bookshelves of doom

I need more books on my TBR list Iike I need a hole in the head...

Second half of the sentence #1:  ...SO I'm glad to see that I've already read most of these recommendations, including Sunshine, His Majesty's Dragon, the Earthsea books and Eon: Dragoneye Reborn.  I read a good number of the Pern books back in middle school, but the only part of that series I've been interested in revisiting is the Harper Hall trilogy.  I'm sad that she didn't mention Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, though.

Second half of the sentence #2:  ...BUT what's one more?  After all, it's free.  And a whole pile of people have recommended that I read Charlie Huston.

Sky Coyote: The Company, #2 -- Kage Baker

If you're unfamiliar with Dr. Zeus, Inc. and what it does, see this post.

1699.  Facilitator Joseph, who has just spent many years with the Church in various roles -- not the least of which was serving with the Spanish Inquisition -- has been given a new assignment:  to appear to the Chumash people as their trickster god, Sky Coyote, and to convince them to avoid annihilation at the hands of the coming white men -- by leaving their own world forever.

Before even picking it up, I was worried that I wouldn't enjoy Sky Coyote as much as I'd enjoyed In the Garden of Iden.  For one thing, my love for the first book was due in part to Mendoza's voice.  For another, it seemed that the responses to this one were pretty mixed -- some people loved it, others said to skip it.

I'm glad that I didn't.  Because I fell squarely into the LOVE camp.  I think, actually, that I might even prefer Joseph's voice to Mendoza's -- though it might just be that I found his perspective more exciting.  Whatever the reason, poor Josh got an earful while I read this one, and then he got even more of an earful after I'd finished.  Blather city.

Major reason for the love:  Joseph's voice.  He's been around since the very beginning -- his father's cave paintings were some of the earliest works of art that the Company preserved -- and despite his cynicism (in regards to human nature and in regards to the Company) and despite his worries (about his current mission, about Mendoza, about the rapidly approaching future -- a future that he and the other immortals know very little about), his sense of humor remains intact, and his love of noir fiction often sneaks through into his dialogue and his description.

Some people, I think, may be put off by the extremely modern-sounding Chumash, but I loved that style choice -- I attributed it to Joseph's storytelling and to his translation, which made me enjoy it all the more.  But I could see how it would be a bit of a shock, especially when compared to the extremely different stylistic choices made in the first book. 

For me, this one wasn't really about the plot -- I didn't think it really mattered all that much.  Not a whole lot happened, really.  But I was so engrossed that I didn't even really realize that until I'd finished the book.  Because in Sky Coyote, Kage Baker really begins to lay out some of the dark, scary, shadowy aspects of the Company.  And suddenly, the existence of the immortal operatives seems very perilous -- not because of their work in our past, but because of their creators in our future.

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Book source:  ILLed from another library.  Because my library has NO books by Kage Baker.  NONE.  Still.  So now I will ILL #3.

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I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.  Why, you ask?  Well, gosh.  How else will I ever hire the Company to bring back the dodo?

How much food do you have stockpiled?

Because today is the day that NASA will bomb the moon!  You can follow their progress at the NASA website.

Hell.  We have practically no canned goods.

At least we have a lot of firewood.

If you've read the Pfeffer books, you understand my fears.  GAH!!

If you haven't read Life As We Knew It or The Dead & The Gone, you probably think I've gone bananas.  (You should read them.  Then you can go bananas with the rest of us.)

[Sidenote:  I like typing the word 'bananas'.]

Slush Reading, Seuss Style.

From Jim C. Hines' Slush I Read:

Do you like fanfic with vamps?

I do not like them Mary Sue.
Why do these vamps all worship you?

Go!  Go!  Go read the entire thing, it all its hilarious glory!

(via OUP)

Not Tim Burton's Alice.

Hmmm.  I do like the shrinking room.  And the cast is way more interesting than Tim Burton's cast.

So, should I give Tin Man another chance or what?  I watched the first installment, but the pacing was so weird and it seemed like it was trying too hard and sometimes Zooey just... doesn't doing it for me.  And I found Claire from 90210 ridiculous rather than menacing.  Those lame tattoos?  Also... she's CLAIRE.

(via educating alice)

In the Garden of Iden: The Company, #1 -- Kage Baker

I'm hugely irritated that I can't remember who recommended this to me or where it caught my eye.  Because Big Thanks are in order.

In the Garden of Iden begins:

I am a botanist.  I will write down the story of my life as an exercise, to provide the illusion of conversation in this place where I am now alone.  It will be a long story, because it was a long road that brought me here, and it led through blazing Spain and green, green England and ever so many centuries of Time.  But you'll understand it best if I begin by telling you what I learned in school.

For me, that was that.  For the next 300 pages, I belonged to Mendoza.  Because, with that first paragraph, I believed in her and she made me want to know everything, everything, everything.

Fast forward to the distant-ish future: 

Dr. Zeus, Inc. semi-successfully figures out immortality.  There are enough drawbacks -- a major one being that it only really works well on children, rather than on "middle-aged millionaires" -- that it isn't a marketable process, but still.

Dr. Zeus, Inc. also figures out time travel.  It isn't particularly marketable, either, because it is only possible to travel to your own past and back again.  And because history cannot be changed.

BUT.  That bit -- the bit about history?  It only applies to recorded history.

Which opens up some serious windows of opportunity.

And now back to 1541-ish, where Mendoza's story begins:

As a nameless, friendless child, she is rescued from the dungeons of the Spanish Inquisition by an agent of The Company.  She is swept away to a secret location in Australia, where she is taught and trained and physically altered:

It wasn't all that different from any particularly demanding boarding school, except that of course nobody ever went home for the holidays and we had a lot of brain surgery. (45)

For the rest of her life -- which will be forever, as she's now immortal -- she will work behind the scenes of history, collecting and preserving plant life for use in the future.

This book is the story of her first mission and of her first love.

Sorry about the ridiculously long description.  I guess I could have just said that it's a SF novel that reads in some ways like historical fiction and in other ways like a coming-of-age story:

"Characterization is very important in the field.  I don't think you've exactly got a handle on that, yet."

"I have too," I said hotly.  "I think I'm portraying a late medieval Spanish adolescent very well."

"No.  You are a late medieval Spanish adolescent.  It's not a role for you, not yet." (145)

And instead of blathering on, I could just have said that it brought Jasper Fforde's Thursday Nextbooks to mind -- not at all in tone or style, mind you -- because it deals with a group of people who work behind the scenes of our world, manipulating things while the majority of us just swan on through our lives, unaware.  I could have just said that it's one of those books in which I loved the ideas and the worldbuilding just as much as the narrative voice and the characters -- and I loved Mendoza's voice and the other characters very much indeed.  (Actually, I did just say all that.)  But I went on and on about the set-up because I just think it's so dang cool. 

So, yes.  Love love love.  Full of heart and full of brains and full of spunk and full of emotion.  (Though I did think that the last fifth-or-so felt really rushed and it very suddenly got way heavy, which made me suspect that some of the Heavy Stuff was a Way of Setting Up Our Heroine's Tragic Past and to give her A Reason to Question Her Situation in Future Installments, but I could be wrong.)  Do not, do not, do not let the atrocious cover (that comes nowhere near suggesting the storyline, let alone the tone of the book) scare you off.

Every time I hear about the rediscovery of a species previously thought long-extinct, I will think of The Company.  And I will wonder.

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Book souce:  ILLed from another library.  Because my library has NO books by Kage Baker.  NONE.  Needless to say, I've put in a request in for the second one.

Here's one to look forward to...

...Maureen Johnson's new series, which involves modern-day Jack the Ripper killings and a British paranormal police force.

Aaaand the first one is due out mid 2011.

Rats.

Leviathan trailer.

Oh, wow.

This book has Josh written all over it:

Free stuff.

The entirety of Scott Westerfeld's Uglies.

And a 40 pages of Kristin Cashore's Fire.

Linda Buckley-Archer just racked up some serious points*.

In her list of Top Ten Time-Travel Stories, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency comes in at #4, just after H.G. Wells, Mark Twain and Virginia Woolf.  I can live with that.

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*So many points, in fact, that I will give Gideon the Cutpurse another try -- I started it ages ago, but got distracted by something else.

Free Lisa McMann short.

For all fans of Wake and Fade, there's a short story about Cabel available here.

My zombie prediction:

They (you know -- THEY) are going to saturate the market and ruin the fun.

The zombie Beatles?  REALLY?

The Fugs...

...reference BOTH Sweet Valley High and Thursday Next.

Rock on, ladies.

D.A. -- Connie Willis

Theodora Baumgarten has been awarded an insanely coveted spot as an IASA space cadet.  Even though she, unlike pretty much every person her age, didn't apply.  And even though she, unlike pretty much every person her age, didn't even consider applying, because she doesn't. want. to go. to space.

She ends up at the Academy a few short hours after her position is announced, but she certainly isn't going to take this lying down.  Not only is she going to get back to Earth -- with the help of a hacker friend -- she's going to winnow out the hows, whys and whos behind what she considers an abduction.

This is only the second Connie Willis I've read -- and so far, she and I are two-for-two.  I'm feeling the Connie Willis love.  D.A. = WAY FUN.

At 76 pages (including full-page illustrations (which oddly creeped me out a bit), biggish margins and smallish pages), it's short even for a novella.  It's more like a longish short story that doesn't have to share space with a bunch of other stories.  Which was fine by me, because, as I said, I loved it.

I enjoyed Theodora's voice, the story is funny and smart and riffs on SF (but affectionately), the slang felt right and real and never like the author was trying too hard, I believed in Theodora's friendship with Kimkim, the hows and whys and whos worked for me as did the ending.  It's one, I think, that would go over well with SF fans as well as being totally accessible to non-SF readers. 

Suggestions for more funny Connie Willis?  I've read a bit about some of her novels and it doesn't sound like they fall into that category...

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Previously:

Inside Job

Catching Fire: The Second Book of the Hunger Games -- Suzanne Collins Read for the 4th Annual 48-Hour Book Challenge.

I can't say much about Catching Fire, as it's not out until September and I don't want to risk spoilers.

I found it a very tense read, both emotionally gripping and action-packed.  I read it, like its predecessor, in one sitting, and except for one rather major issue with the plotting which I can't go into for obvious reasons, I really enjoyed it.

I'll write about it at length when the pub date arrives, of course. 

And I'll continue to proudly wear my mockingjay pin until then.

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Previous Challenge Reads:

The Name of the Game Was Murder
Bloody Jack
Wild Girls
Nobody's There

Two links I meant to post yesterday.

• First up was this article at PW (via Jackie on Twitter):

Four members of a library board in West Bend, Wis., were dismissed last week for refusing to remove controversial books from the library’s young adult section—and yesterday, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the National Coalition Against Censorship, the Association of American Publishers and PEN American Center criticized the firings.

An earlier article from a local paper says that the board members were "not reappointed", which is different than being dismissed (at least in my mind -- being dismissed would suggest that they hadn't been allowed to serve out their terms).  BUT.  If the city board members voted against reappointing the library board members solely because the library board members refused to vote in favor of pulling those books, it kind of amounts to the same thing, doesn't it?

• And, if you haven't seen it yet:  The Art of Penguin Science Fiction.  (Thanks for the reminder, HBS Steve.)

Link-o-rama.

This is so great I'm not even going to make you click through for the picture:

 

But you really should for the commentary.  (via OWC)

• This article is from earlier in the month, and I can't say I find it all that surprising, but here it is anyway:  French teenagers bitten by the Emily Brontë bug.  You know why, right?  Yep.  The Twilight books.
• The real Killer Unicorn book cover has been released.  OR SO THE AUTHOR SAYS.

• I heart you, John Scalzi.  I am wishing Zoe's Tale the best of luck in the Locus Awards.

• The Littlest Edward has a new home.  And many friends.

Book Award Wonderland.

• The LA Times Book Awards were announced.  Terry Pratchett's Nation*won the YA prize.  The YA runners up -- two of which I just added to my TBR list -- are at the bottom of this list.
• The Nebula Award winners, and a YA novel won in the Best Novel category!  Nice.  And Flora's Dare won the Andre Norton.  I can't believe I haven't gotten to that one yet.  I loved the first one.
• One of the winners of the Tiptree Award also a YA book(and another one I haven't read yet, damnit).  Tons of info-- including the full honors list, where there are many more YA titles -- at Gwenda's.
• The Shirley Jackson shortlist has been released, with Tender Morsels in the running for Best Novel.
• Not exactly a book award, but related: Steph Bowe at Hey, Teenager of the Year is going forward with her blog award, so stop by, vote and discover some new feeds for your reader.

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*No, I still haven't read it.  But I'm starting to feel that I should.  It's just that I haven't had a ton of luck with his books**, and I figure that he's already got a bazillion and six cheerleaders, so... you know.  I'd rather read stuff that I'm more likely to enjoy.  But maybe I've just been picking the wrong titles.

**Color of Magic (meh), Mort (really liked it -- I do love his Death character), Good Omens (pretty much loved that one, mostly for Death) and The Amazing Maurice and his What-sit (didn't finish it).

Fade -- Lisa McMann

Spoilers about the first book will abound, so I'd suggest skipping this entire post if you're planning to read Wake.  So go and read that book and then come back.  It's short, I'll wait.

Ready?  Okay.

High school seniors Janie and Cabel are now both working undercover for the police department -- Cabe noses around, gets people to trust him and winnows information out of them, while Janie uses her talent/curse to pull clues out of the minds of nearby dreamers.  They need to keep their romance a secret until the drug case that brought them together is over and done with -- otherwise, their narc status could be blown. 

Now Captain Fran Komisky has them working on a new case -- one that could be especially dangerous for Janie, as they're trying to identify a teacher who may be a sexual predator.  As one might expect, the very protective Cabe has an extremely hard time staying on the sidelines.  Meanwhile, Janie is learning more and more about her power -- and hardly any of the knowledge is good news.

I enjoyed Fade more than its predecessor, though I'm still in the minority in that I'm not in love with the series.  I still feel that there's loads more tell than show in the text, I don't feel that there's much in the way of character development, and I still find key parts of the premise hard to believe.  (It's not Janie's ability.  It's that the police department has Janie, a minor, on the payroll.  Without parental permission, even.)

That said, I appreciate the spareness of the prose, and McMann's style -- lots of sentence fragments and the present tense -- is very effective in ramping up the suspense.  I totally see why these are such a hit.  Highly recommended for the reluctant reader crowd, especially those who want gritty stories with lots of heavy issues, action and mystery.  Not recommended for people looking for gentle books with no sex, drugs, swearing, etc., etc., etc.

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Previously:

Wake

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Yep.

Seth Grahame-Smith, co-author (with Jane Austen) of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies*, has landed a two book deal.

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*Which I'm currently reading and enjoying -- it reads exactly like what it is:  an abridged version of P&P, with mucho gore, many battles, zombies and ninjas.  It's pretty choppy, but fun regardless.  And the cover art is even better in person.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth -- Carrie Ryan

Mary's whole life has been lived behind a fence.  Within the fence, she has her family, friends, everything she knows and loves.  The Guardians are there to protect and the Sisterhood is there to lead. 

Beyond the fence is the unknown.  Which might sound attractive to those with the urge to explore -- people like Mary -- but there's something else beyond the fence that, while unexplained, isn't exactly unknown:  the hordes of ravening Unconsecrated.  Get too close and you're dead, torn apart and eaten.  If you're bitten, it won't be long before you're one of them.

I don't think the word 'zombie' is ever used in The Forest of Hands and Teeth, but, yes.  That's what we're dealing with.  HOWEVER.  All of you "I don't like horror!!" people, don't count yourselves out yet -- because this book doesn't read like a horror novel.  It reads like a historical novel set in a dystopian world. 

I hope we're going to see more and more books -- like this one and Skin Hunger and the Kiss books -- that mix different genres (or at least the traditional feels of different genres).  Not only do I really enjoy them (which is obviously a plus), but I think they must act as a genre gateway drug for people?  Right?  I mean, they must.  If they don't, they totally should.  Why aren't you people walking through the genre gateways??  ...  Anyway.

My favorite aspect of the book is a bit spoilerish, so feel free to ignore this:  I liked the idea of the zombie apocalypse happening and the survivors being so isolated and far-flung that a) they don't know about each other and b) generations later, their cultures have evolved in completely different ways.  It's a cool idea and makes for a lot of possible stories and situations and I'm always happy when culture clash is thrown into the mix.  Okay.  Spoilerish moment over.

My main problem with it was that the only character (narrator included) I really, genuinely liked was Harry -- I didn't dislike the others, but I never got attached or cared all that much for them.  That might be on me: as it's a zombie story, I knew from the start that there'd be some casualties, so I may have been holding my emotions in check, refusing to get attached.  But it was noticeable enough that I thought I'd mention it. 

And while the following wasn't a problem for me, I imagine that a lot of readers will be frustrated that the book ends without many (any?) answers.  The lack of answers totally makes sense considering the knowledge/background of the narrator and the storyline, but that logic isn't going to stop some readers from wanting to throw things when they reach the end of the book.  (I didn't, because I am calm and mature.  But I can imagine how someone might feel like that.)  To those readers, never fear:  Carrie Ryan is working on a sequel.  Of sorts.

And just because I need to get this out of my system:  YAY ZOMBIES!!

Unwind -- Neal Shusterman

Wow.  Wow.  Woooooooooooow.  And also whoa.

Unwind was outstanding.

I know I'm one of the last to read it, but for those few who are even more far behind than me:

Generations from now, after the Heartland War, life is protected from the moment of conception until age thirteen.  Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, the parents or guardians of the now-teenaged child have the option to "unwind" -- to retroactively abort -- him or her.  If the parents choose to do so, the teen is sent to a harvesting facility where their body is taken apart and reused. 

According to the authorities, to the adults signing the order and to most of the rest of the population, the unwindee's life isn't technically ending because every part is reused in someone else's body.  That isn't necessarily much of a comfort to the person who is to be unwound.

Connor screws up one too many times, so his parents sign the unwind order.

Risa is a ward of the state and is being unwound as a cost-cutting measure.

Lev is a tithe:  his unwinding has been planned from birth.

When chance brings the three together, they end up on the run.  If they manage to stay hidden until they turn eighteen, they'll be free to re-enter society, no questions asked. 

I say again:  Unwind was outstanding.  Really freaking outstanding.

I was impressed by, well, everything.  It deals with abortion without ever ever ever feeling preachy -- I didn't once feel that Neal Shusterman revealed his opinion on the issue.  It was action-packed and exciting (I read the last few chapters with my heart in my throat) yet that there was so much to think about -- the characters have conversations about the soul, whether it exists and where it is, and about when life begins.  There are things that can be interpreted in different ways -- some people will attribute those events to science whereas some may attribute the same events to something less tangible. 

The three major characters have distinct personalities, and the character development (especially of the two boys) is very well done and the secondary characters never blend together or into the background.  The unwinding scene is as stomach-turning as anything I've ever read by Stephen King, but without being graphic or gory.  While exploring different visions of our future world, I look for a couple of things beyond the future-stuff:  to see enough of the familiar to make it still seem like our world and to see how our language and stories have evolved.  In Unwind, I found both.

I'm so glad I finally read it.  Highly, highly recommended if you'd like a page-turning actionfest that is ALSO original and thoughtful.  It'd make for a great (if possibly loud) book discussion.

No no no no no no no no no no NO!

So there I was, innocently catching up on my feed reader after a few days of loafing, and there it was:

The Worst Book-to-Film News of All Time.

I am devastated.

Also...

...I really want to read this book.

The Running Man -- Stephen King writing as Richard Bachman

When I finally got around to reading The Hunger Games a few weeks back, I mentioned that it made me want to re-watch The Running Man and Death Race 2000, re-read Stephen King's The Long Walk, read Battle Royale and get my hands on any other dystopian story that dealt with reality television and our role as audience.  A commenter suggested that rather than watch The Running Man, I should read it, as the book was far, far superior to the movie.  So I did.

And he was right.

The year is 2025.  Ben Richards hasn't been able to find regular work for years.  His young daughter comes down with the flu, and it's so bad that she clearly needs a real doctor -- not, as Ben puts it, "a block midwife with dirty hands and whiskey breath".

So he heads across town to the Network Games Building.  Contestants on Free-Vee shows like Treadmill to Bucks, Swim the Crocodiles and How Hot Can You Take It rarely survive, but their families get the winnings.  And there's always a chance that he'll make it -- he's a powerful man, smart and determined.

But he gets assigned to The Running Man.  Which is basically a death warrant.  In the six years it's aired, not a single man has survived.  He'll get a twelve-hour head start.  After that, he'll be fair game.  Not just to the Hunters that The Network will send out -- regular citizens will get reward money for providing tips on his whereabouts, and they'll get even more if they kill him.  If he survives for 30 days, he'll win one billion dollars.  If he doesn't, his family will receive one hundred dollars for every hour he's free -- and one hundred dollars for every pursuer he kills.

This was a one sitting book for me -- I actually tried to go to bed with twenty chapters unread, but after tossing and turning and tossing some more I finally resigned myself to a serious lack of sleep, got up and finished it.  I ended up exhausted but content.  It's a very fast-paced book -- none of the chapters are more than three pages long, and rather than chapter titles, there's a countdown.  By the time I hit ...Minus 020 and COUNTING..., I was so amped up and tense that it's ridiculous that I even attempted to go to bed. 

As per usual with Stephen King, I felt this story in my chest and in my gut -- reading him is almost always a very visceral experience for me.  And there were a couple of passages that made my stomach flip around in an extremely unpleasant manner.  One of them involved intestines.  But The Running Man was more than action and gross-outs -- this extremely ugly vision of the future isn't exactly enjoyable, but Ben Richards is.  He's angry and smart and unpredictable, all traits I enjoy in a hero.  And the world, while bleak, is an interesting one -- obviously there's the futuristic aspect, but there's also a huge class divide, and within the classes, there seems to also be a huge racial and cultural divide as well -- and rather than do any explaining at the beginning, Stephen King just drops you into the thick of it. 

In the introduction (when it comes to Stephen King books, the introductions are always worth reading), he discusses all of the books he published under this pseudonym.  About The Running Man, he says, "...which may be the best of them because it's nothing but story--it moves with the goofy speed of a silent movie, and anything which is not story is cheerfully thrown over the side."  I don't think he's giving himself enough credit.

Lesson learned?  Reality television is evil.

(cross-posted at Guys Lit Wire)

Andre Norton shortlist.

Ooo.  Nice list:

Graceling - Kristin Cashore
Lamplighter - D.M. Cornish (Monster Blood Tattoo, Book 2)
Savvy - Ingrid Law
The Adoration of Jenna Fox - Mary E. Pearson
Flora’s Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room) - Ysabeau S. Wilce

Love Graceling!  And Lamplighter!  And I must read the other three.  I can't believe I haven't gotten to them yet!  Grrr.  Oh, and note that Little Brother and Powers are both up for a Nebula in the regular novel category.  Oh, and that Superpowers book.  I've been meaning to get to that one for ages.

I probably shouldn't have spent my snow day yesterday re-reading Something, Maybe, working on a jigsaw puzzle and watching The Family Guy.  Damn.

Because the Jane Austen/zombies mash-up isn't enough...

...there's a movie called Pride and Predator in the works.

I'm so there.

The Hunger Games: The Hunger Games, Book 1 -- Suzanne Collins

I'm probably the only person on the planet who hadn't gotten to this one yet, so I'll keep this short.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen lives in District Twelve of Panem, a nation located in the area formerly known as North America.  Life in District Twelve is harsh for many reasons, not the least of which is a serious lack of food -- death by starvation is not an unusual occurrence.  Since her father's death four years ago, Katniss has been the family's main provider.  While handling weapons, leaving the confines of the district and hunting are all punishable by death, the local authorities like fresh meat as much as anyone else, so they turn a blind eye to her activities. 

Although Katniss has confidence in her survival skills, she knows that volunteering for The Hunger Games is suicide.  Every year, two children are chosen at random from each district -- when her younger sister's name is drawn, Katniss knows that she doesn't have a choice. 

So.  Katniss Everdeen and twenty-three others.  In an arena.  In a fight to the death.  While the entire country watches them on television.

Yeah.  Those of you who have already read this one will not be surprised to hear that I read this book in one sitting.  It's super fast paced and the story is told in the present tense, which I felt added a good amount of suspense about what the ultimate outcome would be -- after all, just because there's a sequel in the works doesn't necessarily mean that it'll be about the same characters! 

While it's action packed and written primarily in short sentences and sentence fragments, I didn't feel that the book lacked depth -- the world building is strong and the character development is decent.  I'm curious, especially, to see how the politics of the world will play into the next installment, and I'm dying to see if my suspicions about some of the minor characters will prove correct... 

More than anything else, I was surprised to discover that there was less one-on-one violence than I'd have expected -- rather than being a big endless fight, The Hunger Games was more a survival story than anything else.  While I wait for the sequel, I'm going to order a copy of Battle Royale to tide me over.  And maybe Netflix The Running Man.  And Death Race 2000.  And maybe re-read The Long Walk.  Other suggestions?

Robots for sale.

These are so, so cool:

 

(via boing boing)

This one's for Mali:

John Christopher's Tripods trilogy is being adapted for the big screen.

This deserves a post all its own.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

(Thanks, Beth!)

Singing the Dogstar Blues -- Alison Goodman

Seventeen-year-old Joss Aaronson has been kicked out of over ten schools, has an attitude problem and would rather play her harmonica and drink sake than go out of her way to ingratiate herself with any authority figures.  Even after a huge donation from her famous tele-journalist mother, she only just barely made it into the twelve person class at the Centre for Neo-Historical Studies.  So it's a surprise to everyone when she is chosen by the Chorian delegation to partner up with the Centre's first-ever alien student.

I read Singing the Dogstar Blues for the first time years and years ago, but then recently decided to revisit it after reading a short story in the Firebirds Rising collection that dealt with the same characters.

It begins:

I saw the assassin before she saw me.  She was eating noodles at one of the hawker bars, watching the university gates.  I knew she was a killer because old Lenny Porchino had pointed her out to me at the Buzz Bar two nights ago.

"Hey, take a look at that skinny kid with the frizzy hair," he'd said, nodding his head towards the doors behind me.

We were sitting in Lenny's private booth, hidden from general view.  I shifted in my seat until I could see her.  Skinny, frizzy, and mean.

"What about her?" I said, banging my harmonica against the flat of my hand.  I had just finished jamming with the band and my harp was full of slag.

"That's Tori Suka.  She's a culler for the hyphen families.  If she's in town, someone's gonna die."

As you may have guessed, there's a ton of slang, and Joss doesn't go out of her way to explain it (which I, of course, loved), but it's easy to pick up the meanings of the words from the context.  She does give quite a lot of background on the history and science of their futuristic world and culture, but it is mostly done in a way that relates to her personal situation and how it differs from most other peoples', so it doesn't feel out of place or too info-dumpy.

I saw the solutions to the mysteries -- the identity of Joss' father and the identity of Tori Suka's target -- a mile away, and I thought the showdown at the end was a bit weak, but all of the other strengths of the book (Joss' voice, her developing friendship with Mavkel, the world-building) more than made up for that weakness.  And, in a way, knowing what was coming before Joss figured everything out added quite a lot of tension to the last quarter of the book.  Well, it did for me, anyway.  Oh, and I thought the time jump was done very well -- I do love that puzzle-pieces-clicking-into-place feeling. 

So, yeah.  I'm really glad that I re-read this one.  I especially loved the world -- which brought to mind a better-lit version of Blade Runner: The High School Years crossed with Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series -- and it's one that I'd definitely read more about.  But I'll content myself with reading Alison Goodman's new book, which sounds like a trip and a half.

I'm sure you've seen that...

...Michael Crichton died.

Until now, I had no idea that he wrote and directed Westworld:

We watched it not all that long ago, and it was amazingly amazing, if you go in for that sort of stuff. 

I'm sorry, Scott Westerfeld!!!

Josh:  This isn't really a great place to leave a glass of water.

Me:  Dammit.  Did it hit anything?

Josh:  Well, there wasn't much left.  But you should probably apologize to Scott Westerfeld.

Catching up on my RSS feeds.

This article prompted an awesome discussion at the circ desk this morning:

Does YA sell so well simply because teens have more free time? "Certainly teens have more time to read, but they also are less genre-identified," New York Times best-selling YA and SF author Scott Westerfeld says in an e-mail interview. "I've met adults who read only Tom Clancy knockoffs, for example. But teens haven't specialized nearly as much as adults, in reading as in everything else. Quite simply, this means that SF for a YA audience is going to get a larger slice of the population, not just the 10 percent of us who don't mind having a spaceship on the cover at age 30.

"This brings me to another point about sales comparisons: Teens are more networked than adults," Westerfeld adds. "When they really like a book, they make their friends read it and ostracize those who don't. Yay, them."

We at the circ desk heart you, Scott Westerfeld!!

I hope all pictures of my fourth grade Romana I Halloween costume (complete with homemade Tracer!) have been lost.

Because Io9 is collecting pictures of Best (or Most Humiliating) Halloween costumes.

It never occurred to poor little deluded fourth-grade me that not a single person would know who I was... 

 

...and that when I explained, I would experience either heavy mocking or the dreaded "...oh" response.  Growing up geeky.  Sigh. 

Bill Murray, Saoirse Ronan and Tim Robbins on the City of Ember movie.

From SciFi.com:

The city of Ember itself was built practically for this film. In this era of computer imagery and green screens, what was it like to be immersed in a real world like that?

Ronan: We didn't actually have a lot of green-screen scenes. It was an amazing set that [production designer] Martin Laing had designed. And it was in Belfast. It was in the Titanic quarters: It was actually where the Titanic was built and painted. Or was it where it was painted? No, it wasn't. It was just where it was built. But, so, it was huge. And the whole city ... was actually like a little mini-city. So there wasn't that much green screen at all. ... We didn't really have to imagine what the city would look like.

Murray: Yeah, well, when you walk in and there's a street and an underground city that's 55 or 60 feet high with tunnels underneath it, and there's decaying doors and windows and bricks built as a street and concrete and plaster that's made its walls, real doors that open, real glass and beautiful design work, too, the emblems of the city built into the street and into the fountains in the street, fountains that work, ... it's not so hard to say, "I'm living in a crumbling society" when you walk in for work and there it is. It was so simple. And the costumes as well, ... the best costumes I've ever worn. The most beautiful I've ever seen in any film, by far.

(via SF Signal)

It's good to be Eoin Colfer.

Not only has he signed a contract to write a new Hitchhiker's book*, Airman is going to be made into a movie.

___________________________________

*Insert Marge Simpson-ish "hrrrmh" here.

My feelings are mixed, to say the least.

From the Guardian:

Douglas Adams's increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy is to be extended to six titles, after Adams's widow Jane Belson sanctioned a project which will see children's author Eoin Colfer taking up the story.

Okay, so on the one hand:  I hated Artemis Fowl and I generally don't like it when people continue the work of much-beloved-but-sadly-deceased authors (see Anne of Green Gables, Harriet the Spy, John Bellairs, etc.).

But on the OTHER hand:  Douglas Adams wanted another book in the series, I was totally devastated by the end of Mostly Harmless (I was also, like, twelve), that new-ish Eoin Colfer book does sound pretty awesome so I've been meaning to give him another chance anyway, and Eoin Colfer is so popular that this book will introduce the work Douglas Adams to a whole ton of teens.  Also, he seems very humbled by the idea.

And then there are the things that end up on both hands, like the fact that he's not trying to emulate Douglas Adams.  So, on the one hand, what's the point?  But on the other, I could see that as a good thing, too.

It is way too early in the morning for me to be dealing with something this large.  I might have to go back to bed.

Zoe's Tale -- John Scalzi

While I do keep an eye on his blog, this was my first John Scalzi novel.  From what I understand, Zoe's Tale is a retelling of The Last Colony, the third book in his Old Man's War trilogy*.  The narrator is Zoe Boutin-Perry, the adopted daughter of John Perry, the hero of the OMW trilogy.  Her parents, John and Jane Perry, have been offered -- and have accepted -- the positions of colony leaders of a new colony.  Though Zoe loves her home well enough, she's eager to pack up the rest of the family (her dog Babar and her two alien bodyguards) and GO.

While she seemed a whole lot younger than seventeen (especially considering her past), and while her narration does suffer from Someone-Else-Is-Totally-Writing-My-Dialogue Syndrome (a la Juno), I loved Zoe and I loved her voice.  Her experiences include space travel, colonization, culture clash, interstellar battles and politics, aliens and war, but her narration makes it feel close, real, and believable.  

A lot of the SF I've read has felt like it held me at arm's length.  Distance like that prevents me from ever fully connecting with a story or the characters in it.  This one felt so real and so close that it was almost like Zoe was in the room with me.  She made me cry.  Like, three times.  She also made me laugh out loud while I was crying**.  With the right narrator, this book will made one hell of an audio.

Zoe's Tale is being published as an adult novel, but it should very definitely be cross-shelved in the YA section -- her story and her voice have the potential not just to bring a slew of new teen readers into the sci-fi fold, but to bring a whole slew of female teen readers into the sci-fi fold. 

___________________________________________________________

*It should be noted that when Josh looked at this one, he was curious enough that he went and dug through our books until he found a copy of Old Man's War.  He's about halfway through now and he's really liking it.

**While I suppose it could be possible that hormones had something to do with my reaction, it still got me, and got me good.

Frankenstein gorgeousity.

Sounds like an oxymoron, I know.  So go and look.  You'll see that I'm right.

(via Newsarama)

Invisibility cloaks, for REAL!!

Sadly, they're not quite people sized yet -- we're talking more on the nano level.  But someday...

From the BBC:

Researchers at the University of California in Berkeley have developed a material that can bend light around 3D objects making them "disappear".

(via Forbidden Planet)

Lois Lowry on yet another challenge to The Giver.

The Nashua Board of Education recently voted 7-1 to require parental notification if elementary school teachers plan to use The Giver in classrooms.  They also voted 5-3 against removing it from the elementary school libraries.  The challenge came about after a teacher read the book to a fourth grade class and a parent objected.

Fourth grade does seem a bit young to me for that one, especially as a classroom book -- I would think that the students who would be mature enough for it would be in the minority.  Obviously, I'm glad it stayed in the library -- that way the kids who're up for it will have easy access, too. 

Lois Lowry is of the same opinion:

When asked about the school board's decision Tuesday, Lowry said she agreed with it. She recommends the book for children in sixth grade and up and said she has a grandson in fourth grade and couldn't picture him reading it."I do think fourth grade is too young," said Lowry, in a phone interview from her barn in Maine.

...

Lowry said she would never support removing the book from the elementary school libraries.

"Every parent has the right to monitor what their own child reads, but I don't think any parent has the right to supervise the reading of other peoples' children," she said.

Help her out!

From my inbox:

I just found out that I'll be teaching a third grade science fiction literature unit next year.  I'm really excited, but most of the books I can think of are for an older audience.  (I did this unit 2 years ago and the books need a serious upgrade.  But to give you an idea of the level, the one that I'm going to keep is Fat Men From Space).

I'm sure you're busy, but if you have a moment, could you recommend some titles or some resources to me?

Yikes.  That's on the young end for me.  Guys?  Thoughts?

The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey -- Trenton Lee Stewart

It's been six months since the conclusion of the first adventure of the Mysterious Benedict Society.  Six long months since Reynie Muldoon, Kate Wetherall, Sticky Washington and Constance Contraire have all been together.  Now, Mr. Benedict has asked them to reassemble:  not for a danger-filled investigation, but for a celebration.

Unfortunately, evil Mr. Curtain has other plans...  which involve kidnapping Mr. Benedict!

Reynie's intuition, Kate's red bucket of tricks, Sticky's huge brain and Constance's stubbornness* are all formidable -- but will their talents be enough to find Mr. Benedict, rescue him AND save the world?

I was a pretty big fan of the first book, though I felt the pacing was a little strange in that it felt like two completely different books duct-taped together -- at about the halfway point, the story went from a puzzle/mystery to a sci-fi thriller.  Don't get me wrong -- I liked both halves very much!  It was just a strange transition. 

As for this installment:  I absolutely loved The Perilous Journey.  There was no strange transition -- the story flowed.  Reading it made me realize how much I've grown to enjoy the world and the characters -- these kids are just plain good kids.  They squabble, argue and occasionally disobey** the adults they love, trust and respect, but there's absolutely no malice in them, they'd do anything for each other and they just try to do what's right.  They're kids that you'd want to be friends with and that you'd probably want your kids to be friends with -- if you didn't mind your kids regularly getting into life-threatening situations, that is... 

The pace is quick, the characters have continued to develop, I love the narration (these would make great read-alouds) and, as in the first book, I especially enjoyed the puzzles and brain-teasers.  It makes me so happy to read books that celebrate smarts.  The illustrations at the beginning of each chapter are super, but I do hope that Little, Brown darkened up Sticky's skin color on the finished cover -- because he's whiter-than-white on the ARC that I'm looking at right now.

Very highly recommended to fans of Dahl, Rowling and Snicket.

*It's starting to look like she's got another talent -- but I won't spoil it for you!

**Though even that is something that they wrestle with.

Wow.

The City of Ember movie looks pretty awesome:

But does anyone else think it's weird that they give away the twist in the first three seconds of the trailer?

Generation Dead -- Daniel Waters

Odd cover art.  I don't remember any of the differently biotic girls being a cheerleader -- one of the boys goes out for football, but...  well, that's probably just me being too literal minded.  It's eye-catching, regardless, and I like how it wraps around.

Throughout the United States, the dead aren't staying dead.  It's only a recent phenomenon, it only happens to teens, it only (so far) has happened in the U.S., and it doesn't happen to every teen who dies.  There is, so far, no explanation.  The politically correct terms are "living impaired" and "differently biotic".  The less sensitive throw around words like "corpsicle" and (of course) "zombie".

Phoebe realizes that her goth look has taken on a whole new meaning, but she likes it and she's stuck with it.  At her high school, Tommy Williams, a living impaired student, goes out for the football team.  Phoebe finds herself fascinated by him, maybe even attracted to him.  Her best friend, football player and karate student Adam, is secretly in love with her, and he'll do what he can to make her happy -- including support her in this new friendship-that-may-become-more.  But not everyone feels the same way.

Generation Dead has a really fun premise.  I mean, c'mon -- ZOMBIES IN HIGH SCHOOL!  But while I loved the idea behind it, the book itself didn't really work for me.  The story felt (this is going to sound weird, because, HELLO, ZOMBIES IN HIGH SCHOOL) flat and long.     

There were brief moments when I felt the characters become real people -- the scene between Karen and Pete in the woods is the one that immediately comes to mind, because in that moment I suddenly realized how she had died, though the author didn't let me know for sure until quite a bit later -- but for the most part, not so much.  I felt very little chemistry between the characters (except between, oddly, Tommy Williams and Pete, the (possibly literally) psychotic football player and between Adam and Karen), and I was told again and again that Adam was in love with Phoebe but I never felt it.  It's interesting that the most successful, believable interactions in the book were between the living impaired and the living.

Of course, the differently biotic kids can easily be read as a metaphor for any minority group.  It's a story about prejudice, about breaking boundaries and about pretty much any sort of -ism you care to mention.  I do think that will appeal to a lot of readers.  To me, it felt obvious and a little preachy.  I appreciated the attempt to show different kinds of and reasons for prejudice, but because the characters never felt real to me, they all felt like representations of different views rather than, you know, people.  Overall, lots of it was very clever -- the Skip Slydell Transforming The Culture Through Commercialism scene was especially good -- but I didn't feel much heart.

The most interesting storyline in the book (to me) was the one surrounding the (very possibly sketchy) Hunter Foundation, but there were only hints.  That makes me suspect that there may be a sequel in the works.  I also wouldn't be surprised to see it get turned into a movie.  I'll be interested to see how this one goes over.  While it wasn't my cuppa, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it gain a decent following -- it's had decent reviews elsewhere and at the moment, there are three 5-star ratings at Amazon.

Sold.

Yep.

I'm going to have to give Mr. Eoin Colfer another try.

Better late than never?

On my part, I mean*. 

The Andre Norton shortlist is:

The True Meaning of Smekday - Rex, Adam

The Lion Hunter - Wein, Elizabeth

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Rowling, J. K.

The Shadow Speaker - Okorafor-Mbachu, Nnedi

Into the Wild - Durst, Sarah Beth

Vintage: A Ghost Story - Berman, Steve

Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass- Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog - Wilce, Ysabeau S.

The rest of the Nebula ballot is available as well.

(via Wands and Worlds)

*Sidenote:  From high school on through college I always subscribed to the Better Never Than Late philosophy -- if I was going to be late to class, I just wouldn't go.  So I believe that posting this list a week late shows that I've grown as a person.  Go me!

Perfect choice, but...

...the conspiracy theorist in me still finds the idea creepy:

Sci-fi novel "Ender's Game" to become video game