Juggling the Hat Trick

I find myself in an odd circumstance: I'm reading three books at once.  Many people do this but not me.

Firebirds Rising is delivering a solid crash and burn.  It's not bad.  It's no where near as captivating as Firebirds, and Firebirds Soaring. (Perhaps it's that middle book syndrome; didn't know it applied to anthologies.)  I'm halfway through and while everything has been solid, nothing has been particularly special. 

I'm also at the halfway point in Guy Gavriel Kay's Sailing to Sarantium.  It's everything I've come to expect from Kay: vast, expansive, well executed and a gridlocked sense of control concerning pacing.  This isn't a bad thing either, but Sailing to Sarantium is a big book and as much as I'm enjoying it. it's hard to feel like I'm making progress. 

In a further effort to pick up something that takes off and doesn't stop the library notified me that my hold for Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare was ready.  A day later I'm a hundred pages in and if nothing else Clare has a serious choke hold on forward motion.  And that is a very good thing. 

I'd much rather find one book start, and finish it.  I don't like the juggling act, but I'm trying to make it work.  I look forward to finishing Kay.  It's odd considering how much I liked the first and third Firebird installments but Firebirds Rising has got me a bit anxious.   

A Couple of False Starts; Buried Treasure in Used Books and (Wait for it...) Pictures

A long time ago Terry told me to read Possession by A.S. Byatt so I got a copy at a used book store and it's been sitting on my shelves for a few years.  A few days ago Marion re-read the book and sparked my interest again.  She also informed me that I got lucky when I bought my copy and got 'the good cover.'  

She would be correct.

Last night I sat down to start reading and it took me forever and a day to get through twenty pages.  It may have been a bad reading day for me, (I was due for one) but I wasn't connecting with the text in anyway so I'll pick it up again at a later date and try again.  It wasn't the feeling of 'This book is not for me' rather it may have been the wrong thing at the wrong time. 

So this morning before work randomly I grabbed Lyonesse by Jack Vance.  I've no idea what led me to this book but that is part of the fun in having a large selection of unread stuff; you can always surprise yourself.  Like Possession, Lyonesse also has a badass bit of full front to back cover art.  

After reading the preface, I was hooked by the non-fiction tone of voice and historical telling aspect.  After reading a few footnotes in the preface that told me to consult glossaries I-III for further information on certain details I was chomping a the bit to actually start the narrative; thirty pages into the actually story and I realized this book was going now at a snails pace.  I skipped ahead two chapters and I still couldn't find anything masquerading as tension.  Oh well... 

Two false starts of two different kinds both concerning badass cover art.

Lyonesse feels really vast and deep.  The kind of world that could not only grant sequels but wouldn't come close to being exhausted even with spin off stories.  After reading ten pages of preface and glossary--the non fiction stuff--the world feels as expansive as Catherynne M. Valente's Pentexore from her Dirge for Prester John series or Tolkien's The Silmarillion.  A very good thing so far as I'm concerned.  The story just wasn't there.

I can't seem to read a collection of short stories straight through without picking up something else.  I am enjoying Firebirds Rising though there are a couple of rankling issues but by far and away the best part of this book, which I bought used is this:

Left to me by the previous owner I should think.  I feel connected to this person and though I only have our reading material with which to judge us, we are both awesome. 

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

No.  John Green I refuse to let you manipulate my emotions.  I am in control of me; and will not yield to you.  I actively started not reading this book about a year ago when it first came out and I felt the world was telling me I had to read it immediately.  In addition to feeling like I was being commanded to read the book I learned what it was about and then attempted to put even greater distance between myself and the book.  As 2012 came to a close there were very few 'best of list' that featured fiction and didn't have The Fault in Our Stars listed.  After about three quarters of a year's worth of John Green anxiety and hearing about this particular book I read Paper Towns to scratch the itch.  A year later and Green is my favorite new-to-me author and here i am adding to the limitless talk about The Fault in Our Stars.  

It's a doomed young adult romance in which Hazel, the story's main character, has terminal cancer.  I can guarantee that if I hadn't already read Paper Towns I wouldn't have picked up this book.  It's sad and you have to sign up for that before you even start reading.  It's unexpected and poignant and certainly not the cancer book you may think it is.  (Green actually addressed the stigma of writing 'that cancer book' within the narrative.)   

Hazel meets her boyfriend, Augustus, at a cancer support group for teenagers and while the book's infrastructure is set to accommodate the most mopey, sad book about kids with various horrible cancers that is exactly not what we get.  Green is hilarious and while he never seeks to skirt the gravity of the subject matter his characters laugh at their condition just as they are assuredly terrified of their reality.  The story is very simple as we watch Hazel and Augustus' relationship develop in spite of a rapid health decline.   

Part of me felt that events moved too fast.  Nothing came across as rushed and while Green's writing is super easy to read the absurdly funny dialogue is balanced with some very substantial prose.  In the beginning, the scenario plot points seemed to move really quickly from point a to b.  Hazel breaks out of secluded depression mighty fast.  She turned into a moody social teenager with a quickness considering how she describes her life on the first page.  There were a few other points that felt a bit false to me, but nothing that was going to keep me from turning pages. 
 
I have this hangup with dialogue, readers of my blog may already be familiar with this gripe.  While it's not a 'chatty' book, and even though nearly everything said is funny, I did at times question what was being said.  Their words were never fake or too old for their age (though a couple times came close) and while super quick witty dialogue is great and a blast to read it's also not realistic.  I was okay with all the jokes (and the feeling that some characters had a few preloaded and waiting to go) and the responses they got, but some of the speeches Augustus made made me think, 'People don't talk like this.'  I understand his situation and how it would have to alter his view on many things, but it was almost as if he had thought out these lofty ideas and principles in advance and then was merely waiting for the perfect moment to pontificate.  Which, to me, cheapened some of his interaction with Hazel, as if she were just a prop to help him soapbox.  I felt Green perhaps indulged my complaint--if not thought the same thing--when during a conversation Hazel interrupts Augustus and he makes a joke about having memorized this speech and how important it was for her to not interrupt so he can get through it.  It was funny at the time that Augustus called himself out, but it also served to focus and highlight my 'people don't talk like this' gripe.  None of this comes off as poorly done and it took me a few days after finishing to put a finger on what was bothering me.   

If you have a pulse you should expect to fall apart when reading and though you can't be shocked at what happens there certainly is a huge surprise at the end.  It's funny.  It's fast.  It will even get you thinking.  (How many other books have 'existentially wrought free throws?')  In the future I will refrain from starting my new year in reading with a book that so many thought to be the best of the previous year; doing so sets the bar way too high. 

For another take on the same book, check out what Maria has to say. 

The Prestige by Christopher Priest

The prestige is the part of a magic trick in which the audience is made to contend with something seemingly impossible and the magician gloats in the stage lights.  Priest novel's features two magicians at the turn of the twentieth century and while they each love to get the reaction from the audience more than this they want to impress and 'one up' each other. 

We see Alfred Borden and Rupert Angier start humbly and then become the top of the game in London.  The feud between them starts rather innocent and comic despite professional ethics as Borden takes exception to the seances conducted by Angier and the money he makes while deceiving the living into thinking that they are communicating with the recently deceased. 

The first part of the book is told by from Borden's point of view by way of a now forgotten book he had written.  Events are primarily comic and move swiftly.  At the conclusion of Borden's book Angier's journal begins and in it we say many of the same events from a different perspective and come to see the nature of their rivalry: the pranks, the sabotage, the attempts to embarrass the other.  We also see some aspects of their rivalry that were a bit darker in their result and much more damaging than we may have come to see in Borden's book.  We also start to see many events involving Borden that was not previously recounted.

As I started wondering 'How many Alfred Borden's are there' Angier starts thinking the same thing as Borden unveils his new illusion which makes him distinctly better and separates him from the pack.  It is as Angier tries to better Borden's trick that the books third primarily character gets involved, and at least in mind, greatly slowed things down.  

Inventor Nikola Tesla is contracted by Angier to build him a electric machine that can duplicate through science that which Angier can't understand how Borden is working his illusion. 

The Prestige is a story of success, rivalry, families and the lives people lead not being what they appear.  Priest does an excellent job of handling the characters voice and making them all sound distinct from each other. It's a very well controlled novel in which the tension between Borden and Angier is always obvious but one in which it's just as easy to tell that there are stronger narrative elements being unravelled than their feud.  It is very absorbing in trying to understand the exact nature of the duplicity that seems to become a theme in itself.  The primarily intrigue is in trying to understand current events that descendants of Borden and Angier go through and putting them in context concerning their ancestors.  It's a long little book one full of many puzzles and magic tricks; the greatest is making you want to start over upon finishing to play the author's game again and see if you got everything right.  

Books of The Year 2012 and Things to Come

I read forty-three books this year; of which three were non-fiction (a record for me); and only one of which was released this year.  All things considered I feel really good about what I read this year and my ever discerning ability to pick out books in new genres and by new authors that I am predisposed to liking.  Like years past there were some high points, some middling 'blah', and some epochal lows.

This year I have to make special mention of my reading saving grace which would unequivocally be young adult fiction.  Everything and everyone from Cassandra Clare, to Lemony Snicket, to Tamora Pierce: you restored my interest in reading tenfold and I'm forever thankful.  I've managed to find a balance in my reading material that has been lost to me ever since I phased out adult fantasy.  The variety keeps me going and the writer's voice that is so wholly different from the high and mighty stuff that I think I've taken a liking too is really refreshing.   

   

And now I'm done babbling…

This is officially not a "Best Books of 2012" list.  As previously noted, I've only read one book from this year.  As such, these are the books that stood out to me--enough to merit some special designation--at the end of my year of reading.  

Most Forgettable Reads

I'm conflicted already.  Can I give this to a book I didn't finish?  Maria once told me that bad books make for great reviews and to that end I've noticed that what I think is my best commentary comes from books I didn't enjoy.  For that very reason I tried--actively tried--to get through Eight White Nights by Andre Aciman if only so I could tell people in detail why I thought it was so awful.  This will have to do…  So let's say I have to give this dubious mention to a book I actually finished as there is a chance against all chances that Eight White Nights redeems itself.  I'd have to go with Breakable You by Brian Morton I liked the story better than Fire by Kristen Cashore but the former was more of a mess.  Actually just stay away from both.  

Biggest Surprise

Young adult fiction as a genre has to get mentioned here for reasons I've already given.  Another surprise in this year's reading is how much I laughed.  BADASS is hysterical.  My Cross to Bear is equally funny for completely different reasons.  Nicole Krauss, Michael Chabon, John Green and of all people C.S. Lewis with The Screwtape Letters all got me laughing; not to mention a vast host of short story writers.  The book that surprised me the most was probably Fire by Kristen Cashore in terms of how much I didn't care for it after loving her first book so much.  

Best New Author Discovery

John Green.  

This couldn't have been easier.  Paper Towns doesn't seem to be anything special in Green's oeuvre kinda like Beethoven's second or eight symphony.  And just like Beethoven if Paper Towns isn't special I can't wait to get to the really good stuff.  He's an insanely popular author, number one bestseller on every list ever who doesn't need me to do any cheer leading for him.  All that said, from about twenty pages into Paper Towns Green's fans were officially Legion plus one.  

And now I'm going to invent a category… 

My Favorite book of 2012

Ones favorite and the perceived or proven best of anything rarely coincide.  My favorite college basketball team didn't win the NCAA championship last year (I'll uphold the belief we were the best until made to contend with insurmountable injuries).  UNC will always be my favorite college basketball team but with books it changes year-to-year and therefor I don't state a case for my favorite book and what I thought was the best.  I don't know why I don't, but there it is.  This year, I don't care… 

No one can tell you how badass Katsa is, you have to read Graceling for yourself and find out.  She is so all-around amazing I want her featured in the next installment of Ben Thompson's BADASS.  Graceling has everything.  If you don't like this book we can't be friends.  

The Best Book I Read in 2012

Anyone remember when the Pulitzer prize committee didn't pick a winner for the fiction category in 2012?  While I wasn't outraged like many in publishing (as if I have anything invested in the matter) I thought it was bullshit.  Now I'm kinda changing my tune.  I read a lot of really good stuff this year.  I can't stress that last sentence enough.  Great stuff like Daniel Martin, The Windup Girl, The History of Love, Hate List, The Glass Room, and The New York Trilogy, but I didn't read anything that absolutely knocked the air out of my lungs.  And I don't want this meager honor to come across as apathetic: all the above books were great, and perhaps that is what I'm struggling with.  The fact that I can't say, "The best book I read this year are the seven books I just mentioned."  It's a good problem to have.

Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr did manage to stand out among all else I read this year.  The tone of voice, pacing, characterization, sensitivity, and sense of reality were all amazing.  It's a sad story but hard to describe as anything but beautiful.  Zarr is without doubt an author I'll be visiting again.      

I didn't read anything from the national book of the year award list for the first time in three years and the oversight was completely accidental.  In 2013 I plan to get through the three books that caught my interest This is How you Lose Her by Junot Diaz, Goblin Secrets by William Alexander and Out of Reach by Carrie Arcos.  Reading three books from those nominated is two more than I usually do but all three of those got me curious. 

As to other books I'm planning on reading in 2013 Andrzej Sapkowski's works are getting further translation and so I hope to look in on Blood of Elves now that it doesn't seem to stand alone.  I have high hopes for this book considering it's acclaim and how much I like The Last Wish, a short story collection by the same author.  Holly Black is a short story writer whose works I've always liked when I've come across them but I've never sought out her fiction.  I plan to do so with Doll Bones, just because it all sounds so bizarre.  Catherynne M. Valente is responsible for the what is easily one of the most original and intriguing series I've ever read with her Dirge for Prester John.  I'm hoping the third and final installment will be out sometime in the coming year.  That's it for what I know of that I'm looking forward but as always this list will grow exponentially as the year goes on.

Lastly, I'm still considering recruiting a few others for the short story blog I mentioned in my previous post and more regular reading of young adult fiction. 

Hoping everyone had an amazing 2012 and that your fridge is overflowing with Bollinger in 2013. 

The Month in Review and of Things to Come

I'm usually late with these end of the month wrap ups so I thought I'd surprise you and post early.  

I saw a whopping two movies this month; both of which were based off books.  Reacher I saw with my sisters and a few cousins Christmas day not because anyone wanted to see it but because there was no consensus and while no one was excited about seeing it everyone could agree to watch it.  That said, it was an enjoyable way to spend two hours and we all had fun.  I think a lot of people read a book and try to envision how it would work on screen.  I watched Reacher and enjoyed it for what it was but could never stop thinking about what would have been expanded, or further developed in the book.  Also, Hollywood still has no clue how head injuries work.  I'm not movie aficionado enough to say where this problem started but a baseball bat to the doom means you're not getting up for a long time...

The other movie I saw I've been actively planning to dislike for the past six months.  The Hobbit was awesome.  I was blown away by how much I liked it.  It didn't feel as long as it was and much like my thoughts on Lord of The Rings; the film (at least this third) far surpassed the book.  Even though it seems to be the norm I'm not yet used to film length pushing upwards of two and half hours, but in the case of The Hobbit it all worked.  Radagast could have been cut out.  (And if he had to be left in did his face really have to be covered in bird shit?  Really?)  It took them far to long to escape goblin town.  And that 'party' in the beginning could have been trimmed but still that movie flew by and was super fun.  

So much fun (and such a tease as to the story's completion) that I picked up the book and read it for the second time in about seventeen years.  I'm not a Tolkien fan.  His pacing and the sense of story aren't for me.  I do like his sense of history and sheer amount of crap he can cram into a book.  My sole exception regarding stuff by Tolkien that I really enjoyed would be The Silmarillion.  It reads like a history book: non-fiction.  That said Guy Gavriel Kay was that books 'ghostwriter' and I like his narrative voice far better than Tolkien's.  

Other books I read this month were Flights, Coraline, and The Club Dumas all of which were excellent.  

Of particular interest I came across a blog call Storied Beginnings this month.  The owner attempted to read a short story a day and leave comments.  I love the idea.  I know I wouldn't be able to follow through.  (And guessing from the last post on that blog I don't think the owner did either.)  It's a bigger task than it sounds, but I think if I had a little help from a few other interested parties I could put together a pretty bad ass blog.  I may work toward that in the new year; anyone reading let me know if you're interested.  

As far as what is to come; I've gotta work on my best of the year awards which will be up soon.  And next month I'm being ambitious and planning to read a fist full of adult stuff and knock out a lot from my unread shelves.  Everything I'm planning on is kinda big so wish me luck.    

Flights: Extreme Visions of Fantasy edited by Al Sarrantonio

I should start off by saying 'I've no idea what 'Flights' is supposed to mean and only a vague idea of what the secondary title is supposed to infer.'  While this bothered me, it didn't affect my enjoyment in reading this mammoth collection.  The unifying element is fantasy of all kinds.  There are some great stories, some great writing and on a few occasions, both at the same time.  

Riding Shotgun by Charles de Lint is the connoisseurs gem in this collection.  A man lives his life in shame as he was the drunk driver in an accident that killed his brother only to be given a second chance and see what would have happen had their places been switched.  What we see in the alternate life is anything but what the narrator expects and he quickly tries to find a way to make sure his brother stays dead.  This was an interesting look at the 'one more chance at life' ghost story and it's de Lint's voice and story twist that make it so special.  

Robert Silverberg in The Sorcerer's Apprentice (that has to be the title of hundreds of short stories and novels) also subverts common troupes as the down on his luck, broke, middle-aged man decides on a career change and puts himself in the tutelage of a younger, beautiful sorcerer and the ensuing relationship is anything but cliched.  

Nina Kiriki Hoffman was not content in giving readers the expected story in Relations where a capricious spirit seeks to enthrall a young man with her spells only to find out that she has been subtlety beaten to the punch and that perhaps, despite her anger at being out witted, she doesn't want to fight against him.  

Aside from the unexpected twist in the familiar settings by short story masters Flights was also filled with a lot of humor.  Tots by Peter Schneider detailed an illegal child fighting ring similar to MMA and while I'll understand if you're skeptical, trust me: it was hilarious.  Tourist by Neal Barrett, Jr. is a realistic bus tour through hell with a particular group of 'little old ladies' who have the most bizarre questions and thoughts on the sights they see.  Fallen Angel by L. E. Modessitt, Jr while not exactly written as comedy has more than enough implied jokes and social thought for those who aren't afraid to laugh at the serious nature of church dogma.  Bill, the Little Steam Shovel was easily the most surprising in the collection.  After all, children's stories and Joe R Lansdale should never be put together.  Happily he started swearing in the third paragraph destroying all pretense and farce.  This story felt like a "Thomas the Train" episode gone horribly wrong, with death, sex, swearing and even morals.  While the story was great--and extremely funny in places--parts felt forced and Lansdale was pigeon holing himself into a character's voice that never really felt his own.    

There was also a handful of very well done 'standard fantasy' tales which are always welcome in an anthology of this size and variety.  The Silver Dragon by Elizabeth A Lynn has everything any fan of traditional secondary world fantasy could want.  A Tower with No Doors by Dennis L. McKiernan reads like a fairy tale in the most comforting sense of the phrase as we see a young prince get himself into trouble with a beautiful, damned, young woman who is more than she seems.  Patricia Mckillip delivers with Out of the Woods as she continues to prove genius in terms of short fiction and not so much in her novels, or at least for this reader.  

It's no stretch to say that there is a fair bit of horror in Flights.  What was easily the best inclusion in the entire, near 600 page collection was Six Hypotheses by Joyce Carol Oates.  It attempts to chronicle an entire family's fall into madness and the 'illness' that claimed them.  It's not scary, nor would I call it uncomfortable.  It is without doubt horror.  It's also brilliant.  Perchance to Dream by David Morrell dealt with a man's unique sleep disorder and how it was affecting his life.  Unfortunately while the story was great and the writing more than held up the psychological revelations at the end underminded the power of my imagination and the resulting conclusion left me a bit angry.  Neil Gaiman's--yes, I'm talking about horror in a fantasy anthology and mentioned Neil Gaiman--The Problem of Susan is a profound look at the sole Pevensie survivor from C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia.  Ever wonder how Susan's life went post-Narnia?  Gaiman, through a contemporary lens that is sure to be at-odds with Lewis, gives us his take.  It's brutal and terse and very unapologetic and probably far more realistic in direction than Lewis would ever have thought to go.  That last one might have been my favorite even if I never did want to think about Edmund being decapitated.  

If Riding Shotgun is only for the hardcore, and Six Hypotheses for the willing adventurous few, then Golden City Far by Gene Wolfe has to be the mass market appeal system seller.  If ever there were a short story I wanted to be expanded into a full blown novel of it's own, this would be it.  (Which is part of the reason Golden City Far works so well as a long short story.)    A schoolboy dreams and treats his dreams as real.  People tell him he's crazy and his psychologist has a hard time pinning down his ailment.  Other people start affecting his dreams and the dream people interact with folks from his school and readers have a very difficult time understanding what is the real reality: school and football or what we thought to be his 'dreams.'  Wolfe has a way of writing that makes me feel that every now and then I skipped a page, but he also empowers me enough to make sense of things on my own.  All is explained at the end and this story is so good that I feel it would justify the purchase of Flights to the reader who didn't like anything else in the collection.    

There were a few that aren't worth mention and a few others that had no appeal to me (the attraction to Tim Powers and Elizabeth Hand still elude me) but as big and varied as Flights is I should think there is more than a little for everyone to like.  Easily the best short story collection I've come across this year and while I haven't read many, the quality of the collections I have read make that last comment hit hard if only to me.