Category Archives: book reviews

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein

Posted by melydia on March 17, 2005 None comments

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein: My first taste of Heinlein was Stranger in a Strange Land a few years back. It was, in a word, bad. So I gave up on Heinlein all together, figuring if his most famous and critically acclaimed book was no good, what chance did the others have? This conviction was met with protests from Heinlein fans, saying I need to read some “good” Heinlein before making the call. So I did, though it took me an unusually long time to finish. I just couldn’t get into it. The characters were two-dimensional and shared too many qualities with those in SiaSL: the brilliant innocent (here, a self-aware computer named Mike), the levelheaded and elderly teacher/father-figure (Prof the anarchist philosopher), and the beautiful, “smart” woman whose most highly praised attribute is her ability to keep her mouth shut when the men are talking about important things (Wyoh, a revolutionary with a thing for older men – another SiaSL staple). Another recycled idea (though I don’t know which book came first) was the group/line marriages, where the women are said to be in charge but actually spend most of their time at home worrying about their men. These characters weren’t that great the first time around; the second time was just tedious.

The idea behind the story is fine: the moon is more or less a penal colony under totalitarian rule. With the help of Mike the computer, Mannie (a computer tech who talks – and narrates the story – in an obnoxious dialect that sounds like someone faking a Russian accent very poorly), Prof, and Wyoh engineer a revolution. There is some interesting discussion of political ideals and governmental structure, but without sympathetic characters to bring it to life the story is about as gripping as your average high school civics class. I simply could not bring myself to care one way or the other. Now I wonder, how many more of his books do I need to read before I can officially say I don’t like Heinlein?

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber

Posted by melydia on March 13, 2005 None comments

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber: What a monumental waste of time. I probably shouldn’t begin my review that way, but that was my first thought upon reading the last page just now. This is the story of a lout named William Rackham, his mad wife Agnes, and his troubled mistress Sugar. I especially enjoyed Agnes as the pitiably ignorant and tormented product of her high-society upbringing. I admit my disappointment with this book started when I realized it was about a man who falls in love with a prostitute, but I tried to ignore the cliched premise and get into the story. There was no problem there – the characters are solid, believable, and (mostly) sympathetic. The description of 19th century England is so detailed you can see it in your mind. I did notice that all the major female characters in this story suffered from some physical ailment; I wonder if that was meant to be symbolic. The author wades tentatively into controversial waters – poverty, prostitution, religion – but never shares any sort of opinions either way, appearing to suggest that misery is something that is unavoidable and charity is nothing more than a drop in the ocean, unnoticed and not even worth the effort.

The book, at 833 pages (and it’s the larger size paperback; this thing is massive!), is in severe need of editing. Entirely too much space is given to the frustratingly angstful relationship between the doctor’s daughter Emmeline and William’s brother Henry. It did nothing to further the plot whatsoever, just an aside that never wove itself into the fabric of the main story. They should have had their own book and stayed out of this one. There were other characters who likewise did nothing for the story (such as the prostitute Caroline), but they were minor enough that I can ignore them. The beginning should have been edited as well, as it starts out with a clever method of introducing characters and setting up scenes – the reader is being guided personally through the events by a sort of invisible spirit, invited to follow people around – but this is lost about a third of the way through the book in favor of more traditional narration. It should have been kept throughout or dropped entirely. Finally, I found the obsession with bowel movements annoying. I understand the author’s desire to show that real people lived in these conditions, but I don’t really need to read about it every time Sugar pees. The use of such a term doesn’t help either. Perhaps such words were in the vernacular at the time, but after such flowery 19th century language it is very jarring to run across such modern-sounding slang as “balls” and “cunt” and “fart” in the (third person omniscient) narration.

Even so, I could have overlooked these problems in the interest of the story of the Rackham family, which is honestly engaging and appears to be building to a climax, the anticipation of which makes the book difficult to put down for the last couple hundred pages. However, this lengthy tome still manages to end in the middle of the action. Several of the main characters are left unaccounted for, their fates unknown to the reader. 833 pages and the story just stops, leaving the reader with the sinking feeling that they just wasted all those hours spent getting to know these characters. The story isn’t even tragic enough to feel a satisfying sense of pity – you turn the last page and sit there, dumbstruck, wondering where the next chapter disappeared to and why the hell you bothered reading to that point in the first place.

On the bright side, I did learn quite a bit about the time period and do hope to pick up more historical fiction in the future. Just not by Michel Faber.

Originally posted on BookCrossing

Be Cool by Elmore Leonard

Posted by melydia on January 30, 2005 2 comments

Be Cool by Elmore Leonard: The opening scene, where Chili Palmer is having lunch with a man who ends up getting shot by a hitman, is pretty good. But don’t expect the story to be about that crime. There are vague murmurings about possible connections with the Russian mafia but by and large the scene is nothing more than a hook to get you into the story, then forgotten about soon after. This book is a lot like Get Shorty except that it’s about a singer instead of a laundromat owner. The whole “let’s describe what’s really happening as if we’re making a movie” thing comes back full force, and it gets a little old. There’s even the formerly evil thug that has a change of heart and saves the day, just like in the last one. My suggestion would be to read either Get Shorty or Be Cool, but not both. The story just isn’t good enough to be read twice in a row.

[Note: I’ve seen the preview for the Be Cool movie that’s coming out. As far as I can tell, they’ve changed basically everything – removed a major character, added a few new characters, and beefed up or totally changed several minor characters. And it looks funnier than the book.]

Also posted on Bookcrossing.

The Golden Ratio by Mario Livio

Posted by melydia on January 19, 2005 None comments

The Golden Ratio by Mario Livio: If you divide a line so that the ratio of the smaller to the larger is equal to the ratio of the larger to the whole, you have the golden ratio, phi. There has been an abundance of literature on the presence of phi in a number of unexpected locations, and this book addresses many of these appearances intelligently. It is organized more or less historically, starting with the Pythagoreans’ obsession with phi (due to its presence in the pentagon and other neat little number tricks) and continuing through the present. The author avoids doctoring numbers to fit phi into famous works of art and architecture, and indeed debunks several such cases. While some of the direct appearances of phi are pretty nifty (such as leaf growth patterns on plant stems), much of the book covers subjects that are only related to phi by a few generations, usually through the pentagon or the Fibonacci numbers. I do not fault the author for this; tangents are to be expected in books about such a narrow subject as a single number.

The final chapter, “Is God a Mathematician,” includes leading theories in response to that question (yes, no, and sort of) and Livio’s personal opinion. I understand the desire to address such a topic, since mathematics is pretty amazing and phi is no small example of this, but this chapter seemed sort of forced, like the author was at a loss on how to wrap up the book. The explanation of the dual nature of light was sort of random, and the rather unsubtle promotion of Stephen Wolfram’s then-unpublished book (which was not well received by the math community) was sort of irritating. I imagine that Livio’s desire was to instill a lingering thirst for knowledge in his reader, to encourage further study, but it felt more like an advertisement for a newfangled religion that will change the way you look at the world. Despite the final few pages, I found this book to be informative and quite readable, which is always high praise for a book about math. Perhaps if Livio had left out his personal opinion I would have finished it feeling more satisfied.

Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard

Posted by melydia on January 9, 2005 None comments

Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard: I’m still a little unclear on who Shorty is. Anyway, this is a rather convoluted story about loan shark Chili Palmer who goes to Hollywood to track down a guy who faked his own death (but still owes money), and ends up getting embroiled in a movie deal in the process. This is not a book I would have read had I not accidently purchased its sequel at a book sale, but I enjoyed it all the same. I was amused by a good bit of it, especially Chili’s no-bullshit way of looking at the inanity of the movie business. My only real complaint was that I had quite a bit of trouble following the story for about the first half. There were so many names that I kept forgetting who was who, but by the end I had it all straightened out. I’ll be curious to see what the movie is like.

Originally posted on Bookcrossing.

The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff

Posted by melydia on November 20, 2004 None comments

The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff: The timing of this read was intentional. Mired in the chaos of NaNoWriMo, I knew I would need something that was not only calming, but nonfiction. There are those who prefer to read fiction to inspire or comfort them while in the midst of a major writing project, but I knew that it would be distracting – I’d either get caught up in the storyline (and forget where I was going with mine) or the writing style would serve as a constant reminder of what tripe I was producing. A gentle philosophy book starring a Bear of Little Brain seemed to be just what I was looking for.

And in that respect, it was. However, I was not so impressed with the ideas presented in this book. It seemed to spend too much time explaining why Confucianism (which it consistently referred to as “Confusion”), Knowledge, and Cleverness were not the correct paths in life. I disagree; I believe that everything has its proper place. Perhaps we put too much emphasis on the latter two, but shunning them completely is not the answer. Things do not magically fall into place by doing Nothing all the time. Trust me, I’ve tried it. It’s relaxing, to be sure, until things start falling apart and suddenly you have to become a “Busy Backson” to catch up.

This was not a bad book, to be sure, and I am open to the possibility that I missed the point entirely. It was light and fun and in fact quite Clever. Its biggest benefit, however, was to instill in me a desire to read the A. A. Milne tales that inspired Hoff to write this book in the first place.

Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam by Paul Clayton

Posted by melydia on November 7, 2004 None comments

Carl Melcher Goes to Vietnam by Paul Clayton: I would summarize this book but the title does that job for me. It is the story of Carl Melcher, a recent high school graduate in the 1970s who gets drafted and sent to Vietnam. He makes some tenuous friendships, sort of falls in love, and seems at least vaguely affected by the war. This book would have been greatly improved had it been in a journal format, giving Clayton an excuse for being so trapped within Carl’s voice that things get lost. I often did not know how much time had passed between chapters, lost track of who was who, and missed what was going on because I did not understand the appropriate lingo. A diary format would have forgiven most of these problems as well as cleared up the time-jump confusion. If it was Clayton’s intent to paint a picture of pointlessness and bungling in the Vietnam War, he did a good job. But if he hoped to produce a thought-provoking critique of the war, a cast of sympathetic characters, or a moving tragedy, he did not accomplish his goals. Carl’s experiences in Vietnam were neither extraordinary nor detailed, and his limited use of adjectives (he felt only “scared,” “sad,” “happy,” or “angry” at any given moment) further distanced me from the story. In summary: this was not a bad book…just very forgettable.

Originally posted on Bookcrossing.

Zero to Lazy Eight by Alexander Humez, Nicholas Humez, and Joseph Maguire

Posted by melydia on October 23, 2004 None comments

Zero to Lazy Eight: The Romance of Numbers by Alexander Humez, Nicholas Humez, and Joseph Maguire: I like books about numbers. I like learning about origins of language. And, for the most part, I liked this book. You cannot read this expecting some overlying theme to it all, or even a nice neat conclusions section to wrap everything up. Each chapter is its own entity and is tenuously connected to a single number (zero through thirteen, plus an additional chapter on infinity). However, the narrative is tangential and digresses often into adjacent but not immediately applicable topics. For instance, chapter 5 is spent largely discussing the measurement of time. Is it an interesting collection of random information? No doubt. However, it’s nothing more than that. It is less a book than a collection of well-informed essays bordering on stream of consciousness. I had hoped for more explanation of common number-themed phrases, but I had no want for neat little facts on math and linguistics. If you’re just looking for some light nonfiction, this is a nice diversion.

Originally posted on Bookcrossing

The Face by Dean Koontz

Posted by melydia on October 13, 2004 None comments

The Face by Dean Koontz (unabridged audiobook read by Dylan Baker): The two main characters here are Ethan Truman, chief of security for megastar Channing Manheim, and Fric, Manheim’s lonely but surprisingly normal 10-year-old son. Ethan begins the story by investigating some strange packages delivered to his employer, which earns him a fatal shot in the chest…only to wake up back in his truck, unharmed but with his own blood under his fingernails. Also lurking in the wings is Corky Laputa, self-proclaimed anarchist and servant of Chaos, spreading fear and discord however he can.

When it comes right down to it, I enjoyed this book very much, thanks in no small part to Dylan Baker, the reader. His voice acting was convincing, his narration was engaging, and he managed to keep me interested – even rapt in parts – all 19 hours. However, I had a few complaints even Baker’s massive talent could not quell. First, the sappy ending: this being Dean Koontz, I knew that Good would triumph over Evil in the end, but the overly saccharine fate granted a character I didn’t care very much about in the first place was tiresome. Second, the flowery description: most of it was fun and useful in setting the mood, but there’s only so many times you need to describe the rain. Third, there were lots of lengthy details and backstory that weren’t necessary to the story. I have a feeling Reader’s Digest could trim this down to a novella and lose nothing.

Certainly not my favorite Koontz novel, but I may have to track down more audiobooks read by Dylan Baker.

The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell by Harry Harrison

Posted by melydia on September 17, 2004 None comments

The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell by Harry Harrison: This is only my second Stainless Steel Rat novel, but I think I need to go back to the beginning and check out the first few in the series. Not only were there loads of characters and references to past events with which I was unfamiliar, this SSR story felt tired and forced. I felt like the author was just throwing in new twists and calamities for the heroes in order to boost his pagecount to novel length. There was no real flow to the plot and many of the events that either saved the day or ruined it seemed too convenient to be believable, even given a wide suspension of disbelief. Don’t get me wrong – I still enjoyed the SSR’s witty banter and sarcastic commentary, but overall I felt like the story was a little too aimless and random.

Originally posted on Bookcrossing.

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