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Books
De andres blod
Not the world's most revolutionary vampire anthology, but there's a couple of okay stories. I rather liked the one with the epidemic of vampire fiction.
Anika Eibe: Freaks
The plot was a bit predictable, but the writing was quite good. Oh, and apparently the author's previously written a novel about Atalante the huntress. Right, to-read-list...
Fremtiden
Neil Gaiman: The Sleeper and the Spindle
Jan Guillou: Att inte vilja se
Ursula K. Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness
I think I need to read the rest of the Hainish cycle. I've read far too little Le Guin, really - mostly because I read A Wizard of Earthsea as a kid and frankly hated it (and then I read the next three books in that series, because there wasn't enough fantasy available, and I didn't actually like them any better, so). But yes, more Hainish cycle.
That said, I found myself regularly wanting to argue with the book's portrayal of the people of Gethen - mostly because of how the culture treats sexuality as pure biology, to the point where perversion is not the act, but the being. And perhaps it's because I'm asexual that a lot of the worldbuilding makes me want to argue. I don't know. I do think if somebody sat down to write the same story today, it would have been very different - but then Le Guin wrote this in the 60's and it's not like the full, complicated mess of asexual terminology was even beginning to develop back then.
Thit Jensen: Atter det skilte 2.
Right, done with that series. Except it's really only part of her bigger historical novel 'verse (historical fantasy? I mean, the novels about Valdemar Atterdag certainly were, but are the rest?)
Linda Lassen: Men sko må jeg ha'
It's okay. But if I should raise an actual complaints, it's that - well, I wonder if Henriette Gubi was really so very politically correct. So very - let's not judge homosexuals, let's be feminists, let's not judge the Germans, poor Germans, they had it just as bad. I mean, it's not a big part of the novel, mostly just little asides and tiny scenes hid among the main plot - but it does feel as if this historical character has all the right opinions and it leaves me mostly wondering whether she really did. You know how it is...
Carsten Lyngdrup Madsen: Nordboernes gamle religion - fortællinger fra edda, sagn og kvad
Okay, so the first half of this book wasn't that interesting, but that's mainly because it's basically just the Norse myth one more time, and I've read all the stories before - though bonus points for remembering other sources than Snorri, such as the very different version from Saxo. Anyway, the later bits were quite interesting - essentially just a collection of how the Norse religion was practiced, as seen in various written sources - the edda, the sagas, surviving poetry. All in all, quite interesting.
That said, one thing really annoyed me - and it's a tiny, stupid thing - it's just, in the chapter on jotuns, the author writes how usually jotuns are associated with ice and frost, and then on the other hand there's some that's associated with fire, and he comments how that's a strange combination, and I just... No. It's not. If our main sources for Norse mythology had been written down in Denmark, I'm sure the Jotuns would often have been strongly associated with water and marshlands (*cough*Grendel*cough*), but now they were written down in Iceland, where glaciers are lying on top of active volcanoes. I'd say this is one place on Earth where that particular combination is not strange at all... Nevermind. It just annoyed me.
Michael Ridpath: Where the Shadows Lie
Well, it's always fun to read a book where you can actually picture a lot of the places stuff happens. That said, the whole thing about a mysterious lost saga that inspired most of The Lord of the Rings? I found that quite annoying, the way I am always annoyed by how authors in tv shows seemingly always write stories completely based on real life and people. Is it that strange to imagine that sometimes an author just imagines stuff for him/herself?
Comics
Adam O.: Kakofonia
Ed Brubaker: Fatale: The Devil's Business
Ed Brubaker: Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire
Cullen Bunn: Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe
Hajime Isayame: Attack on Titan vol. 6.
Alexandro Jodorowsky: Castaka
Alexandro Jodorowsky: Final Incal vol. 3.: Gorgo le Sale
Robert Kirkman: The Walking Dead: A New Beginning
Knivsæg: genfortællinger om Besættelsen
I quite enjoyed this comic anthology - all about the Occupation. It's hard to point at favourites - there were a couple of stories about women who fell in love with German soldiers, one about sailing a Jew to Sweden, a very interesting story about how apparently the balloons protecting London would sometimes come loose and drift across the sea and cause havoc in Jutland...
Milo Manara: Caravaggio: La palette et l'épée
Moebius: La citadelle aveugle
Moebius: Escale sur Pharmagonescia
Moebius: The long tomorrow
Mark Waid: Daredevil
Total number of books and comics read this month: 24
Currently reading: Zero Issue by Umberto Eco and Les sanguinaires by Patrick Cothias.
Total number of books and comics read this year: 99
De andres blod
Not the world's most revolutionary vampire anthology, but there's a couple of okay stories. I rather liked the one with the epidemic of vampire fiction.
Anika Eibe: Freaks
The plot was a bit predictable, but the writing was quite good. Oh, and apparently the author's previously written a novel about Atalante the huntress. Right, to-read-list...
Fremtiden
Neil Gaiman: The Sleeper and the Spindle
Jan Guillou: Att inte vilja se
Ursula K. Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness
I think I need to read the rest of the Hainish cycle. I've read far too little Le Guin, really - mostly because I read A Wizard of Earthsea as a kid and frankly hated it (and then I read the next three books in that series, because there wasn't enough fantasy available, and I didn't actually like them any better, so). But yes, more Hainish cycle.
That said, I found myself regularly wanting to argue with the book's portrayal of the people of Gethen - mostly because of how the culture treats sexuality as pure biology, to the point where perversion is not the act, but the being. And perhaps it's because I'm asexual that a lot of the worldbuilding makes me want to argue. I don't know. I do think if somebody sat down to write the same story today, it would have been very different - but then Le Guin wrote this in the 60's and it's not like the full, complicated mess of asexual terminology was even beginning to develop back then.
Thit Jensen: Atter det skilte 2.
Right, done with that series. Except it's really only part of her bigger historical novel 'verse (historical fantasy? I mean, the novels about Valdemar Atterdag certainly were, but are the rest?)
Linda Lassen: Men sko må jeg ha'
It's okay. But if I should raise an actual complaints, it's that - well, I wonder if Henriette Gubi was really so very politically correct. So very - let's not judge homosexuals, let's be feminists, let's not judge the Germans, poor Germans, they had it just as bad. I mean, it's not a big part of the novel, mostly just little asides and tiny scenes hid among the main plot - but it does feel as if this historical character has all the right opinions and it leaves me mostly wondering whether she really did. You know how it is...
Carsten Lyngdrup Madsen: Nordboernes gamle religion - fortællinger fra edda, sagn og kvad
Okay, so the first half of this book wasn't that interesting, but that's mainly because it's basically just the Norse myth one more time, and I've read all the stories before - though bonus points for remembering other sources than Snorri, such as the very different version from Saxo. Anyway, the later bits were quite interesting - essentially just a collection of how the Norse religion was practiced, as seen in various written sources - the edda, the sagas, surviving poetry. All in all, quite interesting.
That said, one thing really annoyed me - and it's a tiny, stupid thing - it's just, in the chapter on jotuns, the author writes how usually jotuns are associated with ice and frost, and then on the other hand there's some that's associated with fire, and he comments how that's a strange combination, and I just... No. It's not. If our main sources for Norse mythology had been written down in Denmark, I'm sure the Jotuns would often have been strongly associated with water and marshlands (*cough*Grendel*cough*), but now they were written down in Iceland, where glaciers are lying on top of active volcanoes. I'd say this is one place on Earth where that particular combination is not strange at all... Nevermind. It just annoyed me.
Michael Ridpath: Where the Shadows Lie
Well, it's always fun to read a book where you can actually picture a lot of the places stuff happens. That said, the whole thing about a mysterious lost saga that inspired most of The Lord of the Rings? I found that quite annoying, the way I am always annoyed by how authors in tv shows seemingly always write stories completely based on real life and people. Is it that strange to imagine that sometimes an author just imagines stuff for him/herself?
Comics
Adam O.: Kakofonia
Ed Brubaker: Fatale: The Devil's Business
Ed Brubaker: Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire
Cullen Bunn: Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe
Hajime Isayame: Attack on Titan vol. 6.
Alexandro Jodorowsky: Castaka
Alexandro Jodorowsky: Final Incal vol. 3.: Gorgo le Sale
Robert Kirkman: The Walking Dead: A New Beginning
Knivsæg: genfortællinger om Besættelsen
I quite enjoyed this comic anthology - all about the Occupation. It's hard to point at favourites - there were a couple of stories about women who fell in love with German soldiers, one about sailing a Jew to Sweden, a very interesting story about how apparently the balloons protecting London would sometimes come loose and drift across the sea and cause havoc in Jutland...
Milo Manara: Caravaggio: La palette et l'épée
Moebius: La citadelle aveugle
Moebius: Escale sur Pharmagonescia
Moebius: The long tomorrow
Mark Waid: Daredevil
Total number of books and comics read this month: 24
Currently reading: Zero Issue by Umberto Eco and Les sanguinaires by Patrick Cothias.
Total number of books and comics read this year: 99
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You're right that the book takes a fairly biology-driven view of sex, I guess mostly because people actually go into heat, which is not the way that actual humans work. I remember the time I lived with a female cat that went into heat and I was so very grateful that humans do not work like that...but of course if they did then they still probably wouldn't act like that cat, because of human intellect and culture and variation.
If you want to read more Hainish cycle, I highly recommend The Dispossessed!