Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Okay, so Kushiel's Avatar by Jacqueline Carey was good. It was also frustrating because I can't understand why I didn't like it more - why I didn't get emotionally invested in the characters and events. I wanted to love it - the story was exciting and epic and it was well told, with good pacing and character development and everything, but I stayed so... detached. It can't be that I didn't identify with the character - I couldn't identify with J.T. LeRoy's characters either, but his books left me emotionally drained. Maybe it was the writing style? It's definitely written in High Fantasy, all flourishes and ornamentations. But that's not it either or else I wouldn't connect to classics by Shakespeare, Austen, etc. The repetition did start to get to me because I read the previous entry in the trilogy fairly recently, but I don't think that explains the lack of investment. I don't know why I felt removed from the book and it's really annoying that I can't figure it out.
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Monday, March 22, 2004
I bought The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger after reading the review at Bookslut and their interview with the author. They say it much better over there, but I'll add my love for the book to theirs. The sections are short, which meant I could read it easily during commercials, or pick it up and put it down many times without losing the plot. Surprisingly, for a book that jumps back and forth in time every other page, I was never lost or confused - subject headings provide precise dates and ages. And I loved fitting the different encounters into the timelines of the characters. Like the Bookslut reviewer, I cried several times for the central couple, once during one of the happiest moments in the book. I was rooting for Henry and Clare every step of the way; through the wedding, the miscarriages... everything. As a bonus, there is a strong current of music (classical, punk, etc.) that binds the characters together.
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Tuesday, March 16, 2004
I love Patricia McKillip. Her Riddle-Master trilogy is my favorite work of fantasy ever. Her newest book, Alphabet of Thorn isn't as strong as that, but then, little is. This one is typical of her style: dreamy atmosphere, magic, strong female characters, etc. but never descends into cliche. Her characters seem stereotypical at first, but reveal surprising depths or weaknesses as the story progresses. I loved the emphasis on books and language and libraries as sources of possible rebellion and danger. This is definitely one of my favorites of hers, despite the ending feeling a little rushed.
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Monday, March 15, 2004
I have to admit that I picked up 40 Watts From Nowhere by Sue Carpenter just because of the cover. How can you blame me when it shows racks and racks of cds and LPs? If the flap summary hadn't sounded interesting, I still might've bought the book just for that picture. Luckily for me, the story is as interesting as it sounded. Told rather matter-of-factly, Sue tells of her Pump Up the Volume existence as the coolest radio station manager in LA. Coolest illegal radio station manager, that is. Beginning first in San Francisco, Sue sets up a pirate radio station in her apartment and has her friends DJ for it. After moving to Los Angeles, she does the same thing, but this time she unwittingly becomes the center of a genuine indie phenomenon. The book is a quick read, mostly because there isn't a lot of introspection (I'm still not all that sure what her motives were for beginning in the first place - she isn't a music geek at all and it seems to be something to keep her occupied and illicitly thrilled when she breaks up with her junkie boyfriend) and only the briefest of sketches of the different DJs who eventually end up on KBLT in Los Angeles. I would've liked those, plus maybe some interviews with artists who appeared on the station or some listener reactions to beef up the book, but I did like it, even if I wished it had been fleshed out more.
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Being the movie fan I am, I of course had to read Down & Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film by Peter Biskind. The criticisms leveled at the book are well-documented and generally accurate. Biskind does focus on the Weinsteins and Miramax a little too much and begins to focus on them almost exclusively past the middle of the book, while almost ignoring the independent films that were produced in the early part of this decade. He talks very little about other producers (we get only a sketch of Christine Vachon, one of the better indie producers out there before she is relegated to Miramax reactions) and their films, focusing instead on how the product coming out of Miramax has changed. I wish he'd delved more into how it is that Wes Anderson, PT Anderson, Alexander Payne, etc. have managed to create intensely independent pictures within the studio system. He tosses that in and doesn't really examine the effects the studios had on their films or why they chose to go that route. Robert Redford comes off as very passive-aggressive as Sundance as a sort-of success despite him. It was always interesting and entertaining though and the Weinsteins make good villains.
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Friday, March 05, 2004
I got hooked on Ian Rankin's Rebus mysteries on my last trip to the UK when I bought a bunch of the early entries in the series on sale. I've kept up with it primarily because I think Rebus is such an interesting and unusual character. The latest book is A Question of Blood and it primarily concerns a shooting at a school. Rebus is brought in to discover the motive because he and the killer both had an army background. Naturally the various subplots intertwine toward the end and half the fun of these books is figuring out how it's all going to hang together. The other half belongs to Rebus himself, who, even as he draws closer to retirement, stubbornly refuses to change. He remains a loner who drinks too much and who can't help alienating most everyone around him. And we love him for it.
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Thursday, March 04, 2004
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson was immensely readable. Larson anchors the book with two strong characters: H. H. Holmes, a serial killer responsible for potentially 200 murders, and Daniel Burnham, chief architect for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, alternating chapters between the two. This juxtaposition works pretty well - the two lines don't meet, but I didn't really feel like they needed to. The parallel occurrences provided contrast to each other; the optimism represented by the fair contrasted with the dark future presented by Holmes. Each in its own way shows a vision of the present day from the past. The fair introduced new products and amusements that are household names now, clean drinking water, etc. While Holmes ushered in a future of serial killers and the dark side of human behavior, which is on full display these days. That these coexisted then, as now, only makes the book that much more entertaining.
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