Friday, August 8th, 2008
Will
I finally got around to finishing Night Watch a few days ago. I had been interested in it since I saw the movie when it came out on video. I vaguely remembered parts of the movie as I read the book, but I think I’m gonna have to watch it again.
The book is divided into 3 sections and each section could be its own little short story. At the end you’ll see just how the sections are connected. In this world there are supernatural beings called Others. Others are magicians, vampires, etc. There’s a balance between good and evil Others and 2 groups maintain that balance. The Night Watch (good Others) keeps tabs on the forces of evil and The Day Watch (evil Others) keeps tabs on the forces of good. The story focuses on a Night Watch programmer named Anton who has just been thrust into field work. I really like the book except for the last section. I got bored and just wanted it to end. I didn’t like the ending much either, and I can’t remember if its the same ending they used in the movie. I’ve committed myself to reading the second and I hope the story gets better.
I’ve gotten 4 new books in the mail this week. I don’t think I’m going to finish my 2008 list this year.
- Headcrash, Bruce Bethke
Childhood’s End, Arthur C. ClarkeTimeline, Michael CrichtonUnshapely Things, Mark Del FrancoFinding Serenity, Jane Espenson- Serenity Found, Jane Espenson
- On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
- On Truth, Harry G. Frankfurt
The Appeal, John GrishamPlaying for Pizza, John GrishamThe Taking, Dean Koontz- Playing for Keeps, Mur Lafferty
The Night Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko- The Day Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
- The Twilight Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
- The Final Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko
- Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi NovikThrone of Jade, Naomi NovikBlack Powder War, Naomi NovikEmpire of Ivory, Naomi Novik- Victory of Eagles, Naomi Novik
Lyra’s Oxford, Philip Pullman- Unholy Domain, Dan Ronco
Elantris, Brandon Sanderson- Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare
Friday, July 11th, 2008
Will
I’m still obsessed with Firefly. I recently re-watched the series and then I read Finding Serenity: Anti-Heroes, Lost Shepherds and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon’s Firefly. It’s a collection of essays about the show. The book was edited by Jane Espenson, who was a writer on Buffy, Angel, and Firefly and is now a writer on Battlestar Galactica. Some of the essay were interesting. Some were boring and I couldn’t wait to get through. I could see the point that some of the authors were trying to make. Some I think were seeing things that aren’t even there. At this point the movie hadn’t been released, so some of the theories have been proven wrong since then. In thee back there’s a glossary where they translate all the Chinese spoken on the show. My favorite essay is written by Jewel Staite (she played Kaylee). She lists her five favorite moments from each episode. That may be the one to read even if you don’t read any of the others.
- Headcrash, Bruce Bethke
Childhood’s End, Arthur C. ClarkeTimeline, Michael CrichtonUnshapely Things, Mark Del FrancoFinding Serenity, Jane Espenson- Serenity Found, Jane Espenson
- On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
- On Truth, Harry G. Frankfurt
The Appeal, John GrishamPlaying for Pizza, John Grisham- Night Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Day Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Twilight Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Final Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
The Taking, Dean KoontzHis Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi NovikThrone of Jade, Naomi NovikBlack Powder War, Naomi NovikEmpire of Ivory, Naomi Novik- Victory of Eagles, Naomi Novik
Lyra’s Oxford, Philip Pullman- Unholy Domain, Dan Ronco
Elantris, Brandon Sanderson- Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008
Will
I read Unshapely Things be Marc Del Franco because it was the latest pick from The Sword and Laser podcast. Unshapely Things falls under the category elf punk. It takes place in modern-day Boston where you see people along with creatures like fairies, elves, and druids (collectively called the fey). There’s an area of Boston called The Weird where the most of the Boston-area fey live.
It was an ok book, but not something that I liked a lot. It took about a month to read a 300-page book, which means that it was very easy to put the book down and do other things. This was the author’s first book and I know that there’s at least one other book in the Connor Grey series. I’m not sure if I’ll read the next book. I have a feeling it’s much better than the first, but I may just read the Harry Dresden series instead.
I’m already finding Serenity.
- Headcrash, Bruce Bethke
Childhood’s End, Arthur C. ClarkeTimeline, Michael CrichtonUnshapely Things, Mark Del Franco- Finding Serenity, Jane Espenson
- Serenity Found, Jane Espenson
- On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
- On Truth, Harry G. Frankfurt
The Appeal, John GrishamPlaying for Pizza, John Grisham- Night Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Day Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Twilight Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Final Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
The Taking, Dean KoontzHis Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi NovikThrone of Jade, Naomi NovikBlack Powder War, Naomi NovikEmpire of Ivory, Naomi Novik- Victory of Eagles, Naomi Novik
Lyra’s Oxford, Philip Pullman- Unholy Domain, Dan Ronco
Elantris, Brandon Sanderson- Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare
Thursday, May 29th, 2008
Will
I became interested in Brandon Sanderson when I found out that he was finishing The Wheel of Time for Robert Jordan. I decided to start with his first book, Elantris.
Elantris was a city of magical people whose inhabitants were thought of as gods. Something has changed and now Elantrians are thought of as being cursed. It’s been 10 years since the fall of the city, and book focuses on 3 characters with related plot lines. The story takes place both inside and outside of Elantris.
One thing that attracted me to this book is that it’s a standalone story. It’s not one part of an epic series. Nice! As always with fantasy novels, it took a little while to get into. I think part of it had to do with learning a new universe. I was having a little trouble in my head figuring out how some of his terms should be pronounced and somebody else’s pronunciations might be different. I just had to make myself not worry about that and get on with the book. I also didn’t like the frequency in which Sanderson was throwing out new terms and not really explaining what they mean. There’s no glossary in the back to help clear things up. Eventually, everything was explained enough to understand what he was talking about. Once I started getting into the book, I really enjoyed it. I do remember thinking that there were a lot of surprising twists happening, but that’s okay. I found it interesting that there weren’t many battles. There was a great deal of intellectual maneuvering, but not much physical fighting. I’m pretty sure I’m going to read Sanderson’s Mistborn series when I get a chance.
F.Y.I. – There’s an Elantris glossary on Sanderson’s website. I wish I had known this when I was reading the book.
The Sword and Laser’s current book is Unshapely Things and I’m already reading it. I don’t think I had ever heard of elf punk until now.
- Headcrash, Bruce Bethke
Childhood’s End, Arthur C. ClarkeTimeline, Michael Crichton- Unshapely Things, Mark Del Franco
- Finding Serenity, Jane Espenson
- Serenity Found, Jane Espenson
- On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
- On Truth, Harry G. Frankfurt
The Appeal, John GrishamPlaying for Pizza, John Grisham- Night Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Day Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Twilight Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Final Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
The Taking, Dean KoontzHis Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi NovikThrone of Jade, Naomi NovikBlack Powder War, Naomi NovikEmpire of Ivory, Naomi Novik- Victory of Eagles, Naomi Novik
Lyra’s Oxford, Philip Pullman- Unholy Domain, Dan Ronco
Elantris, Brandon Sanderson- Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare
Friday, May 16th, 2008
Will
Back to my ever-growing reading list. This time I read The Appeal by John Grisham. This is another one of his legal thrillers. The man knows how to write legal thrillers, so I’m glad he’s back to what he does best. What is The Appeal about? A company with a factory in Mississippi has just had a huge verdict returned against them. They were dumping harmful chemicals into the ground and the people in the area started getting sick. They are going to be appeal the case before the Mississippi Supreme Court and the company wants to get a friendly justice elected to the court. I saw an interview where Grisham said that this is the most political book that he’s written. He makes a good argument for appointing state Supreme Court justices instead of electing them. He gets Mississippi, its people, and their attitudes right so the book felt very familiar. It’s a pretty good book and I enjoyed reading it.
Childhood’s End, Arthur C. ClarkeTimeline, Michael Crichton- Unshapely Things, Mark Del Franco
- Finding Serenity, Jane Espenson
- Serenity Found, Jane Espenson
- On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
- On Truth, Harry G. Frankfurt
The Appeal, John GrishamPlaying for Pizza, John Grisham- Night Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Day Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Twilight Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Final Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
The Taking, Dean KoontzHis Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi NovikThrone of Jade, Naomi NovikBlack Powder War, Naomi NovikEmpire of Ivory, Naomi Novik- Victory of Eagles, Naomi Novik
Lyra’s Oxford, Philip Pullman- Unholy Domain, Dan Ronco
- Elantris, Brandon Sanderson
- Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare
Sunday, May 4th, 2008
Will
When I picked The Taking by Dean Koontz as my next book, I had no idea there would be similarties to my last book, Childhood’s End. There’s an alien invasion, but this time they appear to be hostile. The adult characters in this book have read a lot of science fiction books and watched a lot of science fiction movies, and that kind of annoyed me at times. The way that they talked didn’t seem like the way that real people talk, but maybe I just don’t know how real people talk. SPOILER: In the end the aliens leave and the survivors are left to rebuild society. You end up wondering if it was truly aliens that caused the catastrophe in the first place.
I keep hearing good things about Koontz, so I’m going to assume that I just picked the wrong book by him to try first. I’m not sure how I came to across this book in the first place. Next time I want to read one of his books, I’ll ask for recommendations from my friend John the Dean Koontz expert.
Childhood’s End, Arthur C. ClarkeTimeline, Michael Crichton- Finding Serenity, Jane Espenson
- Serenity Found, Jane Espenson
- On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
- On Truth, Harry G. Frankfurt
Playing for Pizza, John Grisham- The Appeal, John Grisham
- Night Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Day Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Twilight Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Final Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
The Taking, Dean KoontzHis Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi NovikThrone of Jade, Naomi NovikBlack Powder War, Naomi NovikEmpire of Ivory, Naomi Novik- Victory of Eagles, Naomi Novik
Lyra’s Oxford, Philip Pullman- Unholy Domain, Dan Ronco
- Elantris, Brandon Sanderson
- Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare
Sunday, April 13th, 2008
Will
The Sword and Laser is a book club for fantasy and science fiction books. I think I first heat about it on CNET’s Buzz Out Loud podcast. The Sword and Laser was started by one former host and one current host of Buzz Out Loud.
When I first started listening to the Sword and Laser podcast, they were just starting on Neuromancer by William Gibson. I had no desire to tackle that book, so I passed on it. With the recent passing of Arthur C. Clarke, they decided to make the next book one of his. The book that readers chose was Childhood’s End.
It’s about a race of aliens that suddenly show up in ships over the majors cities on Earth. People call them the Overlords. The Overlords rule over Earth and end wars, disease, etc. Most of the things that people need to live are free. Although there was some resistance, the Overlords were able to handle that using psychological methods instead of force. The tradeoff is that man’s creativeness and innovation comes to stop, which many are unhappy with. And what are the true motives for the Overlord appearance on Earth?
If it hadn’t been for The Sword and Laser, I don’t know that I would have ever read this book. I’m so glad that I did. I’ll probably try to read more books by Arthur C. Clarke in the future.
Childhood’s End, Arthur C. ClarkeTimeline, Michael Crichton- Finding Serenity, Jane Espenson
- Serenity Found, Jane Espenson
- On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
- On Truth, Harry G. Frankfurt
Playing for Pizza, John Grisham- The Appeal, John Grisham
- Night Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Day Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Twilight Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Final Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- The Taking, Dean Koontz
His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi NovikThrone of Jade, Naomi NovikBlack Powder War, Naomi NovikEmpire of Ivory, Naomi Novik- Victory of Eagles, Naomi Novik
Lyra’s Oxford, Philip Pullman- Elantris, Brandon Sanderson
- Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008
Will
I’ve read the latest 2 parts of the Temeraire series: Black Powder War and Empire of Ivory. I’m really glad I started reading this series. I don’t have 30,000 characters to keep up with in any given scene. I don’t have to read two-page descriptions about somebody’s dress. I don’t have to wait hundreds of pages for something good to happen. And I don’t have to wait 5 years for the next book in the series. The next book in the series, Victory of Eagles, comes out this summer and it’ll actually be out in hardback.
- Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke
Timeline, Michael Crichton- Finding Serenity, Jane Espenson
- Serenity Found, Jane Espenson
- On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
- On Truth, Harry G. Frankfurt
Playing for Pizza, John Grisham- The Appeal, John Grisham
- Night Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Day Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Twilight Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Final Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- The Taking, Dean Koontz
His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi NovikThrone of Jade, Naomi NovikBlack Powder War, Naomi NovikEmpire of Ivory, Naomi Novik- Victory of Eagles, Naomi Novik
Lyra’s Oxford, Philip Pullman- Elantris, Brandon Sanderson
- Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare
Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
Will
So, it was a very light snack. I wanted to read Lyra’s Oxford because I’m a big fan of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series and this takes place in the same world. Actually, it takes place 2 years after the end of the series. Other than the fact that Lyra and Pan are in it and the book has a neat little fold out map, I can’t really say a lot of good about. I don’t want to say it was a waste of time, because it was only around 50 pages, but it didn’t really do much for me. Maybe the events in this book are setting up things that will happen in Pullman’s future books.
Timeline, Michael Crichton- Finding Serenity, Jane Espenson
- Serenity Found, Jane Espenson
- On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
- On Truth, Harry G. Frankfurt
Playing for Pizza, John Grisham- The Appeal, John Grisham
- Night Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Day Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Twilight Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Final Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- The Taking, Dean Koontz
His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi NovikThrone of Jade, Naomi Novik- Black Powder War, Naomi Novik
- Empire of Ivory, Naomi Novik
- Victory of Eagles, Naomi Novik
Lyra’s Oxford, Philip Pullman- Elantris, Brandon Sanderson
- Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare
Sunday, March 9th, 2008
Will
I have a rule against starting a fantasy series that hasn’t already been completed and now I’ve broken it. With Harry Potter and The Sword of Truth being over and The Wheel of Time being close to complete, I guess I need another ongoing series to take their places. There’s something nice about reading an ongoing series and getting new material to read every so often. Besides, the author of this new series is 35ish (young), so I think there’s a good chance that she’ll get to finish it. And she’s spitting books out like crazy, so hopefully we won’t have long gaps between books and maybe that also means she’ll finish the story sooner.
The new series that I started is the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. Temeraire is an alternate history in which the Napoleonic Wars are fought with dragons. Neat, huh? Peter Jackson has already scooped up the movie rights. Novik’s website says that she did graduate work in Computer Science before she left to work on Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Unrentide. Awesome! Then she went into writing and I guess the rest is history.
I’ve read the first two books: His Majesty’s Dragon and Throne of Jade. Both books are under 400 pages. Yes, it is possible to tell a good story in under 400 pages. Yes, you can have self-contained stories in each novel of a series. It seemed hard to find time to read, but whenever I picked them up, they were hard to put down. I’m eager to read more, but I don’t want to get burnt out, so I’ll probably snack on some Philip Pullman before coming back to Temeraire.
The list keeps growing.
Timeline, Michael Crichton- Finding Serenity, Jane Espenson
- Serenity Found, Jane Espenson
- On Bullshit, Harry G. Frankfurt
- On Truth, Harry G. Frankfurt
Playing for Pizza, John Grisham- The Appeal, John Grisham
- Night Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Day Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Twilight Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- Final Watch, Sergey Lukyanenko
- The Taking, Dean Koontz
His Majesty’s Dragon, Naomi NovikThrone of Jade, Naomi Novik- Black Powder War, Naomi Novik
- Empire of Ivory, Naomi Novik
- Victory of Eagles, Naomi Novik
- Lyra’s Oxford, Philip Pullman
- Elantris, Brandon Sanderson
- Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare
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