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Books
Chas Addams: The Addams Family: An Evilution
Well, if I can't get to see the musical...
Bernard Cornwell: The Last Kingdom
I will be looking forward to seeing this as a tv show.
Farvel, min astronaut
I think I'll need to keep a look out for the name Majbritt Høyrup. I've read a few short stories by her so far, and she's quite interesting. Let's see - apart from that, none of these sf stories really stood out. Well, except Christian Kaarup Baron's Vejen hjem, which is about alien abduction (sort of), and has a couple of interesting characters (narrator is a war criminal from the Rwanda genocide and his co-abductee is an anti-war protester from US 1973), but the story is marred by - I wouldn't call it actual plagiarism, but the author describes an alien/future planet towards the end, and the entire description is ripped off from The Future is Wild - Megasquid, Squibbons, Flish, Silver spiders (apparently he couldn't even keep the time periods straight) - without as much as a note anywhere thanking it for inspiration. And frankly, that kinda makes me wonder if there's another short story or novel out there that he's ripped off the rest of the story from...
Neil Gaiman: The Truth is a cave in the Black Mountains
Gaiman's stores has been pretty hit-or-miss for me lately, but this one I rather like. It's a nice, pretty dark little tale.
It Happens at Comic-Con: Ethnographic Essays on a Pop Culture Phenomenon
This was interesting, but - you know, the more I read and find out about how Comic-Con actually works, the less I kinda want to go. I mean, I want to go for Vikings, of course, and the experience, but - more and more, I'm left feeling like Comic-Con is simply too big. I mean, I'd probably end up more sad about all the things I was missing while there than I am sad by missing it entirely. Does that make sense?
Anyway, this is an interesting enough collection of essays - admittedly, they feel a bit. Well, it's obvious the people writing them are all fresh out of school and writing papers that feel very - school essays. Which gets a bit repetitive. Anyway. But it's interesting.
Stig. W. Jørgensen: Ekkorummet: refleksioner over kultur og videnskab
I fear that these essays were mostly not my thing - I mean, the subject matter was promising - science fiction, Otto Frello, Jo Walton's Among Others - but. Mostly they weren't that interesting. I mean, there were one or two that talked about books that are now on my to-read-list. Of course, then there was the Jo Walton essays, and - look, I have no respect for anyone who insists on reading a fantasy novel as a psychologic study, as if the magic is all in the head of the protagonist - despite the novel being marketed as fantasy and written by a fantasy writer (I could understand it, if it had been someone not otherwise known for writing fantasy). I know that this writer is more from the sf side of things, but still - it's such a - such a schoolteacher approach to fantasy, such an outsider approach, such a - such a complete and total reading against the intentions and the conventions and the basic premise of the genre. And thus, in this man's mind, a brilliant story about the fannish experience for a geek girl growing up turns into a novel about how science fiction fans are mentally disturbed individuals. *growls*
Kvindestudier 4.: det seksuelle mønster
Naomi Mitchison: The Oath-takers
I'm beginning to think that NM's strength is definitely in conjuring up a believable world in this case the Frankish Empire during the time of Charlemagne's grandsons, falling apart as the feudal system is breaking down in the face of both viking raids and civil war, and Cordoba in Spain at the same time. At the same time, the actual plot definitely feels like the weakest bit - our protagonist, a young nobleman, just sort of - well, I suppose it's a coming-of-age story, but still. (Need to get back to her last science fiction novel next, methinks).
Joyce Carol Oates: Bellefleur
Well, that was a long read - partly because it's a pretty long book and partly because it's pretty dense. But quite good. I am definitely reading the rest of Oates' gothic novels.
Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter: The Long Mars
I wonder how much of this is TP and how much of this is SB. I mean, some things I guess Terry are to blame for - the crab civlisation, Lobsang. The potatoes. But mostly, these books haven't felt like Terry Pratchett - of course, I haven't actually read anything else by Stephen Baxter, so it's hard to say if they feel like him...
Sådan set: erindringer fra og om Det kongelige Bibliotek
Well, nobody can claim my workplace doesn't have history - and a history of occasionally eccentric individuals at that (like the Italian gentlemen in the 50s who was tasked by the angel Gabriel himself to transcribe the Danish book of hymns into runes - to apocalypse-proof it). That said, this collection of memoirs was published as part of the celebration back in 1993 of it having been 200 years since the library opened its doors to the general public, so it would have become it to, well, not 90% be about the period from around 1940-1980. Even if they probably couldn't find any currently alive people to write something knew, it's not like they couldn't have found some stuff from before, to give it more of a historic perspective.
Comics
Hajime Isayama: Attack on Titan vol. 3.
Ah, so this is essentially a sort of biological mecha story?
Chris Roberson: Cinderella: Fables are Forever
Total number of books and comics read this month: 13
Currently reading: Kim Newman's The Bloody Red Baron, Peter Høeg's Effekten af Susan and Asexuality and Sexual Normativity: an Anthology
Chas Addams: The Addams Family: An Evilution
Well, if I can't get to see the musical...
Bernard Cornwell: The Last Kingdom
I will be looking forward to seeing this as a tv show.
Farvel, min astronaut
I think I'll need to keep a look out for the name Majbritt Høyrup. I've read a few short stories by her so far, and she's quite interesting. Let's see - apart from that, none of these sf stories really stood out. Well, except Christian Kaarup Baron's Vejen hjem, which is about alien abduction (sort of), and has a couple of interesting characters (narrator is a war criminal from the Rwanda genocide and his co-abductee is an anti-war protester from US 1973), but the story is marred by - I wouldn't call it actual plagiarism, but the author describes an alien/future planet towards the end, and the entire description is ripped off from The Future is Wild - Megasquid, Squibbons, Flish, Silver spiders (apparently he couldn't even keep the time periods straight) - without as much as a note anywhere thanking it for inspiration. And frankly, that kinda makes me wonder if there's another short story or novel out there that he's ripped off the rest of the story from...
Neil Gaiman: The Truth is a cave in the Black Mountains
Gaiman's stores has been pretty hit-or-miss for me lately, but this one I rather like. It's a nice, pretty dark little tale.
It Happens at Comic-Con: Ethnographic Essays on a Pop Culture Phenomenon
This was interesting, but - you know, the more I read and find out about how Comic-Con actually works, the less I kinda want to go. I mean, I want to go for Vikings, of course, and the experience, but - more and more, I'm left feeling like Comic-Con is simply too big. I mean, I'd probably end up more sad about all the things I was missing while there than I am sad by missing it entirely. Does that make sense?
Anyway, this is an interesting enough collection of essays - admittedly, they feel a bit. Well, it's obvious the people writing them are all fresh out of school and writing papers that feel very - school essays. Which gets a bit repetitive. Anyway. But it's interesting.
Stig. W. Jørgensen: Ekkorummet: refleksioner over kultur og videnskab
I fear that these essays were mostly not my thing - I mean, the subject matter was promising - science fiction, Otto Frello, Jo Walton's Among Others - but. Mostly they weren't that interesting. I mean, there were one or two that talked about books that are now on my to-read-list. Of course, then there was the Jo Walton essays, and - look, I have no respect for anyone who insists on reading a fantasy novel as a psychologic study, as if the magic is all in the head of the protagonist - despite the novel being marketed as fantasy and written by a fantasy writer (I could understand it, if it had been someone not otherwise known for writing fantasy). I know that this writer is more from the sf side of things, but still - it's such a - such a schoolteacher approach to fantasy, such an outsider approach, such a - such a complete and total reading against the intentions and the conventions and the basic premise of the genre. And thus, in this man's mind, a brilliant story about the fannish experience for a geek girl growing up turns into a novel about how science fiction fans are mentally disturbed individuals. *growls*
Kvindestudier 4.: det seksuelle mønster
Naomi Mitchison: The Oath-takers
I'm beginning to think that NM's strength is definitely in conjuring up a believable world in this case the Frankish Empire during the time of Charlemagne's grandsons, falling apart as the feudal system is breaking down in the face of both viking raids and civil war, and Cordoba in Spain at the same time. At the same time, the actual plot definitely feels like the weakest bit - our protagonist, a young nobleman, just sort of - well, I suppose it's a coming-of-age story, but still. (Need to get back to her last science fiction novel next, methinks).
Joyce Carol Oates: Bellefleur
Well, that was a long read - partly because it's a pretty long book and partly because it's pretty dense. But quite good. I am definitely reading the rest of Oates' gothic novels.
Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter: The Long Mars
I wonder how much of this is TP and how much of this is SB. I mean, some things I guess Terry are to blame for - the crab civlisation, Lobsang. The potatoes. But mostly, these books haven't felt like Terry Pratchett - of course, I haven't actually read anything else by Stephen Baxter, so it's hard to say if they feel like him...
Sådan set: erindringer fra og om Det kongelige Bibliotek
Well, nobody can claim my workplace doesn't have history - and a history of occasionally eccentric individuals at that (like the Italian gentlemen in the 50s who was tasked by the angel Gabriel himself to transcribe the Danish book of hymns into runes - to apocalypse-proof it). That said, this collection of memoirs was published as part of the celebration back in 1993 of it having been 200 years since the library opened its doors to the general public, so it would have become it to, well, not 90% be about the period from around 1940-1980. Even if they probably couldn't find any currently alive people to write something knew, it's not like they couldn't have found some stuff from before, to give it more of a historic perspective.
Comics
Hajime Isayama: Attack on Titan vol. 3.
Ah, so this is essentially a sort of biological mecha story?
Chris Roberson: Cinderella: Fables are Forever
Total number of books and comics read this month: 13
Currently reading: Kim Newman's The Bloody Red Baron, Peter Høeg's Effekten af Susan and Asexuality and Sexual Normativity: an Anthology
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