Monthly Archives: November 2009

November Reading

The laugh-out-loud cats sell out, A. Koford
Not only enjoyable funny comics, but so beautiful! Four stars.

Asylum : inside the closed world of state mental hospitals, photographs by Christopher Payne
Payne is especially interested in the self-sufficient state asylums, and includes really neat pictures of farm building and shops in addition to lobbies and patient areas. I liked the giant sauerkraut vats in Pennsylvania! The short essays included discussed how the (already financially strapped) institutions were unable to continue after they were legally barred from relying on free patient labor. Quite interesting! Four stars.

I shall destroy all the civilized planets! : the comics of Fletcher Hanks
Reprint of the (now public domain) comics of Fletcher Hanks. I can see why he was influential despite the stories being not at all good and the characters being near-omnipotent to the point of draining the dramatic potential of the story. It’s amazing stuff, but I’m not sure it was done on purpose. It’s a bit like looking at outsider art: it’s good stuff, but it is still nine kinds of crazy, too. Three stars.

Little Wolf’s book of badness by Ian Whybrow, illustrated by Tony Ross
This book has great character voice, even more character in the illustrations, a fun story, and is overall really neat and adorable. It brought me back to my favorite books as a kid (and the illustrations measure up to my childhood favorite, Quentin Blake). Please pick it up to at least see the pictures of Little Wolf and of the lunch his mother packed for his journey. Five stars.

How to Hurt Yourself Making Ginger Ale

1. Stop by the Indian grocery looking for cinnamon sticks (no dice)
2. Notice fresh ginger on sale (99 cents a pound!)
3. Buy a whole bunch
4. Chop it up into a rough paste in the food processor
5. Squish that paste through a clean damp cloth to make ginger juice
6. Put most of that juice into a ice cube tray to save for later
7. Mix the leftovers with sugar syrup and soda water (plus the displaced ice) for a drink spicy enough to make your ears burn
8. Later notice that your hand hurts from ginger juice chemical burns

Success!

This Night’s Foul Work Review

This Night’s Foul Work, Vargas. Yes. I hadn’t planned to read another Adamsberg so soon after the last, but I saw this on the library site, and it was the next after Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand, and translated by the same person, so I picked it up. I enjoyed it as much as I have become accustomed to enjoy them. I think I liked it even more than Wash This Blood, because the B story wasn’t quite so over-the-top.

Leviathan Review

Leviathan, Westerfeld. Yes. To start with my only substantive complaint, while Leviathan does not have the clumsiest exposition I’ve ever read, there were several rough patches. I don’t recall being as distracted by previous Westerfeld, but I fancy steampunk brings its own set of challenges (we’re at this point in history, and it splits from our history at this point, because this happened), and the writer doesn’t have the vast catalog of traditional sf shorthand to rely on. None of this excuses clumsy exposition, of course; it’s the writer’s responsibility to tell the story well.
And, by and large, Westerfeld does tell this story well. His viewpoint characters charmed me, and their adventures kept me turning the pages. I was a little disappointed that it is only the first in a series, though I could hardly have been surprised. Even as the first in a series, though, I might have wished for a more self-contained story. The end of the book was not unmitigated disapointment, however; I was pleased to find there an afterword, in which Westerfeld details which pieces of the historical framework were inventions. As one of the history-impaired, I found it very helpful, and its placement at the end keeps it from disturbing the proper unfolding of the story.

Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand Review

Wash This Blood Clean from My Hand, Vargas. Yes. I believe I enjoyed this book even more than I enjoyed Have Mercy on Us All, though I think I probably will continue not to seek out the other Commissaire Adamsberg books, as I fear possible disappointment (alternatively, I want to pace myself). I expect much of my warm feeling should be directed to Siân Reynolds, the translator, though I imagine the original French is as pleasing to those who can read it. It’s not quite enough to make me want to bring my French up to snuff, but I do sometimes want to have a copy of the original so I might see where a particularly interesting turn of phrase came from.
Things I like: Vargas does a great job with the settings, capturing the feel of diverse locations; she also creates a genuine desire—nearly a compulsion—to find out how things will unfold (which I’m pretending is a different thing from suspense, but it’s clearly related), which tempted me to just finish the book last night rather than getting any sleep (I resisted the temptation, since I had more than half the book remaining, but finished it today); and while I’ve read only the two books, I believe that Vargas has created in Commissaire Adamsberg a detective worthy of a franchise. I don’t know how much he’ll evolve, but I don’t know how much a franchise character should evolve. Russell Davies has done an excellent job with The Doctor in letting him change without letting him change, so it can be done.