’s gallow.

Swiftly — Adam Roberts
This is Adam Roberts’ latest novel, not to be confused with his 2002 collection of the same name, several stories of which have been reworked here. Sort of a continuation of Swift’s novel, Gulliver Travels, it shows the world roughly a century after Gulliver’s discovery of the Lilliputians and Brobdingnagians. I came to this prejudiced against Roberts, due to my experience with several of his earlier works and I can’t say this prejudice has been overcome.

Unnatural Death — Dorothy L. Sayers
The third novel in the Lord Peter series. Somewhat of a slog to get through, compared to the first two and more interesting for its oblique look at certain aspects of pre-war England than for the story itself.

British Summer Time — Paul Cornell
A surprisingly engaging science fiction novel that takes Christianity seriously without being preachy or zealous. It’s a rarity in science fiction to even mention religion, let alone Christianity and usually when it is mentioned, the author has a hidden agenda for doing so (Orson Scott Card is one persistent offender). Paul Cornell however manages to created characters who are Christians and have it be just one piece of their background, which is refreshing.

On Late Style — Edward Said
Said’s very last book, completed by one of his students, fittingly examining the way in which late works of artists and philosophers like Beethoven, Adorno and Jean Genet share a common philosophy, despite their differences. Slightly incoherent due to the circumstances under which it was published.

Europe of the Ancien Regime 1715-1783 — David Ogg
An old-fashioned, somewhat dated overview of Eighteenth century Europe between the last spasms of the religious wars of the previous centuries and the start of the age of revolution.

The Big Sleep — Raymond Chandler
I’ve never read any Chandler before this, but it was odd to read this, because so much of it has been reworked into cliche by lesser writers.

Righting English That’s Gone Dutch — Joy Burrough – Boenisch
A slim little volume dedicated to show all the common errors and pecularities of style us Dutch make when we write in English. For the most part it’s sensible advice for people who do speak and read English well, but who have less experience writing it, but in some cases the advice given is dubious or slightly too business orientated to be useful for e.g. blog writing… Nevertheless, no doubt you can find examples of most the errors listed in this book on this website.

Yup, you guessed it: time for another list of books read.

Dark Side of Democracy — Michael Mann
S. says this made me depressive and angry, but it was worth it. Mann attempts to find out how genocide happens, what pushes a country from largely ordinary racial/ethnical tension into aggressive ethnical cleansing and mass murder. As the title says, the danger zone is when a country becomes democratic and confuses demos with ethnos.

Evolution’s Workshop — Edward J. Larson
A history of the Galapalos islands in the context of the development of the theory of evolution, from Darwin’s visit to the present day. Worthy but dull in places.

The Case of the Late Pig — Margery Allingham
A cozy mystery starring Albert Champion. There’s no better word for this than amusing.

The Best of Fredric Brown — Fredric Brown
A great collection of short stories by a writer these days unfairly forgotten. Brown specialised in short, sharp satirical stories, and most of the stories here are still fresh, even though written over half a century ago.

Pale Gray for Guilt — John D. MacDonald
A Travis McGee adventure in which McGee avenges the murder of an old friend by swindling those responsible out of the money his widow will need to make sure their kids are taken care off. Yes, this is roughly the plot of every McGee novel, or at least half of them.

Doorways in the Sand — Roger Zelazny
I try to ration my Zelazny, as for obvious reasons he isn’t writing anymore so once I’ve read all his books I’ll never again have the thrill of a new Zelazny novel. Had been wanting to read this one, one of his classics for a long time but had never come across it yet. Read it on the way back from a birthday party, finished the last part next to my bike before cycling home from the station. That’s my Zelazny fix for this year.

Template — Matt Hughes
Matt Hughes offered the possibility to any blogger who asked to read the manuscript of his latest novel. Not something I would’ve read of my own accord, but it was worth the (admittingly small) investment.

Kaleidoscope Century — John Barnes
Nicely dark science fiction story of a 21st century much much worse than our own.

A Crack in the Edge of the World — Simon Winchester
The story of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, with digressions.

Bad Monkeys — Matt Ruff
Effortlessly cool grand old American paranoia.

The Best of C. L. Moore — C. L. Moore
Back when women didn’t write science fiction, C. L. Moore was one of the best, like Leigh Brackett writing lurid but literate pulp tales. This is a late seventies collection of her best work, including the two stories that introduced her best known characters, Northwest Smith (“Shambleau”) and Jirel of Joiry (“Black God’s Kiss”). Apart from that, there’s no overlap with the C. L. Moore collection in the Fantasy Masterworks series.

The Mediterranean — Ernle Bradford
An oldfashioned history of the Mediterranean by the author of The Great Siege of Malta, a bit longwinded at the end and of course somewhat on the conservative side.

There Will Be Time — Poul Anderson
A fairly upbeat story about time travel, upbeat by Anderson’s standards that is. Twentieth century society will still disappear in an orgy of environmental destruction and war, but afterwards there may be something better, if Jack Havig wins his battles against the other timetravellers.

Cowboy Angels — Paul McAuley
McAuley is one of my favourite science fiction writers, but lately he’s been mostly writing technothrillers with nary a hint of science fiction in them. Cowboy Angels is still a technothriller, but it’s also firmly science fiction. With the invention of Turing gates back in the late sixties, the Company gets a new mission: to infiltrate alternate Americas and liberate them from communist or nazi oppression if necessary, to bring them together as one country under many skies.

Another month gone by means another list of books read.

The Thief of Time — Terry Pratchett
The first time I reread this. A typical late Discworld novel.

Flat Earth News — Nick Davies
Nick Davies is an acclaimed journalist who here exposes the news media for the shallow spreaders of lies they are. Something of a Manufacturing Consent for the 21st century, though with less analysis and more anecdotes.

Vellum — Hal Duncan
A brilliant fantasy novel that will annoy the fuck out of a lot of people for being so deliberately vague and confusing.

Matter — Iain M. Banks
Banks’ latest Culture novel, which doesn’t disappoint.

Last Days of the Reich — James Lucas
This details the last phase of the struggle in Europe during World War 2, from the battle for Berlin until the final surrender of German forces on May 9, 1945. It’s somewhat marred by the author being slightly too keen to document the outrages undergone by Germany at the hands of the Russians while largely omitting the context in which these outrages happened.

Farthing — Jo Walton
A cozy murder mystery set in 1949, in a world in which Britain and nazi Germany made peace in 1941. The horror of the situation creeps up on you.

Petty Pewter Gods — Glen Cook
An entertaining hardboiled detective story set in a fantasy worlds where the Gods come quite literally knocking on our hero’s door…

Imperial Earth — Arthur C. Clarke
Dated but still interesting late science fiction novel by the last of the Big Three.

The Compleat Enchanter — L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt
Yngi is a louse! Classic fantasy stories from a time before Tolkien.

The Testament of Andros — James Blish
Classic science fiction stories, some of which now hopelessly dated, some of which deserving of being called classics.

Frederick the Great — Nancy Mitford
Mitford’s classic biography of the great Prussian leader.

The Secret of Sinharat — Leigh Brackett
Eric John Stark, fugitive from the law for supplying the Mercurian tribes with guns, has to stop the Martian lowlanders from rising in revolt in return for his freedom.

The Red Pavillion – Robert van Gulik.
A mock-historical detective story, based on an 18th century Chinese mystery novel starring Judge Dee, who was himself based on the historical Judge Dee and whom van Gulik appropriated for his series. You could call it orientalist, if not for the matter of factness with which the series treats its setting.

The Peoples of the Hills – Charles Burney & David Marshall Lang.
Worthy but slightly dull attempt to chronicle the early history of Armenia, Georgie, Eastern Turkey and the Caucasus by an archaeologist and a historian. The edition I read was from 2001, but this book was written in 1971, so it’s probably dated by now.

The Steep Approach to Garbadale – Iain Banks.
An enjoyable novel about a large sprawling Scottish family with a deep dark secret at its core, yes, somewhat like The Crows Road

The Jennifer Morgue – Charlie Stross.
The sequel to The Atrocity Archives, a fun spy romp mixed with geekery and high doses of Lovecraft.

The Earth: an Intimate History – Richard Fortey.
An excellent overview both of geological history of Earth and how geology developed as a science, told by one of the best writers of science books I know.

The Battle of Venezuela – Michael McCaughan.
An introductionary history of Hugo Chavez, the Boliverian Revolution he spearheads and the response he called forth against it. Slightly out of date, as it was written in 2004 but sharp, to the point and not too partisan.

The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality – Wolfram Wette.
After the Second World War Germany was quick to embrace the myth that while they were on the wrong in the war, the Wehrmacht was just doing its duty, did it “with clean hands” and that it was Hitler, Himmler and the SS who were the villains, not the ordinary men serving in the army. This book explodes these myths.

Ammonite – Nicola Griffith.
Excellent science fiction novel by a writer I need to read much more of. Feminist in a very natural way.

Selling Hitler – Robert Harris.
Robert Harris on perhaps the biggest publishing fraud in history: the fake Hitler diaries.

1610: a Sundial in a Grave – Mary Gentle.
A cast iron bitch of a novel, as you should expect of Gentle: a mixture of history, science fiction, Hermetic magic, esoteric knowledge and kinky sex.

Rivers in Time – Peter D. Ward.
A non-fiction book examining the three major extinctions that shaped our world, as well as the fourth one currently going on. Interestingly enough, while the idea that we are currently in a mass extinction event is not new, Ward argues that actually much of it has already finished millennia
ago…

Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut.
I last read this when I was thirteen or fourteen or so, it still held up, though it does feel much more dated than something like Catch-22, an anti-war novel of similar vintage.

Nine books read this month, of which five were rereads, all science fiction:

The End of Eternity, – Isaac Asimov.
The first Asimov novel I’ve read since at least 2001, an old favourite of mine, one of the first sf novels to introduce me to the idea of altering history.

The Big Time – Fritz Leiber.
Also an author I hadn’t read since at least 2001, another favourite and another time war novel. Brilliantly claustrophobic.

The Player of Games, Consider Phlebas and The Use of Weapons – Iain M. Banks.
The first three Culture novels, read in order from weakest to strongest. The first one was a breeze to read, I struggled a lot with Phlebas which felt a bit padded and Use of Weapons was not as amazing as the last time I’ve read it. Still incredibly good novels though, some of the best space opera ever written.

The Fall of Rome – Bryan Ward Perkins.
Short history of how the Roman empire ended, which spents much of its time argueing against the allegedly fashionably view that the Fall of Rome was highly exaggerated and in fact went almost unnoticed. However, though the author is very adamant in insisting this fall did happen and was a disaster, his own description does make clear the Gibbonian idea of civilisation collapsing with the end of the Roman Empire in the West is indeed wrong and the revisionists actually do have some grounds for their views. In short its rhetoric is much stronger than its disagreement.

The Diversity of Life – E. O. Wilson.
Very readable book explaining clearly how resilient and abundant life on Earth is, how ecosystems grow and evolve, how even large extinctions are repaired over time, only to break your heart in the end with the description of the human caused extinctions now going on. Especially after you realise that this was written sixteen years ago and things have only gotten worse…

Upheaval from the Abyss – David Lawrence.
enjoyable if sometimes slight history of the idea of continental drift and how it got accepted, as well as the mapping of the ocean floors and how this contributed to the acceptance of this theory.

The Celtic Empire – Peter Berresford Ellis.
Conventional but misleading general historic of the Celts up until the Roman conquest of Britain. Supposedly this is about the whole Celtic era from 1000 BC until 51 AD, but instead it largely focuses on the Roman wars against the various Celtic tribes. Lots of names and dates, not much attention to culture and all that good stuff. Not that I didn’t learn something, but it wasn’t quite the thing I was looking for.