Dragons of the Dwarven Depths by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

Posted by melydia on June 4, 2013 No comment

Dragons of the Dwarven Depths by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman (unabridged audiobook read by Sandra Burr; 15 hours on 13 discs): If you miss the companions from the first DragonLance novels, this is the book for you. They’re all back, as this takes place between the first and second books of the original Chronicles trilogy. Our heroes have freed the slaves at Pax Tharkas and now find themselves with 800 refugees and nowhere to spend the fast approaching winter. It was kind of a fun walk down memory lane, but honestly I’m just not all that interested in Dwarven politics or Tanis’s angst. Don’t get me wrong – seeing Flint and Tasslehoff bicker is a hoot, and Raistlin’s scheming is always fun. I’m just not attached to the original trilogy enough to be drawn back in.

A note on the audio: Burr’s narration was kind of meh. She seemed to stumble over the unusual names, and her ridiculous voice for Tasslehoff was nigh unforgivable. I also question the wisdom of having a woman narrate a story with at least 80% male characters. It was enough that I decided not to listen to the rest of the trilogy.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis

Posted by melydia on May 31, 2013 No comment

Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis (unabridged audiobook read by Katherine Kellgren; 43 hrs on 36 discs): These are actually two separate books, but they are a continuation of the same story and you really can’t read one without the other, so I’m reviewing them together.

In the future, historians study history by traveling through time and witnessing events first hand. They go incognito, with false identities and backstories, and when their assignments are up they return to the “drop,” the portal back to their own time. This is the story of three such Oxford students in World War II: Mike visiting the rescue at Dunkirk, Eileen studying evacuated children, and Polly working as a shopgirl during the London Blitz. One by one, they discover that their drops will no longer open and they are stuck in the past, in a country under attack. Back in Oxford, young Colin and Professor Dunworthy are scrambling to figure out the problem with the drop and find their students. I fully admit to a lack of knowledge of the English homefront during WWII. I didn’t know anything about the Blitz or the shelters or the sheer extent of the bomb damage. And all that was fascinating (and distressing, of course), but what really kept me enthralled were the characters. I loved Sir Godfrey the slightly snobby Shakespearean actor, Earnest and his adventures inflating tank decoys, and the party-obsessed FANYs – and I loved to hate the horrible Hodbins. As in all of Willis’s books, there is plenty of suspense, drama, and humor, and I loved every minute of it. It really should have been one book, but I guess that would have made the binding rather unwieldy. Definitely recommended, even if you’re not a WWII buff (which I certainly am not).

A note on the audio: Kellgren’s narration was marvelous, but I was especially impressed with her American accent.

Harley Loco by Rayya Elias

Posted by melydia on May 28, 2013 No comment

Harley Loco by Rayya Elias: This is a memoir by a woman born in Syria, raised in Detroit, and educated on the streets of 1980s New York City. She is a hairdresser, a musician, a lesbian, a drug addict. Elias’s descriptions of her life are completely unflinching: her talents as a stylist and musician are devoid of any humility, but her moments of weakness and crimes against her loved ones are presented without any excuses or pleas for sympathy. Her world is one of her own making, for better or for worse. I would have appreciated more physical description of the world she lived in, so I could really picture it, but Elias is clearly not that kind of writer. Photographs would have been nice too. All the same, this was an interesting portrait of a life so completely unlike mine, and a good cautionary tale about drug use.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

Posted by melydia on May 24, 2013 No comment

Bad Science by Ben Goldacre: I adore books about modern myths and this is among the best. Though the title is fairly generic, the science in question here is largely related to health: medicine, disease, and diet, and the media’s role in the spread of misinformation. I was surprised both by the debunking of myths I’d long thought to be true, as well as those myths and charlatans I’d never even heard of. As an American, reading about the British perspective was extra fascinating. Goldacre also has quite an amusing way with words, which helped dilute some of the anger a bit. Exasperation can be exhausting, but when tempered with humor it’s much more enjoyable. Sure, there are some tales, like the AIDS denial in South Africa, that are simply horrifying, but by and large it’s more eye-opening than depressing. Definitely recommended to anyone who’s ever had any interest in those big “such-and-such causes/cures cancer” tales constantly blasted over the airwaves.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Seahorse in the Sky by Edmund Cooper

Posted by melydia on May 21, 2013 No comment

Seahorse in the Sky by Edmund Cooper: Russell Graham is a member of Parliament on a flight from Stockholm to London when things get interrupted and he awakens in a strange green coffin in a fake town containing only a store and a hotel. The road goes nowhere and the cars on it have no engines. He and a handful of his fellow passengers are stranded and must figure out what’s going on. I really enjoyed this one, especially the journey through the story, slowly discovering the truth along with the characters. I can honestly say I did not predict the Big Reveal, and that made it even better. Definitely unlike any science fiction I’ve read recently – refreshingly so. I’m a little surprised I’d never heard of it.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Thwonk by Joan Bauer

Posted by melydia on May 17, 2013 No comment

Thwonk by Joan Bauer: A.J. McCreary is a teen photographer desperately in love with the unattainable Peter Terris. One day she is visited by a real life cupid who offers to make her dreams come true. Because she is a teen girl and without stupid decisions we wouldn’t have a story, she immediately asks for Peter to fall in love with her. The whole thing pans out about as well as you’d expect it to, but the really interesting thing about this book is the photography angle. My favorite parts were A.J.’s experiences snapping pictures and developing them. It’s easy to forget that photography is just as much an art form as drawing and music, where composition is key. So while the teen romance story was a bit silly and a lot predictable, I still enjoyed this cautionary tale about love and art. I don’t know how well it would hold up to a current teenager (I found it very relatable since it takes place in the years I attended high school), but what do I know?

Also posted on BookCrossing.

The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem

Posted by melydia on May 14, 2013 No comment

The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem: Ijon Tichy is attempting to attend a conference of futurists when his hotel is attacked by terrorists with mind-altering gas. Through a series of absurd events, Tichy finds himself resurrected several decades in the future, when everyone relies on chemical supplements to provide them with all knowledge and emotion, perception-altering drugs that hide a distressing reality. This all sounds terribly dystopian and horrifying, and in some ways it is, but it is also pretty hilarious satire. It’s one of those sorts of books where you just have to go with it, and pay special attention to the made-up words and random asides, many of which are the funniest parts of the book. I hadn’t expected to so enjoy this book – I’d sort of expected it to be a bit of a slog, a book about an idea only tenuously strung together with plot – but this was quite a romp. The humor is dark, to be sure, but still quite entertaining.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

Goblin Quest by Jim C. Hines

Posted by melydia on May 10, 2013 No comment

Goblin Quest by Jim C. Hines: In many fantasy role-playing games, goblins are the first monster you have to fight, and thus also the easiest. By the time you’ve leveled up much at all, you can basically run them through without even breaking stride, much less losing any hit points. Here, we have an adventure from the point of view of a goblin named Jig. When a group of adventurers kidnap him in order to guide them through his home caves to the dragon they seek, the line between hero and monster becomes blurred. I thought it interesting how many of the characters were clearly a homage to other greats of the genre. In particular, the mage Rysland bore striking resemblance to Raistlin of the Dragonlance books. This is a very funny novel, and a must-read for any lover of fantasy dungeon quest stories.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

Posted by melydia on May 7, 2013 1 comment

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (unabridged audiobook read by Pablo Schreiber; 16.5 hrs on 14 discs): Patrick Bateman is a Wall Street yuppie in the late 1980s. He is also a brutal serial killer. There are several recurring themes here (and when I say recurring, I mean it is mentioned at least thirty times): returning video tapes, the Patty Winters Show, deciding where to have dinner, cocaine, all yuppie men are interchangeable and everyone is constantly mistaken for everybody else, women are clueless and needy, tanning, going to the gym, alcohol, decaffeinated espresso (I know – what?), excessive luxury, and brand names, brand names, brand names. I cannot stress that last one enough: Bateman describes every single person’s outfit by brand name and sometimes even the department store where it was purchased. There are scenes of extremely graphic sex, usually followed by scenes of extremely graphic violence. I’m not a very sensitive person, but there were a few times when I was seriously worried about losing my lunch. Now, there are some amusing bits. I kind of liked the overly dramatic business card comparison. The random chapters of musical critique (Whitney Houston, Huey Lewis & the News, and Genesis) were interesting but I haven’t a clue why they were included (though in the movie they are used as lectures while killing people, which is actually kind of funny). My main issue with this book is that absolutely nothing happens. Seriously: the same thing happens chapter after chapter after chapter and there is no progression of plot, no change in any of the characters. This could have been a short story and still gotten its point across. A waste of time.

A note on the audio: Schreiber was excellent. The book, not so much. I’ve never wished I could skim an audiobook more than this one.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister’s Husband, and He Hanged Himself: Love Stories by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya

Posted by melydia on May 3, 2013 No comment

There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sister’s Husband, and He Hanged Himself: Love Stories by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (translated by Anna Summers): This is a reasonably short collection of stories about folks living in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, mostly in and around Moscow. Most of the stories are painfully sad, full of pathetic women scraping out a living and being completely trampled on by the men in their lives. And that’s when anything actually happens at all, which is fairly rare. I don’t know if it’s the way Russian translates into English or what, but I found the stories disjointed and vague. Or maybe – since I haven’t liked the other books I’ve read of this sort – I just don’t like modern Russian literature. And you know, I think I could be okay with that.

Also posted on BookCrossing.

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