(no subject)

[which_chick]

Reading, today. Book reviews!



(Appalachian University is Hot Hot Hot! Google it.)

Book 1: Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld. I liked it. Nice dystopia, had a bit of a The Giver feel to it, but a lovely take on things. I'm a big, fat sucker for dystopian worlds in YA novels. It's a thing. They're as tasty as asparagus for me.

Book 2: Pretties, by the same guy. Book 2 in the trilogy. (I really should have ordered the third. I should have. I'm a dork.) More of the same, but with unravelling around the edges, where the construct falls apart for our protagonist. The world-building is pretty darned tasty and I'm having a good time with it. Ends with a cliffhanger for the third book, which is okay by me.

Book 3: Haven't read this one yet, but it's Peeps, novel on novel vampires, by the same guy. (Amazon kept making me offers I couldn't refuse. Buy this book with this other book here and they're cheaper! Plus they're like peanut butter and chocolate. Get 'em both! You know you want to! Free SuperSaver Shipping. First one's free! All the cool kids 'R' doing it! I am powerless before peer pressure like that.) Anyway, I should have it done before bedtime. That's the hidden downside of YA novels. They go by about as fast as fucking a seventeen year old boy. Blink and you might miss 'em. Uglies was four hundred and some pages, Pretties was three hundred seventy more, both have fallen like wheat to my scythe, and it's not yet bedtime. Peeps will probably fall before lights out.

For tomorrow, the absolutely delightful (and So Pretty!) first four volumes of Death Note, a manga by the person who drew the Hikaru no Go manga. I'm amazed that nobody (fooliv) shared that factoid with me. I liked the visual cleanliness of HnG manga. Anyway, I peeked at that and it's going to be fun, fun, fun. Seriously.

Comments

[fooliv.livejournal.com]

It's not authored by the same writer, just the same artist. I thought I mentioned something about the artist being attracted to intellectual game-playing - go and homicidal logic-chopping - but noting that it had to be an attraction thing rather than authorial point of view, because, hey, not the writer in either case.

What are these novels you mention? Vampire stuff?

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

Yep, drawn by the same guy, I meant. Some of the expressions are... you can tell it's the same guy's art. That's kind of cool. You did (I checked back) mention it, but I apparently wasn't having one of my reading for meaning days. My bad. You get full marks on spotting the amusement potential, though. Good call, there.

Also, the huge and blinking neon similarity between Death Note and Hikaru no Go, for me, was the delightful and obvious appreciation of how the protagonist needs an opposite number against which to test his strength. It's so... pat. I love it. (Fanfic possibilities notwithstanding, even. I'd still love it.) I wish we got better antagonists in Merkin entertainment, but we don't. *sigh*

The novels are not all vampire-ish. The Peeps novel is, but I didn't like it so well as the other two. It wrapped up hurridly and into a neater package than I'm generally happy with in my novels. The delightful bits of parasitology in amidst the novel, though, I loved those bits. As I am also a huge fan of the boring-whaling-bits in Moby Dick, this should not be coming as a suprise. I like how there is real-world nonfiction (nonfiction that doesn't advance the plot, btw) scattered about in this text. It's a very Moby feature.

I might possibly would totally have enjoyed the nonfiction more if the tidbits of parasite biology had been selected and structured to carefully build a seeming nonsense in layer upon layer, like unto the coatings of wax and dye and wax and dye that cover a psanky as it nears completion. The general idea would have been "Where the hell are you going with this?!?" for the nonfiction bits, but they'd have to go together in a way that the reader couldn't really see. Then, see, in the last nonfiction example, the nonfiction bits would, like a psanky held to a candle's flame, resolve themselves and provide the reader (who up until this point would have been smothering under a thick coating of muddled and impervious details) with the theme of the book set forth in clear, vibrant, and amazing colors, just before the exciting conclusion of the story part of the book. That would have been sooooo cool. That would have r0xx0r3d. Unfortunately, near as I could tell, the nonfiction parts didn't do that. I may reread this in a day or so, though, to double-check that he didn't attempt to do so and just not have done a very good job of it.

(What the fuck is a psanky (http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/archives/2007_01.html)? (Scroll down to January 8 entry. There are pictures, including one of psanky-to-candle-flame.)

The other two novels (first two of a trilogy, the reading of which, for me is a bit like being a Toon with someone going all Shave and a haircut...) are about a dystopian future where everybody is born normal (ugly) and at sixteen becomes pretty (surgically enhanced to be as good-looking as they possibly can be, with the annoying downside that the medicos take the opportunity to bodge up the brains while they're buffing up the bodies). All of this, of course, is For Great Justice and a balanced and peaceful society. Or is it? The third tome-ette (Given the point size and the spacing of the words on the page, they're not really tomes even though they come in close to four hundred on the page count per volume. They're tome-ettes.) deals with the overseers of this dystopia, the Specials, the people who keep the rest in line. That'd be the book I don't have yet, so I can't review it at the moment. Watch this space for developments, though.

[not-your-real.livejournal.com]

I've done pysanky. Yet another thing I have no time for, like email. (Email was making me sick. Staying up late to have personal time == getting sick. Gah. Meant to write you but have not had the opportunity.)

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

Ah, well, no kipper for you. Pity, that.

[ksleet.livejournal.com]

I've read the Risen Empire duology by the same author -- I'd categorize it as New Space Opera, the same sort of genre as Stross or Reynolds. Space battles, nanotechnology, crazy genetic stuff, also some screwy palace intrigue. Aggressively strange societies and characters, but definitely well-crafted novels.

I recall being kind of disappointed Westerfeld was going to focus on YA novels for the foreseeable future as opposed to straight science fiction, but my understanding is that they drove a dump truck full of money up to his house.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

Those dump trucks of money sound like fun -- wish I could get one.

On the YA front -- I'm not so proud that I can't read YA novels. A good novel is a good novel and the good YA stuff isn't the literary equivalent of PlaySkool Primary Colors despite being written for Young Adults who aren't old enough to drink, drive, or dally. My main problem with them is that they go by too fast... but then, they always did, even back when I was a yoot.

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

My main problem with them is that they go by too fast... but then, they always did, even back when I was a yoot.

And this would be, of course, because nothing gold can stay. :P

[ksleet.livejournal.com]

Oh yes -- I'd recommend Daniel Pinkwater on that score. (There's two giant-sized compilations of his best YA stuff, called 5 Novels and something similar.) I just wouldn't complain if Westerfeld would do a bit more space opera, is all!

[which-chick.livejournal.com]

I'll have to check 'em out -- amazon.com is currently getting a bit more of my money than I'm happy about, but what the heck. It's disposable income. I'm disposing. :)