What I Read on my Vacation
The food thing will take more time, so here's what I read...
All I've been reading lately is the Dresden Files books, which I'm glad to say have improved over time. Yes, I still think they're slightly shallow (and maybe I feel guilty because they're so much fun) but I like them. If nothing else, they're very entertaining. I can't say I think the character has grown very much, especially after everything that's happened to him, but if you take these books on their own terms and don't expect too much, they're very good. I read the two latest books-White Night and Blood Rites and liked them both.
Next came the two new Charles Stross books-Halting State and the new Merchant princes book-the Merchants War. Both of them were really good. I don't want to go into too much detail about them, but as I've said before or, more accurately, my friend Y said), Stross writes about ideas-and in every one of his books (with me, at least) there comes at least one point where I have to stop and think about what he just wrote and the implications if it actually came true. This is not so true for the Merchant Princes stories (which seem to be heading steadily towards Roger Zelazny's Amber series but are still great) but very true for Halting State-which takes place only a few years from now. In Halting State, the plot kicks off with a bank robbery. In a virtual world. So why did they call the cops? Why they called the cops and the implications of the robbery are more far-reaching than you could guess. It's futuristic but in a very intelligent way-one we can recognize. And not o give anything away, but I would love the play the game SPOOKS, although it might get annoying.
To cleanse my palate and because this vacation had a lot to do with food, I next read Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste. Considering this book was written in 1820 or so, it has much to say about the way we eat today. He advises those trying to lose weight to "stay away from floury foods", is a big fan of salads and absolutely loves to eat. He tells a great story about visiting a friend in America who lived out in the country-when it came time for him to leave, his American friend pulled him aside and went on about how much he loved America, his freedom and the lack of war...but all Brillat-Savarin was thinking about was the delicious quail they had eaten and if he could get some at a market. This is a book that anyone who likes to eat will enjoy.
Robert Crais' book Indigo Slam is almost directly in the middle of the Elvis Cole series-so why did I read it when I had already read all the others before it and after it? The answer is that it came along with all the other Crais books and I wasn't being very picky about in which order I read them. Also, this one came in a bit later than the others and just decided I would read them without waiting for this one. I now regret doing this because the other books (particularly The Last Detective and The Forgotten Man) would have made a little more sense-and this book gives a taste of things to come. It's also in the middle in terms of writing-I give Crais credit because he really has improved as a writer as this series has gone on and tin the books after this he really stepped up and improved the series. That is not to say this is not a good book-it is. It's just not as good as the books that came after it. Elvis gets involved with a missing father, he's a runaway from witness protection, the FBI is involved...blah blah blah. It's very good except at for the semi-twist ending which anyone (meaning me) could see coming a mile away.
And then I finally got around to reading Light by M. John Harrison-and I still haven't decided how I feel about it. I've brought Light with me on my past three vacations and could not bring myself to read it. Looking at everything through quantum mechanics left me cold, I didn't like any of the characters and the plot confused me.
All these things are still true. In fact, I hated most of the characters-the female pilot is a spoiled brat (it was hard to feel sorry for her, even with her childhood trauma, seeing as how she kills people whenever she doesn't like them). Yes, she's a child who has never had to grow up because she chose to become a pilot of a special kind of spaceship and so lives in a tank with her brain wired into the ship's controls. As a result, she has a child's lack of understanding of consequences so she does whatever she likes. Her passengers (who paid her) have sex and she doesn't like that, so she kills them. She keeps one of them because she feels sorry for her but when she has sex with a guy Seria (the pilot) picks up to help her with an issue she's having, she strands them both on a planet and kills them. The physicist who started all this is no better-he may be brilliant, but he's a serial killer. The guy who is addicted to virtual reality and so lives in a virtual reality tank from which he is physically torn is a reasonably decent person, although in this book, if you aren't a serial killer, that makes you a decent person, comparatively speaking. There were many cool scenes and fantastic imagery but I hated the characters so much that it's hard for me to get past that. Yes, there many worthy mnoments in this book and many interesting ones but...well, I'm still torn.
All I've been reading lately is the Dresden Files books, which I'm glad to say have improved over time. Yes, I still think they're slightly shallow (and maybe I feel guilty because they're so much fun) but I like them. If nothing else, they're very entertaining. I can't say I think the character has grown very much, especially after everything that's happened to him, but if you take these books on their own terms and don't expect too much, they're very good. I read the two latest books-White Night and Blood Rites and liked them both.
Next came the two new Charles Stross books-Halting State and the new Merchant princes book-the Merchants War. Both of them were really good. I don't want to go into too much detail about them, but as I've said before or, more accurately, my friend Y said), Stross writes about ideas-and in every one of his books (with me, at least) there comes at least one point where I have to stop and think about what he just wrote and the implications if it actually came true. This is not so true for the Merchant Princes stories (which seem to be heading steadily towards Roger Zelazny's Amber series but are still great) but very true for Halting State-which takes place only a few years from now. In Halting State, the plot kicks off with a bank robbery. In a virtual world. So why did they call the cops? Why they called the cops and the implications of the robbery are more far-reaching than you could guess. It's futuristic but in a very intelligent way-one we can recognize. And not o give anything away, but I would love the play the game SPOOKS, although it might get annoying.
To cleanse my palate and because this vacation had a lot to do with food, I next read Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste. Considering this book was written in 1820 or so, it has much to say about the way we eat today. He advises those trying to lose weight to "stay away from floury foods", is a big fan of salads and absolutely loves to eat. He tells a great story about visiting a friend in America who lived out in the country-when it came time for him to leave, his American friend pulled him aside and went on about how much he loved America, his freedom and the lack of war...but all Brillat-Savarin was thinking about was the delicious quail they had eaten and if he could get some at a market. This is a book that anyone who likes to eat will enjoy.
Robert Crais' book Indigo Slam is almost directly in the middle of the Elvis Cole series-so why did I read it when I had already read all the others before it and after it? The answer is that it came along with all the other Crais books and I wasn't being very picky about in which order I read them. Also, this one came in a bit later than the others and just decided I would read them without waiting for this one. I now regret doing this because the other books (particularly The Last Detective and The Forgotten Man) would have made a little more sense-and this book gives a taste of things to come. It's also in the middle in terms of writing-I give Crais credit because he really has improved as a writer as this series has gone on and tin the books after this he really stepped up and improved the series. That is not to say this is not a good book-it is. It's just not as good as the books that came after it. Elvis gets involved with a missing father, he's a runaway from witness protection, the FBI is involved...blah blah blah. It's very good except at for the semi-twist ending which anyone (meaning me) could see coming a mile away.
And then I finally got around to reading Light by M. John Harrison-and I still haven't decided how I feel about it. I've brought Light with me on my past three vacations and could not bring myself to read it. Looking at everything through quantum mechanics left me cold, I didn't like any of the characters and the plot confused me.
All these things are still true. In fact, I hated most of the characters-the female pilot is a spoiled brat (it was hard to feel sorry for her, even with her childhood trauma, seeing as how she kills people whenever she doesn't like them). Yes, she's a child who has never had to grow up because she chose to become a pilot of a special kind of spaceship and so lives in a tank with her brain wired into the ship's controls. As a result, she has a child's lack of understanding of consequences so she does whatever she likes. Her passengers (who paid her) have sex and she doesn't like that, so she kills them. She keeps one of them because she feels sorry for her but when she has sex with a guy Seria (the pilot) picks up to help her with an issue she's having, she strands them both on a planet and kills them. The physicist who started all this is no better-he may be brilliant, but he's a serial killer. The guy who is addicted to virtual reality and so lives in a virtual reality tank from which he is physically torn is a reasonably decent person, although in this book, if you aren't a serial killer, that makes you a decent person, comparatively speaking. There were many cool scenes and fantastic imagery but I hated the characters so much that it's hard for me to get past that. Yes, there many worthy mnoments in this book and many interesting ones but...well, I'm still torn.
posted by SHbookworm at 11:22 AM
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