Book Review: Alan Moore - Lost Girls
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Showing posts with label Book Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Book Review. Show all posts
17 January 2007
09 January 2007
Book Review: Richard Powers - The Echo Makers
Finished on 17 January 2007
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25 December 2006
Book Review: Neil Gaiman - Anansi boys : a novel
I think I have mentioned it in my review for Neil Gaiman's "Fragile Things": His novels never really excited me. Nice, funny, well crafted - but not at all engaging. In fact, I found this one disappointing enough to put it back on the pile after just 4 chapters.
If you want to read Neil Gaiman I would much rather recommend "Fragile Things" or the "Sandman" comics
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16 December 2006
Book Review: Neil Gaiman - Fragile Things
What a pleasant surprise. Of course I have read Neil Gaiman before - Good Omens, most of the Sandman, Neverwhere, American Gods, 1602, &c. - and always liked what I read. Interesting read for a rainy afternoon. But this volume of short stories is better than anything of these; this man is a genius with short stories
Some of them are just pure, hilarious fun; others are scary - and I mean real scary, and one or two just seemed to reach inside my head and do something with my imagination.
He has totally silly poems in this collection - that still triggered me to get out some volumes of serious poetry. He has detective stories intermingled with the horrors of the deep; there is a vision of hell more unsettling than any I ever encountered. The best treatment of the 'Matrix' concept - one, that unlike the movie does actually make sense (well, in a way); variations of traditional fairy tales - Bluebeard, Goldilocks, Aladdin.
Highly recommended.
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20 November 2006
Book Review: Peter Ackroyd - The Fall of Troy
Ackroyd tells the story German archaeologist Heinrich Obermann (based on the real Heinrich Schliemann), his obsession with Troy and Homer, his questionable pseudo-archaeological practises, the dark side of his personality.
The story follows the (second) marriage of Obermann to a young, intelligent Greek wife. She follows him to the site of the excavation in Turkey and becomes a competent partner in his enterprise. Only later does she find out about the secrets of Obermann's past.
All this is accompanied by echoes from the Homeric epic: We have the above mentioned marriage and the horse, we do have a race around the city of Troy, we have a burial ceremony at the shores of the Mediterranean, etc. - using again Ackroyds established formula of 'mythic geography'; the idea that it is the actual place that determines the activities and even the fates of the people living there (he even has two minor characters spelling this out explicitly - just in case the reader is new to the concept).
The events towards the end of the story, including Obermanns death, are not based on Schliemann life. However, they do allow Ackroyd to come to a proper closure of his various narrative threats.
One of the most interesting themes touched upon is how preconception can shape reality - when a storm destroys evidence to historical facts not compatible with Obermann's idea of Troy, only for this evidence to immediately after his death.
All this would make for an interesting read, if it were not for the fact that the whole novel does feel a bit like an "Peter Ackroyd Formula Novel" - we had all these concepts and ideas in various of his earlier novels. But it does make a nice and welcome departure from his usual London settings.
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18 November 2006
Book Review: Lyn Davies - A Is For Ox
A short history of the western alphabet, starting with its earliest roots, Sumerian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs etc. A detailed explanation is given of the conceptual change from Logograms and Syllabograms (signs for words or syllables) to a true alphabetical script where each sign signifies a sound (ideally) invented by the Phoenicians.
Davies then outlines the history of our alphabet and the changes inflicted upon it by its subsequent adopters and modifiers - Greeks, Etruscans, Romans, medieval scribes - until the early printers in Italy arrive at the form we know today (well, almost, give or take a few letters - j,v,w).
In a second part each letter's history is illustrated on a double page, showing and explaining the evolution it went through during the history outlined before.
All this in a beautifully set, printed and bound Folio Society book.
A joy to read.
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10 November 2006
Book Review: William Shakespeare - The Tempest
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05 November 2006
Book Review: Richard Powers - Plowing the Dark
A click on the left wand button colored the air in a temperature gradient from rose to cobalt. Each shaded band stood for an Isobar.The word he is looking for is Isotherm.
After more than 100 pages I am still stuck in the exposition. Which is full of factual errors (see above), cliché (the pizza-eating troglodyte) and half-understood buzzwords (wide-area token-ring). I am giving this one a break - pity, I liked 'Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance' and 'Time of Our Singing'.
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02 November 2006
Book Review: Paul Auster - Travels in the Scriptorium
I don't remember, Mr. Blank.
Are you saying that you didn't read your husband's novel?
No, I read it. But it was such a long time ago, and I haven't looked at it since.
Mr. Blank sits alone in a room. He does not remember his name, where he is and why he is there. Objects around him are labelled - so maybe he does not even remember the names of everyday things.
He is visited and attended to by various people from his past - and it becomes clear that these have been lifted from the pages of Auster's previous works.
By re-visiting these old characters Auster parades all the old favourites of post-modernism: self-reference, semiotics, the role of author, reader and subject, the tale within a tale, circular structures, etc.
Reading this reminded me why all that was exciting and stimulating when I first encountered it - highly enjoyable
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30 October 2006
Book Review: P.K.Dick - The Man in the High Castle
By Philip K. Dick. Set in an alternate History U.S., in a world where Germany and Japan had won WWII.
As with most of the other PKD novels I have read Dick explores this setting from the perspective of minor everyday charaters - a shop keeper, a craftsman, his divorced wife - who get entangled with representatives of the victorios powers - a high ranking Japanese official, a German spy, another German spy. Through their interaction Dick explores a whole host of topics:
- The cultural assimilation process between conqueror and conquered
- Alternative approaches to decision making
- The possibilty of and possible interaction between different worlds
The cultural assimilation process between conqueror and conquered
The Japanese adore American history. High ranking Japanese collect historical artifcats - movie posters from before the war, antique firearms, Mickey Mouse watches. And around this a whole economy develops, including mass produced counterfeits, expensive specialist shops, collectors and fashions.
Alternative approaches to decision making
Both Japanese and conquered Americans are known to use the old Chinese I Ching when presented with crucial choices in their life. The application differs, from highly conscious reflections on the oracles given to thoughtless drifting and retroactive interpretation.
For some of the protagonist this starts to change to a more idependent visionary perception - triggered by artifacts created as a sub-conscious break-out of he by now superficial trade in historical artifacts.
The possibilty of and possible interaction between different worlds
In this alternative world a book is published, describing a history where Japan and Germany lost the war. Yet this book within the book does not necessarily depict our world. Yet, from the few glimpses we get of this third version of hisory, there seems to be at least one common denominators in all three world: The two vicorious powers enter a cold-war phase that inevitably leads to an attempt of gaining world dominance.
There is also some hint of PKD's more ususal SF settings: Rocket ships take only 45 minutes from Berlin to San Francisco, the Mars is being colonized, Venus explored. Yet these just help to highlight the difference, they never take center stage.
To quote the hype on the backcover of the Penguin Classics edition
'Dick's finest book, and one of the very best science fiction novels ever published'Couldn't agree more
Eric Brown
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