Book Review on Roxana-Mălina Chirilă

Charles Portis – “True Grit” [review]

Sat, 09 Aug 2014 13:38:46 +0000

A Western of which I knew absolutely nothing before I picked it up (via Humble Bundle). But I’m glad it was in my audiobook bundle, because it was a joy to listen to – even though I’m happy I didn’t need to do any audiobook narrating of my own, since I picked up a Southern accent because of it.

Mattie Ross is a 14 year-old girl whose father was killed in another town by a drunkard who stole his horse, $150 and 2 gold coins. Her mother isn’t very down-to-earth and there isn’t anyone else to take care of her business, so she goes to recover her father’s body and set his affairs in order.

The story is told by a much older Mattie, which is clear mostly in the puritanical, older tone of her occasional musings, and in her comments on journalists who would later try to get her story, but wouldn’t get it right. Her 14 year-old self is a clever, determined, no-nonsense girl who knows what she wants, knows how people function and who’s very willing to do whatever it takes to reach her goal.

The dialogue she has concerning the marshal who could track down her father’s killer sets the tone of the action pretty neatly:

“Who is the best marshal they have?'

The sheriff thought on it for a minute. He said, ‘I would have to weigh that proposition. There is near about two hundred of them. I reckon William Waters is the best tracker. He is a half-breed Comanche and it is something to see, watching him cut for sign. The meanest one is Rooster Cogburn. He is a pitiless man, double-tough, and fear don’t enter into his thinking. He loves to pull a cork. Now L.T. Quinn, he brings his prisoners in alive. He may let one get by now and then but he believes even the worst of men is entitled to a fair shake. Also the court does not pay any fees for dead men. Quinn is a good peace officer and a lay preacher to boot. He will not plant evidence or abuse a prisoner. He is straight as a string. Yes, I will say Quinn is about the best they have.’

I said, ‘Where can I find this Rooster?”

The style is lovely, the action is fun to read and there’s something almost epic about the story. It’s funny in places, but it has an air of serious drama as well, keeping a careful balance between. The dialogues are a huge part of the charm.

Really recommended.

Wendy Herman – Just Kill Me [Review]

Mon, 04 Aug 2014 13:53:19 +0000

It starts slowly: Freya’s online-shopping for boots when her youngest child comes up to her with a quarter and says, „Mommy, I’m pretending this is gum.” And, in the way of mothers who are slightly distracted, she doesn’t realize the full implications of that statement until a few minutes later, when she sees him clutching his throat, choking to death while his lips turn blue.

Spoiler: he doesn’t die. Not that Freya’s any help: she stands there, frozen, watching him suffocate – but, luckily, one of his brothers saves him.

Naturally, Freya remains shaken, knowing she was useless and that, had she been alone, her child would have died. Less naturally, her answer to that powerlessness is to decide she wants to be an FBI agent.

Let’s get this clear: Just Kill Me is not perfect. The pacing is slow in the beginning, and sometimes it feels like there’s a bit of a stutter in the style. The first switch between narrators (there are two) was unexpected and since both are „I”, it was confusing for a second. But, all this aside, I loved it! It’s the sort of page-turner you’d devour in a day… if you have a day to spare. Which I lately really, really don’t, so it took me longer than that since I was only reading it on the bus and in the five minutes before I fell asleep at night. But I’m just saying, if I’d had a day, I’d have gladly read it on that day.

What’s really fun about it is that there’s always a twist. Sometimes it’s a twist you’re totally expecting (is anybody shocked that, in a story about FBI agents, even people not previously known as FBI agents turn out to be involved with the FBI?). Sometimes it’s a twist you don’t see coming. But there’s always something going on, always a hook to keep you reading more. If at first I thought that it was a bit cliched, it soon became almost a parody of FBI cliches: here’s an agent! Here’s another agent! Here’s a secret group! Here’s something the government did which is very morally questionable! Here’s a friendly figure who’s out of the agent loop! Here’s a friendly figure who’s not a friendly figure! Here’s somebody who looked evil, but wasn’t! Here’s a stereotypical, yet entirely unrealistic computer genius! Here’s a long-lost relative who’s getting involved! Here’s Karate Kids! Here’s a steamy FBI love-making scene! Would you like an almond chai with all that?

A recommended read for anyone who’s a fan of surprising plots, FBI agents, feeling a constant „now what, now what?”, going on a long trip (as I’ve said, it’s easy to get lost in it – time flies when you’re reading something cool) and, possibly, secret agent loooove.

By the way, I don’t mean to brag too much, but I’ll be posting an interview with the author soon.

(Available on: Amazon, BWN.com for audio and paperback)

Yahtzee Croshaw – Mogworld [review]

Sun, 20 Jul 2014 07:54:23 +0000

The necromancer stood in front of his newly risen army of undead zombies who wouldn’t get on with the program, his evil laughter trailing off into uncertainty.

„I know this one,” I told myself. „Please tell me it doesn’t go where all noobs have not-so-boldly gone before. Including me, years ago.”

As agreements were reached and the necromancer led his army away into his evil castle, providing them with a good life of decent employment and bad entertainment, I was starting to feel a bit uninterested, but then the unexpected happened: angels came out of the sky and deleted the castle of doom out of existence.

This being a parody of games, written from the perspective of the people within, it had a few obvious jokes – like, say, interpretations of bugs and glitches, or of abandoned heroes whom players didn’t want anymore and who stood posing for eternity. Even so, I found them enjoyable (in the way in which, faced with a robot-era Romeo and Juliet, you might be curious to see how Juliet’s nurse fits in).

Some running gags ran around a bit too often, I felt, but they had a way of eventually stopping and walking off into a direction I couldn’t predict. Which was good.

All in all, I found it to be an enjoyable, easily readable volume.

(findable on Amazon for Kindle versions, and on the Book Depository for paperback)

Warren Ellis – Gun Machine [book review]

Fri, 04 Jul 2014 08:39:27 +0000

The reason why I keep reading Warren Ellis’s books is that I loved Transmetropolitan (his graphic novel(s)). Unfortunately, I don’t feel that his work translates very well to the written word. Sometimes it results in fascinating little swirls of crazy style… and at other times it feels oddly lacking.

Gun Machine is a good example of what I’m talking about: gory, very visual details like someone’s eye popping out of its socket as he gets killed; the murderer seeing the modern world as herds of deer, predatory animals, wolves with glowing eyes – and we’re talking about cars here. It feels definitely different from your usual sort of novel, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

It’s a mystery novel, the sort with a killer and a lot of unsolved crimes. Detective Tallow is out working a case with his partner which ends up with a lunatic shooting his partner dead. Tallow kills the killer – but ends up blowing a hole in the wall of a nearby apartment, which turns out to be some sort of creepy church-like place dedicated to guns. He’s supposed to take some time off, but due to somebody wanting to finish him and get him out of the job (why? I’m not sure), he’s back working the case of the crazy gun room, with the expectation that he’ll fail to solve it. And it turns out that each and every gun has been used to murder someone.

He’s left pursuing a crazy case, collaborating with a pair of wacky CSU, with coincidences forwarding his case (one of the people he randomly saves on the street turns out to be related to the guns/murderer), everybody knows things about Native American history, the police radio keeps spouting insane murders at every hour of the day – you’d think 20 to 50 people got killed every day there for all sorts of reasons. If the novel is meant to be realistic instead of fantasy, and I get the feeling it is, some of the details are wildly exaggerated.

An okay murder thriller, readable, with decently fleshed out characters… but at the same time it felt to me like it kept making small messes for the sake of convenience.

(findable on Amazon in Kindle format and as paperback on BookDepository for approximately the same price, with free shipping)

Kristen Slater – Working it Out [review… + reminiscing]

Thu, 03 Jul 2014 07:33:57 +0000

Around 2008-2009 I discovered that Project Gutenberg, which is one of THE best sources for free, out-of-copyright books, was suggesting that people can volunteer for producing those books. I signed up.

I became a proofreader for the aptly-named Distributed Proofreaders. The system is long and beautiful and it produces the excellent books on the Gutenberg website today (I can tell you all about it later).

It was a lovely period of my life. I recommend Distributed Proofreaders to anybody who likes free books. I think I quit in… 2011? or so?… Maybe 2010? I got busy with a lot of other things and I didn’t log in for some time, then failed to log in at all. I miss it sometimes, and it taught me a lot.

Anyway, as it happens, I got to know a few people there and to talk to them. I posted on the forum, I enthused about all sorts of things. This blog has been around since the end of 2012, but the incessant talker in me has been around for much longer. So imagine my surprise when I got an e-mail not too long ago from a person who was a fellow proofreader, Kristen Slater, who was contacting me to say that she was getting published and she was dedicating the novella to me.

I have bragging rights, so here’s the dedication 😀

To Roxana Kiril, without whom I would never have discovered writing.

I didn’t do much, but I’m too flattered to be able to properly disagree with her.

So what’s the book about? Well, it’s about 55 pages of fluffy, casual m/m romance. It doesn’t say or do anything very uncommon, and the plot won’t surprise you with a thousand twists and turns. It doesn’t connect all the dots and sometimes you feel like you’ve been cheated out of reading things that were interesting (Joe getting his boss kicked out, for example). But if fluff and a feeling of fuzzy warmth are your thing, you might like it.

The premise is in the official description, so I won’t be spoiling you much: the two main characters have been together for awhile, but is it love? It takes an accident to find out, and some talks, and some help from friends.

One thing I really liked were the small details that Kristen inserts here and there – like the two characters eating chocolate that’s been dunked in black coffee. They’re small, life-like little touches which are fun to remember.

Another thing I enjoyed: the novella isn’t focused on sexual desire. It’s not that the two characters are not interested in each other (they are), or that they don’t get in bed together (they do), but it isn’t used as *the* driving motor of their relationship. And the story is entirely unapologetic about the lack of sexy tidbits, which is refreshing, really.

Overall? A book that fans of fluffy, romantic, casual stories might like reading.

(You can find it here)

Neil Gaiman's "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" [Book Review]

Sat, 31 Aug 2013 06:37:22 +0000

Title: The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Author: Neil Gaiman

Rating: 5/5

Is this book for me? Yes.

It takes a certain amount of magic to make you not realize that the main character has no name until you need to write the review.

He is a man in his late forties, early fifties, driving down the lane where he used to live as a child. There was a funeral. It doesn’t say who died, because it doesn’t matter at all. If you’re like me, you’ll think it’s the father. But it doesn’t really matter.

I started by thinking that this is a story I’ve heard before – at some point, if an author gets old enough, there might come a book about remembering.

At the end of the lane, there’s a farm where Old Mrs Hempstock, Mrs Hempstock and Lettie Hempstock used to live. He walks in and asks if there’s still a pond at the back – or an ocean, because that’s what Lettie called it. Sitting by the pond, he remembers.

Except this is Neil Gaiman writing; and the story isn’t about children. Or, well, it’s about him, when he was a child, that summer when he was seven and the opal miner died and he woke up one morning choking on an old coin that had barely appeared into the world. It’s about the girl who had an ocean which was a pond and the thing which wanted to make people happy. It’s about the careless cruelty of adults and the lies they tell to themselves, and about memories and the way they change and the way you fill in the blanks.

The novel (it’s a short novel) has a sketch-like quality to it. If it were a painting, I’d say it’s one of those Eastern things, done with a bit of ink, simple lines and a lot of empty space to draw attention to what’s really important. Or maybe it’s just one of those stories where you’re supposed to scribble on the side. His point of view as a child caught only some things, not others – but his adult self leaves the unpleasant bits in so they’ll catch your eye for a moment and scratch your sense of suspicion.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane isn’t a book for children (you would probably be horrified to know they’re reading it – but, in a way, I think they’d like it). It doesn’t go deep into fantasy worlds, where we would expect some things to happen badly just because that’s how stories go. It’s just at the edge of reality, with him going between the very real reality of his old childhood home and the magic of the world beyond.

(P.S. It’s available, as usual, through Book Depository (free shipping), Amazon UK and Amazon US)

A list of classy WTF books

Thu, 01 Aug 2013 08:01:23 +0000

Do you know those books which you can supposedly brag about reading? You know, like „Pride and Prejudice”, „The Satanic Verses” or „The Iliad”? Of course you do. You run into them a lot – and there’s others which are less known, but just as impressive to mention.

Except some of them are weird. Or very weird. Or, well, fucked up – despite being classics, critically acclaimed and other such. And despite their authors not thinking they were that twisted. Here’s a few:

The Tale of Genji.

This wonderful, beautiful novel was written sometime in the 11th century and it’s the world’s first novel. Or the first modern novel. Or the first psychological novel. All of those have been said at one point – it’s considered a masterpiece and the only real reason you’ve probably never heard of it is that it’s Japanese. Our Western world grew up without it.

It’s a splendid book, full of poetry and romance. Genji is a Japanese prince, so beautiful women fall in love with him at first sight, so handsome he makes men wish he were a woman so he could be their wife. And he has these wonderful affairs, yes?…

Well. For a few chapters. Then he falls in love with one of his father’s concubines, a woman who looks exactly like his dead mother. He can’t have her for his own because he can’t exactly snatch her away from the emperor, but he has an affair with her anyway. And, later on, he pretty much kidnaps a ten year-old from her family because she looks precisely like his father’s concubine (and his mother) – and raises the little girl to be the perfect wife.

If that doesn’t set your teeth on edge, then you should also know that pretty much everybody a character is likely to sleep with in this novel will be a blood relation. Because interbreeding yay!

House of Sleeping Beauties

Yasunari Kawabata won a Nobel Prize for literature. If that doesn’t make him a classy author, I don’t know what will.

Most of his novels have a haunting beauty, a delightful meditative atmosphere, a contemplative mood that will stick with you for quite some time. House of Sleeping Beauties is no exception.

…but then there’s the fact that the sleeping beauties are drugged prostitutes. The protagonist finds out about this brothel where old, impotent men go to spend the night with girls who’ve been fed sleeping pills so they wouldn’t wake up no matter what happened. And he spends quite some time thinking he’s still potent – what if he were to actually sleep with one of the girls?

The Japanese. They have way too many examples of creepy as hell fiction.

The Last Temptation (of Christ)

If you’ve only heard of one modern Greek author, Nikos Kazantzakis is probably it. He’s one of those VIPs of world literature whose novels got translated in all sorts of languages and then transformed into movies.

The Last Temptation of Christ is about a Jesus who is struggling with the destiny God threw on his shoulders. He spent his life as a carpenter making crosses for would-be Messiahs to be crucified on and he really, really doesn’t want to be the Chosen anything. Eventually, though, he ends up in charge of a bunch of misfits (the apostles), with Judas, who wants a real revolution and a liberation from Romans at his side.

It’s actually all weird, as if Kazantzakis was dreaming this in a drug-induced stupor, but the oddest part is where Jesus has this strong vivid dream/temptation where his „guardian angel” tells him he did well and he’s released from the cross. He goes away free, marries Mary Magdalen, and she dies. So then he goes off and marries both Martha and Mary, sisters of Lazarus and has lots of children with them.

The entire novel reads like an odd fever dream. I’m certain that’s not exactly the impression Kazantzakis would have liked to leave behind.

Women in Love

D.H. Lawrence. You’ve probably heard of him because of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. This is more of the same scandalous sex stuff. Except less explicit.

Ursula and Gudrun are sisters. Ursula is a teacher, Gudrun is some sort of artist. They become involved with Rupert Birkin and Gerald Crich and some very psychological stuff ensues, complete with philosophical discussions of politics and society. Which is probably what makes this book one of those ‘classics’ that you study in university (I know I did).

But aside from the crazy names which add their own special ‘huh?’ to the book, the title too is an oddity. It’s a misnomer, but I’m not sure it’s an intentional one. Considering D.H. Lawrence’s other books, I think the author doesn’t know what love is if it strips down to its underwear and paints the letters ‘L’,‘O’,‘V’ and ‘E’ on its naked body. If the book was called ‘Women in Relationships They’re Very Ambiguous About’, it would’ve been more to the point (but admittedly less catchy).

The book provides examples of what I’ve come to describe as ‘D.H. Lawrence sex’. It involves the couple being attracted, going to bed – and then suddenly one of them (usually the woman) has this revelation that she’s actually repulsed by the guy she’s sleeping with. It’s sort of the ‘oh my god, who and what did I do last night?!’, but experienced a lot faster than simply the morning after. Or the hour after. Or the minute after. Or just after – it’s during.

Between some instincts for violence and more dislike than love in the major couples, the only real relationship based on actual love and attraction in the book is between Gerald and Rupert. There’s a moment when the sexual attraction between them is palpable and much, much more real than what either of the two experience with the women. I’m not sure it’s what Lawrence intended, but the psychological ride you take in Women in Love is going to keep you going, ‘what the fuck?’ over and over.

Jude the Obscure

My literature professor called Thomas Hardy mid-evil (pun on medieval, of course), which was very witty and informative of her.

If you’ve read a single Thomas Hardy novel, it was probably Tess of the d’Urbervilles, which is pretty WTF itself. But Jude the Obscure beats it hands-down on the WTF scale. It’s sort of a small village boy-meets-girl novel, in which Jude is a young man aspiring to go to university and Sue is his beautiful, perfect cousin. It’s kind of a worrisome plot in the first place, but things go a lot worse when you get the hand of destiny practically making itself felt at every step of the book, and when you have a creepy as hell kid popping up in the novel for no other reason than to make you think Frankenstein was a perfectly decent and socially acceptable sort of fellow.

Combine the creepy magical-superstitious-fated part of the book with the supposed realism and by the end you’ll be wondering what the hell you’ve read.

Amanda Meuwissen's "Incubus" [Book Review]

Wed, 31 Jul 2013 18:01:58 +0000

Title: Incubus

Author: Amanda Meuwissen

Rating: 4/5

Is this book for me? Probably. Wait, no! Do gay people bother you? Then no, it’s not. But otherwise, yes. A cool, adventurous novel of the supernatural and romantic sort, complete with a Seer, fairies and magic.

Incubus is the sort of novel that keeps you turning pages (or, in my case, listening to the next audio chapter, read by the author herself). It’s sweet, a bit fluffy, romantic and it has action going on, as well as danger hanging over the heads of the characters for a bit of thrilling fun.

Now, I might be evil here (of course I am), but the story reminds me a bit of the TV show Supernatural – we have two brothers involved in a sort of battle against the supernatural world, a monster of the arc, a silent and stoic helper, some of that old-fashioned monster-chasing through the streets of cities and a sacrificing-for-each-other brotherly love.

Except Incubus has fairies, not angels and demons. And there isn’t anything disturbingly much like a love-hate relationship between the brothers (unlike in Supernatural where the show just thrives on Implications). Nor is the mood downbeat at any point. And, oh yeah, the gay relationship is explicit and clear.

The title character, the incubus, is a fascinating and attractive guy (bonus for chicks who dig wings: he’s got wings (at times, when he’s in incubus-form); and red hair; and tattoos – actually, his descriptions remind me of an occasionally winged, horned, fanged Abarai Renji, but that might be my long dabble in Bleach fanfiction speaking).

I won’t be spoiling your fun, but I’m assuring you it’s fun. And fluffy.

P.S. The paperback is available via Amazon, if Amazon is your thing. If you prefer going to the source, then the paperback, audiobook and Kindle or other eBook versions are on the Big World Network website. And you can of course just subscribe to the Big World Network at $3/month and have access to Incubus and a number of other series.

Suzanne Collins' "Mockingjay" [Book Review]

Wed, 24 Jul 2013 12:24:35 +0000

Title: Mockingjay

Series: The Hunger Games
Author: Suzanne Collins

Rating: 4.5/5

Is this book for me? If you liked the Hunger Games, yes. Definitely. This is where it gets wild(er).

Book three – and the final one – of the Hunger Games. It’s lovely.

The first two books seem in a way to be a prelude to the third, which is a full-scale war complete with media coverage, rebels, strategies and whatnot. If there’s a single thing I disliked about it, it was that Suzanne Collins didn’t go deeper into explaining the world she created and how it all fits together. Aside from that…

The main character (Katniss Everdeen) was very annoying at times, but in the best of ways. She’s not the usual style of hero, ready to give her all to the Cause from greatness of soul and self-sacrificing ardor. She isn’t even the antihero who goes off the beaten path and does borderline immoral, or even downright immoral things, for the Cause. Katniss is simply… normal. She’s very real. She’s a girl who doesn’t really want to be involved in a war which kills too many people. She wants to sit it out and sulk, she wants to get away from the madness of the Games, the madness of fighting, the madness of politics. But she can’t. And she is annoying because of this very realism. She isn’t born a hero, she doesn’t want to be the protagonist, but the role is shoved on her and she eventually, reluctantly, rises up to it. She’s a reminder that we’re human and that our most heroic-looking choices aren’t always the best, nor do they have the most amazing motivations behind them.__

As for the atmosphere of Mockingjay… A friend criticized Collins’ battle scenes as weak, but I think they have their own sort of „The Red Badge of Courage„-style quality to them. Well. Except „The Red Badge…” had nearly no plot and it mostly consisted of here-now descriptions of battles and confusion. Mockinjay, on the other hand, lets you see quite a lot of the war otherwise – from bits of things behind the scenes to media coverage and ruthlessness in strategies. It has surprising twists and turns and a powerful atmosphere. Collins keeps you wondering until the very end, and a bit after.

(Currently, Mockingjay is super-cheap on Amazon UK and on sale on Amazon US. Again, I’m not sure how much that will last. And there’s always free shipping on the Book Depository.)

Suzanne Collins' "Catching Fire" [Book Review]

Fri, 19 Jul 2013 14:47:51 +0000

Title: Catching Fire

Series: The Hunger Games
Author: Suzanne Collins

Rating: 4/5

Is this book for me? If you liked the Hunger Games, yes. Definitely. If you didn’t read the Hunger Games, then go read it. If you didn’t like it, then no. Simple enough.

Book two of a trilogy. We already know the characters and the premise, but how does the second installment work?…

Well, it isn’t quite as interesting from start to finish as the first book. The beginning (or the first half, rather) is somewhat too long and drawn-out. I suppose the purpose of said length is to bring more tension to the story, to have an ominous calm before the storm. It just doesn’t work for me.

So. Our protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, is in trouble. Deep, political trouble. Her family and friends are threatened by the president and she must play a certain role to save them. She’s a survivor, so she tries. But she’s also a crappy actress, so it isn’t certain she can play that role.

Still, the drawn-out beginning means we get to see more of the world of the Hunger Games – the Districts, the growing social restlessness, the society of the Capitol. Unfortunately, what we get is insufficient to really understand the implications of some of the facts that we’re given. A revolt is about to break out, but we don’t know the relative sizes and strengths of the revolting Districts versus the oppressing Capitol. We’ve seen the vast difference in technology between the oppressors and the oppressed, but how strong is the strongest tech? How much of it is there? The vagueness doesn’t work in the book’s favor.

The second half of the book, though, is where the pacing is restored. We go back to the arena, back to the 24 people who need to be in there, back to the idea of a sole survivor. Initially, I feared that Collins would recycle her ideas from the first book and give us the same thing over again, quirking just enough elements to have us be annoyed at the repetition. Not so. The arena doesn’t look very natural, as did the first book’s forest. Instead, it’s clearly a man-made construct, a mechanism with artificial rules to be figured out. And the dynamics between the contestants are almost entirely different. The seventy-fifth edition of the Hunger Games is just as exciting as the seventy-fourth.

All in all, Suzanne Collins manages to create something new, to spin the story in such a way as to avoid the pitfalls of having to reuse a unique idea in a sequel. The only thing that really draws it back is the first half, with its faults. But even so, it’s an interesting, fun, engaging book.

Currently, like the first Hunger games book, it’s on sale on Amazon UK and on Amazon US. Again, I’m not sure how much that will last. And there’s always free shipping on the Book Depository.

Suzanne Collins' "The Hunger Games" [Book Review]

Fri, 19 Jul 2013 08:59:43 +0000

Title: The Hunger Games

Series: The Hunger Games
Author: Suzanne Collins

Rating: 4.5/5

Is this book for me? Unless you’re averse to sci fi/fantasy, the answer is probably yes. Easy to read, but not lacking in deeper issues. Well-paced, action-filled, with believable characters. Gripping.

The book is essentially about this: 24 teens locked into a huge, forest-like arena with a bunch of deadly things ready to kill them – and only one gets out alive. It’s „Lord of the Flies” meets „Mortal Kombat”, with a dash of shooter video game and a liberal serving of plots, psychology and politics. That’s what the Hunger Games are: deadly, violent events where nearly everybody dies for all sorts of reasons.

Well, for all sorts of physical reasons, anyway. The underlying motive for the Hunger Games is a political one. It’s implied that most of the world went off and killed itself in some sort of disaster. Humanity has rebuilt itself into a new type of society a very long time before – unfortunately, not in a very egalitarian way. The leaders are in the Capitol and they live amazingly flimsy and hedonistic lives, while the ones doing all the work are in the Districts (One to Twelve), who live in constant deprivation and hunger. The Capitol looks very sci fi: there’s a lot of tech that’s so amazing it might as well be magic, people modify their bodies for fashion reasons etc. The Districts are nearly medieval. Naturally, at some time there was a revolt and, 74 years on, the Districts are still punished for it by sending two ’tributes’ to the arena every year.

Katniss Everdeen is from the mining District, Twelve. She poaches for food and is an amazingly good shot with a bow and arrow. Which is great, because she ends up as a „tribute” in the Hunger Games. Now, this is where I really appreciate Collins: her main character is very much to the point. Katniss isn’t the sort of girl who is interested in boys, or who’s more interested in looking good than in doing well. She’s a real girl, with actual issues, some interest in romance, but not too much. She isn’t always likable, but she’s realistic, strong and a survivor. She’s someone I think guys won’t have much problem reading.

What happens is a multi-layered story. There’s the obvious action/survivalist component: Katniss in the arena, with weapons and survival kits, trying to find a way to stay alive. Then there’s the political component, which we only get hints of through Katniss’s eyes and thoughts: the slightly suspicious way of acting of some of the people she comes in contact with, the warnings she gets from her mentor in the Games, the descriptions of people in the Capitol. It’s very subtle, but it’s there. Then, the psychological component, where Collins shines: the people Katniss comes in contact with are well-rounded – and when she means to make them mysterious and confusing for the purpose of the plot, she damned well manages it.

The style is simple and a pleasure to read, letting you sink into the story and live it vividly.

The only issues I can really find with it is that the world isn’t described in a bit more detail (I’d’ve been curious) and that __I’m not sure exactly how plausible the premise is.

All in all, very much recommended. Currently it’s on sale on Amazon UK and on Amazon US, but I’m not sure how much that will last. And, of course, there’s always the Book Depository for free shipping to all sorts of countries.

Sorana Corneanu's "Regimens of the Mind" [(Academic) Book Review]

Sun, 14 Jul 2013 09:12:51 +0000

Title: Regimens of the Mind: Boyle, Locke, and the Early Modern Cultura Animi Tradition

Author: Sorana Corneanu

Rating: 4/5

Is this book for me? Probably not. It’s an academic book of the difficult sort and far, far from an easy read. But if you’re up to a challenge, it can be pretty damned fascinating.

This review is way overdue, considering I finished reading the book awhile back. Still, this morning I was cheerfully reading an article on psychology and the scientific method which brought Regimens of the Mind back into my thoughts. So, time to discuss it.

I’ve already mentioned in another article that I believe the humanities have a horrible academic writing style. Most of the books I’ve been subjected to as an undergraduate student and afterward are highly difficult to read because of their sentence structure and their assumption that the reader has a highly specialized vocabulary and kick-ass history and culture skills. Regimens of the Mind is pretty much like that. You’ll find yourself googling terms like ‘postlapsarian condition’ (it’s the first that came to mind now. It means ’the condition of humankind after the Fall from the Garden of Eden’, yes?). Or, you know, looking up ‘regimens’. You’ll find yourself re-reading that last paragraph because you somehow failed to catch the meaning. Still, it’s a lot more readable than a lot of other academic texts out there – if you’re up to it, it’s a fun challenge.

Enough of my inner editor being a bitch. Because the humanities’ cryptic academic style is the only minus I think the book has.

You can’t tell from the title, but Regimens of the Mind is a book about the origins of the scientific method, of objectivity and reason – the way we take them for granted today. Imagine a world where people are trying to figure out what’s real and what isn’t, which arguments stand and which don’t. There’s no path that’s been laid down for it yet – sure, Aristotle went around explaining basic logic in Ancient Greece, but there’s a huge difference between theory and practice, between the simplicity of ‘if all A are B and x is an A, then x is B’ and being faced with the entirety of the material world and of the spiritual world, trying to tell when you’ve picked the right terms for your logical sentences. So people devise ways of explaining how to do that.

As an aside: you’ve got to love mankind, no? When we need something new, we create it. Whether it’s a computer, in order to decipher secret messages, or ways to further knowledge and understanding through providing clear guidelines of what to do and what not to do.

And there’s Francis Bacon, who starts discussing „idols of the mind”, false ideas which stop us from seeing the truth – because we have preconceptions and think we see more order in the universe than there really is, or because we simply like or don’t like certain things and want them to be true/not true. Or there’s John Locke, saying that sometimes we don’t see the truth because we subject to a higher authority telling us what to think – what the ’truth’ is. I’ll stop with the examples here – Sorana Corneanu presents them and their connections much more neatly than I would.

So here we are, in this interesting world where objectivity and rationality emerge. It’s a fascinating read, especially if you’ve read theories of rationality in the contemporary world and have heard of a lot of reasoning mistakes by their modern, fancy, scientific-sounding names. Because things, as Corneanu presents them, are a bit more fascinating than you’d think.

Have you looked up ‘regimens’ and ‘cultura animi’ yet?… Because they explain the fun of it: ‘regimen’ means something like work-out, therapy, training – the sort of process you go through to make yourself better. And the ‘cultura animi’ isn’t far from the intuitive translation you might come up with: a cultivation of the soul. So all this reasoning stuff?… Thinking correctly about things, seeing nature objectively, as it were?… It’s not just for science, not just a method to figure out physics or chemistry. It’s for personal development. It’s a way to grow yourself. It’s a spiritual endeavor. It’s a way of life, of religious practice. The ‘Christian Virtuoso’ seeking to better himself through educating his mind, the ‘Lover of Truth’ pursuing reality are on the move, searching, in a pilgrimage of the soul.

That’s what makes Regimens of the Mind fascinating. Corneanu looks deep into the motivations these philosophers had for seeking the truth, for devising methods to discover it and to avoid mental traps. It’s an insight into another world, into a rich spiritual tradition that basically led to science being what it is. And she stops there, where you can pick up this strong, memorable insight into the past and consider it from any number of points of view.

Amanda Meuwissen's "Real Fangs" [Book Review]

Fri, 05 Jul 2013 16:50:44 +0000

Title: Real Fangs

Author: Amanda Meuwissen

Rating: 3/5 (subjectively. I can see it get 4/5 from somebody who likes the style of the story)

Is this book for me? It’s a light, slice of life supernatural novella. Some vampires, some werewolves. No wars. No psychological drama. Not much plot, either. If you’re looking for something fun and almost fluffy, this is it. If you’re looking for something engaging or deep… not so much.

I made a mistake with this book when I started reading it. I thought it would be a traditional sort of supernatural novel, with the drama of being turned, or with bad people needing to be hunted down, or that sort of thing. It’s actually slice of life. It’s not so much about the newly-turned vampire Chris going through huge issues concerning the meaning of life or the meaning of fighting evil, but about the just out of college Chris needing to find his way in life.

After that, my vision changed. Instead of being annoyed with the book that it’s not really pushing the plot anywhere, I started taking it as a sitcom (especially since the Big World Network likens its stories to television series). Which it really works as, actually.

The story doesn’t really do it for me (not a big fan of sitcoms), but it has a few points in which it shines. The ideas about what a number of vampires and some witches do all day are quite plausible as well as amusing. And you can feel the characters. They’re real people, living in a real city and going about their real day-to-day business.

I recommend it for sheer fun.

P.S. The audio version is read by Amanda Meuwissen herself. Her accent is a bit unusual (…said the Romanian, I know), but her voice acting and narration style are quite enjoyable. I think I could rate the audio version 4/5. Her reading it makes the difference.

Amanda Meuwissen's "The Collector" [Book review]

Fri, 05 Jul 2013 16:25:12 +0000

Title: The Collector

Author: Amanda Meuwissen

Rating: 4/5

Is this book for me? It’s a light supernatural novella. It has the Devil, some hell creatures and a simple mystery plot. If you’re looking for something light and easy to read this weekend for your enjoyment, then go ahead. If you’re searching for complex plots or philosophical insights, skip it.

The link above is to Amazon, but the book can be read directly on the Big World Network website, where you gain access by paying a $3/month subscription (which also allows you access to a few dozen other books).

The Collector wasn’t really the sort of book I’d usually read – unless I was reading fanfic. It’s light, flows easily and it’s a pleasure to flip through, reading a new episode (chapter) with the ease with which you can take a new piece of chocolate. Not the sort of chocolate you buy from specialized shops which bankrupt you in three days flat, but the sort of normal, common chocolate that you can enjoy on a daily basis. It won’t blow your mind, but it will be fun during the afternoon.

Adam is the Devil’s Collector of souls. That means that the Devil makes a deal… and Adam goes off and takes the soul of the person when their time is due. All’s been good since Antiquity or so, but now somebody is starting to hound him, leaving disturbing messages to him. Things get weirder and weirder, until…

Well, I’m not going to spoil you, am I?

Cute. Fun. Not going to be on my ‘best of the year’ list of books, but I’m glad I read it.

P.S. The audio version, read by Blaise Douros is actually quite nice. I like his voice and reading style – pleasant, clear, fun.

Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman": "Preludes and Nocturnes" [Book Review]

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 19:56:54 +0000

Title: Preludes and Nocturnes

Series: The Sandman
Author: Neil Gaiman

Rating: 4/5

Is this book for me? It’s a graphic novel – that’s a fancy way of saying „comics”. It’s also horror. I’m not fond of the drawing style. The writing is grand, each word falling as heavy as if it were engraved in granite, sent back in the past and reverberating at you from antiquity. This book is probably not for you. You should read it anyway.

I first read Neil Gaiman’s „The Sandman” back in the first year of university, when a friend shoved it towards me. I’d seen „Stardust”, but I had such a huge stick up my ass that I couldn’t believe fantasy to be worthy of anything (nor fanfiction, but that’s another story). Now, she’s a very convincing person and she made me read some scans. I hated the drawing style.

Really not my type of art.

It was the story that got my attention, naturally. I knew next to nothing about comics and I had expected some sort of superhero running about saving the day, amidst corny lines like, „I will get you next time, Sandman!!!” and „That dastardly enemy, he killed me! I’ve been shot!” Not so. The series begins with „Wake up, sir, we’re here”. An old man gets out from what seems to be an early 20th-century car – we’re told it’s 1916. He walks to a rich mansion and delivers a mysterious tome to somebody looking very much like your standard villain. The comics cheese steps in for a second on the second page as the villain declares that „The Magdalene Grimoire was all that the order needed. We can hold the ceremony at the next full moon… and then… No one need ever die again.”

But Gaiman doesn’t detail what exactly that’s all about. He doesn’t step into the evil plan. One corny line of exposition and then we’re thrown into four panels that break our expectations – the third page and Gaiman is already working his magic. The Sandman is not about superheroes. It’s about stories. It’s about dreams and tales and the imagination, about the way each person is made of feelings and dreams and aspirations and desires and hopes – and all that comes together into a web that’s so large, so complex that by the end of the series I was standing in awe, crying with the inability to even figure out how one goes on to create a Sandman.

The panels are the real hints of what will happen. In Toronto, Canada, Ellie Marsten is listening to „Through the Looking Glass” and, despite knowing that it’s just a bedtime story, she’s terrified. Elsewhere, in Jamaica, Daniel Bustamonte sleeps despite the noise and the rustle and dreams a dream that sounds comforting. In France, Stefan Wasserman looks scared shitless on the battle front – he’s almost 14, but he lied about his age to enlist. In London, Unity Kinkaid dreams of a man with stars in his eyes.

The Sandman is a story of stories. In „Preludes and Nocturnes” it picks up its wings to fly – somewhat unskillfully, as Neil Gaiman hadn’t gathered the courage and the following that would propel him into greatness yet, but even the first flight is darkly beautiful. Whereas the rest of the series will draw from the entire world to build itself, „Preludes and Nocturnes” draws mostly from other comics and the comic genre – the Sandman, Morpheus, Oneiros, the Lord of Dreams who is in charge of dreams, the imagination and stories, first appears dressed in his battle regalia, which he actually doesn’t often wear – he has a helmet, a pouch and a ruby (all of which get taken from him). Summoned by Roderick Burgess, our villain, he remains entrapped in a magic circle for seventy years, biding his time until he can escape. In the mean time, people all over the world fall into deep slumber or remain unable to sleep.

His escape and the recovery of his artifacts are, to put it simply, not pretty. To put it simply, this IS a horror series, complete with graphic descriptions of heads rolling off, of drugged people, insanity and violent murders. The stories, episodic, read like general cautionary action/adventure plots, with descriptions of hell and Lucifer and what happens if you play with the forces of the universe. Your run-of-the-mill sort of plot – but the details shine through dialogues and inner monologues and little ironies.

One that appealed to me especially was the story of Bette Munroe („24 Hours”). Quote: „On her days off, after she’s tidied the house, Bette Munroe writes stories. She writes them in longhand on yellow legal pads. […] Most of her stories, however, are about her customers. They look at her and they just see a waitress; they don’t know she’s nursing a secret. A secret that keeps her aching calf-muscles and her coffee-scalded fingers and her weariness from dragging her down… It’s her secret. She’s never shown anyone her stories.” She pictures her success, people wondering how such an accomplished writer could know so much about being a waitress – she fancies herself gathering material, just playing her life’s part, but one day she will move on. „She isn’t small-minded; a writer can’t afford to be.” She writes lesbians into married girls, young men into success – she wants everybody to be better off, to have a good life. „All Bette’s stories have happy endings. That’s because she knows where to stop. She realized the real problem with stories – if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death.”

As it happens, Bette has less than 24 hours left to live before she dies gruesomely. Her killer has much longer. But the diamond of Gaiman’s style shines from within the roughness.

If horror is far from your thing, however, another option is to simply skip most of „Preludes and Nocturnes”, although you’ll be missing a lot. The last issue in the volume, „The Sound of Her Wings”, has Dream/Morpheus/The Sandman hanging out with his sister, Death, at the end of his quest for the artifacts. And it’s where Neil Gaiman starts revolutionizing the world of comics. By turning something that was horror/adventure into a huge story about stories, life and everything in between.

Dream, Death and the old man

The Sandman is available on Amazon UK and Amazon US (click the pictures to get there):

[][1]

Amazon UK version

[][2]

Amazon US version

Jim Butcher's "Storm Front" [Book Review]

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 20:53:20 +0000

Title: Storm Front

Series: The Dresden Files
Author: Jim Butcher

Rating: 4/5

Is this book for me? It’s an urban fantasy set in Chicago. It features a number of magical creatures, a plot best described as ‘detective mystery’, humor and, occasionally, profanity. If that sounds appealing, then the book is for you. If you’re looking for Deep Meaning, philosophical inquiry, Tolkien-like worlds, romance or Quotable Wisdom, then probably not.

One of the things I like about the Dresden Files is the down-to-earth, often funny, very human tone, with a strong component of realism. Well, realism as far as descriptions and psychology go, anyway. Seeing that this is fantasy, you can hardly expect the world to be plausible.

Harry Dresden is an honest-to-God real wizard trying to make a living out of his talent in a world that is very similar to our own (except the part where it secretly and stealthily contains magic). He collaborates with the Special Investigations Unit of the Chicago Police Department, where director Karrin Murphy was generous enough to believe him to be the real thing and offer him a collaboration contract which pays most of his bills. He also freelances and advertises himself in the newspaper – which works as you could expect it to work in the real world. Prank calls and people looking for lost husbands via psychics.

I first doubted Dresden’s abilities as a wizard. I mean, what sort of a poor sod is so bad at the magic business that he’s perpetually starving, like a magic copy of Henry Miller? (Henry Miller’s „Tropic of Cancer” is often mistakenly believed to be porn, but it’s actually hunger and philosophy) After Harry Potter and the Wands That Achieved Anything With the Right Wave and Words, Dresden seemed to be woefully underpowered and tragically unprepared for life. However, my respect for him grew in time – Dresden’s strength lies not in his ability to blast holes in things, or to summon fairies (although he can certainly do that), but in his vast magical knowledge, quick wit, preparation and ability to think on his feet, back, knees, belly and however else he needs to think.

The novel, as fast paced as your usual action-packed mystery, starts with Dresden getting two cases at the same time: a police-related one via Murphy, concerning magical murders, and a civil one via the worried Monica Sells, concerning her missing husband Victor Sells. As if that weren’t enough, Dresden is under suspicion of breaking the magical law and placed under the „Doom of Damocles”, which means he has somebody prepared to kill him shadowing his every foot and looking for any minor transgression that would warrant his killing – and also under suspicion of being behind the magical murders that Murphy is investigating.

Yes, you can bet 10 pounds/dollars that everything comes together into a single plot. But Jim Butcher manages to keep you guessing and to make you jump to the edge of your seat in excitement every time something bad happens. And he does it with a charm and ingenuity that are just maliciously, gleefully, horribly entertaining.

One of my favorite scenes has Harry Dresden fighting a magical construct while pretty much naked, with a lusty woman trying to jump his bones while doors and elevators are ruined around them. And it all makes sense at the time.

Lovely writing, edge-of-your-seat sort of thing, also good for a laugh or a few smirks (Dresden’s style of telling the story is simply delicious). I am definitely recommending it – 4 stars out of 5 because I know that the series gets better and I need gradation.

Available via Amazon UK:

And Amazon US: