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Next week I'll post on time. Next week. Maybe.
Not much news around here anyway. Starting to get the stuff I'll need to get before my summer vacation together. Working - at a university library during the summer slump - but the delivery guy seems to have mixed up mine and Spain's deliveries, so they got all of my sun and we're getting their shade, so it's not even that attractive to flex out early and head home.
What I've recently finished reading
Gene Wolfe: A Borrowed Man
I liked the premise of this book - a somewhat dystopic future where libraries does not just contain books (on any medium you'd like), but also clone copies of authors - and then the plot if basically a crime noir, except the femme fatale checks out the clone of the mystery writer/detective. It's just - I don't know if it's the crime noir plot or if it's just that Gene Wolfe is not exactly a young man anymore, it's just - I can't believe that this was published in 2015. Or that anybody would nominate it for an award. It feels like something that might have gotten published in the 80s. The sf elements - the clones work well enough, but there's not really anything new to that part, and the other sf plot gets treated the way sf elements got treated in really old, dull novels (ie. never explained how and conveniently lost by the end of the book). But mostly, it's the gender dynamics of the entire novel that just - annoys me. This is supposed to be the future and everybody feels like somebody who just stepped out of the 50s or something (of course the mystery writer was a man, of course his ex-wife was a very literary poet, of course - I'm just gonna stop here.) It might have annoyed me less if it had been an exciting read, but it wasn't even that.
Right. End rant.
ONE: One-Punch Man volume 1.
Kinda meh.
Ben Aaronovitch: Rivers of London: Night Witch
This was as entertaining as the first comic - and I must admit, I'm still just as surprised as when I read Body Work. Tie-in comics aren't supposed to be good. It's just weird.
Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter: The Long Utopia
Mostly Stephen Baxter, I suspect. I know there's just one more book in this series, but frankly? I think I've seen enough. It just feels - rinse and repeat? Yet another new species discovered in the Long Earth, once again Joshua and Sally and Lobsang to the rescue of humanity. Besides, this novel was a mess of plotlines - Stan the Next (who is suddenly a new Messiah?), the Waltzers and the whole beetle thing - and I do not feel that they got tied well together in the end.
Bernard Cornwell: Warriors of the Storm
Well - at least Cornwell has finally stopped starting the story with having Uhtred lose all he'd won in the previous novel? It's a nice relaxing read - invading viking army vs. Saxons with a few Irish people on the side (and I wonder if the tv show will ever make it far enough for me to get to see Uhtred visiting his son-in-law - probably not.) (Which reminds me - I've still got most of season 2 left to watch).
What I'm reading now
Rob Roger's The Devil's Cape, which lives somewhere in the dark age of superhero stories, and the anthology Lidenskab og lysår.
What I'm reading next
Maybe I should just start skipping this question. Half the time I get it wrong anyway.
Total number of books and comics read this year: 121
Not much news around here anyway. Starting to get the stuff I'll need to get before my summer vacation together. Working - at a university library during the summer slump - but the delivery guy seems to have mixed up mine and Spain's deliveries, so they got all of my sun and we're getting their shade, so it's not even that attractive to flex out early and head home.
What I've recently finished reading
Gene Wolfe: A Borrowed Man
I liked the premise of this book - a somewhat dystopic future where libraries does not just contain books (on any medium you'd like), but also clone copies of authors - and then the plot if basically a crime noir, except the femme fatale checks out the clone of the mystery writer/detective. It's just - I don't know if it's the crime noir plot or if it's just that Gene Wolfe is not exactly a young man anymore, it's just - I can't believe that this was published in 2015. Or that anybody would nominate it for an award. It feels like something that might have gotten published in the 80s. The sf elements - the clones work well enough, but there's not really anything new to that part, and the other sf plot gets treated the way sf elements got treated in really old, dull novels (ie. never explained how and conveniently lost by the end of the book). But mostly, it's the gender dynamics of the entire novel that just - annoys me. This is supposed to be the future and everybody feels like somebody who just stepped out of the 50s or something (of course the mystery writer was a man, of course his ex-wife was a very literary poet, of course - I'm just gonna stop here.) It might have annoyed me less if it had been an exciting read, but it wasn't even that.
Right. End rant.
ONE: One-Punch Man volume 1.
Kinda meh.
Ben Aaronovitch: Rivers of London: Night Witch
This was as entertaining as the first comic - and I must admit, I'm still just as surprised as when I read Body Work. Tie-in comics aren't supposed to be good. It's just weird.
Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter: The Long Utopia
Mostly Stephen Baxter, I suspect. I know there's just one more book in this series, but frankly? I think I've seen enough. It just feels - rinse and repeat? Yet another new species discovered in the Long Earth, once again Joshua and Sally and Lobsang to the rescue of humanity. Besides, this novel was a mess of plotlines - Stan the Next (who is suddenly a new Messiah?), the Waltzers and the whole beetle thing - and I do not feel that they got tied well together in the end.
Bernard Cornwell: Warriors of the Storm
Well - at least Cornwell has finally stopped starting the story with having Uhtred lose all he'd won in the previous novel? It's a nice relaxing read - invading viking army vs. Saxons with a few Irish people on the side (and I wonder if the tv show will ever make it far enough for me to get to see Uhtred visiting his son-in-law - probably not.) (Which reminds me - I've still got most of season 2 left to watch).
What I'm reading now
Rob Roger's The Devil's Cape, which lives somewhere in the dark age of superhero stories, and the anthology Lidenskab og lysår.
What I'm reading next
Maybe I should just start skipping this question. Half the time I get it wrong anyway.
Total number of books and comics read this year: 121