January 2012

Stuff I’ve Been Reading: January 2012

Books followed by slightly inane descriptions of them.

1. Making Money by Terry Pratchett. Aloud in the car, sequel to Going Postal.
2. Farthing by Jo Walton. Alternate history mystery by a SFF author!
3. Ha’penny by Jo Walton. Book two, see above.
4. The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card (20%). Not in the mood.
5. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu. An existential father-son novel, set mostly in a time machine.
6. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle from The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes edited by Leslie S. Klinger. To gear myself up for the BBC Sherlock, which I have mixed feelings about.
7. Greenwitch by Susan Cooper. The Dark Is Rising sequence book three, leftover from December.
8. The Grey King by Susan Cooper. Book four.
9. Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper. Book five.
10. Half a Crown by Jo Walton. Alternate history mystery book three.
11. River of Darkness by Rennie Airth. Post-WWI police procedural, very well done.
12. The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey. A supposedly iconic mystery by a pseudonymous author of whom I’ve never heard. Detective stuck in bed, solves historical mystery about Richard III.
13. Dune by Frank Herbert. I have a crush on Paul Atreides.
14. Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor. Look! Nonfiction! This book is too quotable to review: you’d do far better just to read it yourself.
15. Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert. But I don’t have a crush on this Paul.
16. A Study in Sherlock edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger. Sherlock Holmes-inspired short stories.
17. The Blood-Dimmed Tide by Rennie Airth. Ten years later, police procedural book two.

Best Mystery: Hard to say! Either Jo Walton or Rennie Airth. If I had to commit, I might pick Walton, but it’s terribly close.

Best Science Fiction: Dune.

Best Reread: Holmes, naturally.

A Random Post

1. Powell’s. I have switched from storing my books wishlist at Amazon to Powell’s due to corporate heartlessness and fishy ebook politicking. This is not to say that I will cease to shop at Amazon if the price is right, but that I will give first consideration to the indie bookstore.

2. USPS. So the books I ordered from the indie bookstore are taking an eternity to arrive. They did ship within three days of my online order, but it’s been nine days since then. Why exactly does the United States Postal Service require up to twelve business days to deliver my mail? Why? It’s not like I ordered the books because I felt like not reading them. Seriously, people.

3. Other Uses for Crochet Hooks. They’re wicked at unclogging clogged shower drains.

4. And Speaking of Yarn and Stuff. I can now make fingerless gloves. That’s right. I have yet to make a pair that actually fits me, but I could if I wanted, and in the time that it takes to watch two feature-length films, no less. Guess what everyone’s getting for Christmas?

5. Sherlock Holmes. I sampled the recently published Study in Sherlock edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger. While few of the stories actually featured the great detective, falling more into the realm of “loosely inspired by,” it was still a most enjoyable collection of short mystery stories.

Help! Recommend a historical mystery

I like mysteries.

The detectives can be police or amateurs, the crimes ranging in importance from mysterious happenings to piles of mangled corpses. I don’t care for thrillers, per se, nor necessarily cozies, but I will read them classic, I will read them hardboiled, I will read them intellectual, I will read them comic–and above all I will read them historical.

What I like about mysteries is the character of the detective or detectives (they have to be an interesting person to read about) and the milieu of the crime (it has to be endemic to its location–a crime that could only have happened here, and under these circumstances).

For instance, on a whim I picked up River of Darkness by Rennie Airth, a first book about Inspector John Madden that I am already regretting there are only three of. It’s set in post-WWI England, and Madden is still recovering from his time in the trenches. So, it appears, is the murderer he is hunting. And there are all kinds of brilliant details about the war, and the crime, and the state of law enforcement of the time. Madden is a great protagonist, and the crime is well situated in its historical niche.

My tolerance for mediocre mysteries is high: I read, for instance, more than half of the at-times delightfully campy Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters. I’ve also tried Elizabeth George, Charles Finch, and Wilkie Collins, but none was really for me.

On the other hand, I quite enjoyed Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce mysteries, Christopher Fowler’s Bryant and May mysteries (which are always solved via arcane local knowledge), Jasper Fforde’s nursery crime books, Jo Walton’s alternate history “small change” series, and Christie, Sayers, Doyle, Poe and the rest of the classic troupe.

The problem is, such gems are hard to find, and I want more. More!

So recommend me your engaging historical mysteries, please, with attention to good characterization, tight plotting, and detailed, engaging settings.

The Dark Is Rising Sequence

I read the five books of The Dark Is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper when I was about ten years old (and a paperback sold new for $3.95). It’s about an epic struggle between the Dark and the Light: the Dark is trying to win the earth and the Light is trying to keep the earth for mankind. The protagonists are children and each book stands alone (except the last one).

I loved these books when I was little and enjoyed them again these past couple of weeks. I was surprised by how exactly I remembered them, a sign that they were written well enough to have quite an impression on me at the time.

1. Over Sea, Under Stone is about the Drew siblings–Simon, Jane, and Barney–and their holiday at the Grey House with their mysterious Great Uncle Merry, who turns out to be an Old One for the light. They find a treasure map that leads them to a Thing of Power that they must keep away from the Dark.
2. The Dark Is Rising is about Will Stanton, the seventh son of a seventh son and the last Old One to be born. On his eleventh birthday he comes into his powers and with the help of Merriman will find the six Signs and unite them before Midwinter.
3. The Greenwitch sees the Drews and Will together, back at the vacation home, tying up loose ends from the first adventure. Jane is the main character of this one, which might be why I remember liking it best.
4. The Grey King sees Will traveling in Wales, alone on a quest to wake the Sleepers with the help of Bran Davies, a boy with an unusual heritage. Winner of the Newbery Award and the one I like best as an adult.
5. And in Silver on the Tree, the Drews, Will, Bran Davies, and Merriman (or Merriman Lyon, or Merry Lyon, or Merlion, or Merlin) unite to fight the last battle, in Wales and throughout history, to keep the Dark from rising at last.

These books were a delight, and I’m glad some subconscious spontaneity spurred me to pick up the first one again.  They made an excellent interlude while I waited for my third Jo Walton alternate history-mystery to arrive in the mail. And now I’m off to read Half a Crown.

Good thing I didn’t make a resolution

I’m glad, in hindsight, that I did not formalize the resolution I contemplated about diligently reviewing every single book I read this year. If I had done so, I would find myself already six reviews behind. Since I had the wisdom, or perhaps the foresight, not to set myself up for failure, I can in good conscience leave you with only a list of brief descriptions.

• Making Money by Terry Pratchett. In this sequel to Going Postal, the con man turned postmaster general Moist von Lipwig tackles the Royal Bank. We read this book aloud in the car during our Thankstmas Oklarkansas road trips in November and December.
• Farthing by Jo Walton. Thanks to the excellent taste of the Nickersons, I thoroughly enjoyed this alternate history mystery featuring Peter Carmichael. After making peace with Nazi Germany, the corrupt politicians of Great Britain try to consolidate power.
• Ha’penny by Jo Walton. Sequel to Farthing. The last book, Half a Crown, is in the mail and cannot arrive soon enough.
• The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card (20%). Despite an action-filled opening, I couldn’t get hooked on this story of Danny, a gatemage whose forbidden magic makes him hunted by his own family.
• How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional Universe by Charles Yu. Charles Yu fixes time machines. When he unexpectedly comes across himself, he unfortunately shoots himself, leading him into a time loop that forces him to come to terms with his unhappy relationship with his father, the inventor of time travel, who has been missing since Charles was seventeen. Snappy writing and delightful meta-commentary about science fiction make this a perfect afternoon read for science fiction fans.
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle from The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes edited by Leslie S. Klinger. What is there left to say about the best of the best Sherlock Holmes stories, complete with snarky footnotes? I love Sherlock Holmes.

Look! Publication!

I am very pleased to announce that my short story, “Others,” has been published at Residential Aliens. Here’s the first paragraph:

Edward spotted them as soon as he stepped onto the train platform. They, the Others, had a strange shimmer about them, a distortion of the air as if heat from the desert sands were pouring out of their skin. As far as Edward could tell, he was the only one able to see them: the other people on the platform, the regular ones, pushed past the two men and the woman, whose traveling dress was slightly shabby, without even a first glance.

Go here to read the rest of it. Enjoy!

2011 Books (156)

This was the Year of Fantasy.

After I finished my graduate degree in May, I looked around me and realized I could read whatever I wanted. So instead of all the required reading I previously had to do (about thirty books a semester, give or take), I read Fantasy and Science Fiction.

And oh, how wonderful it was. I unabashedly read more genre this year than in any previous year. I reread the Thief series by Megan Whalen Turner. I read the second two Hundred Thousand Kingdoms books by N. K. Jemisin. I read as many Terry Pratchett books as I could reach. I read six novels by K. J. Parker (and Parker interprets “novel” as no fewer than five hundred pages, on point of honor). Six by Patricia A. McKillip, three by Caroline Stevermer. And I read a thousand-page anthology of science fiction stories.

I didn’t stop reading in Literary Fiction or Mystery or even Nonfiction, but I did go a little crazy on the reading-for-pleasure streak. I may not have read as many books this year as in years past, but it’s entirely possible that I enjoyed the reading more. Which is what matters, after all.

Goal for 2012: More Nonfiction!

What are your reading goals?