Author: August

Just to start out, I’m actually eleven books behind in my posts (this is book 14 for 2008, but I’m currently reading book 25), so things may move a bit quickly for the next few days. I don’t mind saying that these David Eddings books are guilty pleasures for me. Normally I dislike the notion of “guilty pleasure”; you shouldn’t feel guilt about enjoying any kind of reading, but one thing I think my institutional literary education taught me (an important lesson, I feel) is to distinguish between my enjoyment of a book and its quality. There are books I enjoy that are bad books, and there are books I do not enjoy that are excellent books, and I think an intelligent reader needs to be able to see that. I can see that, though I love the ten books that make up The Belgariad and The Malloreon, I know… Continue Reading →

This book, with its embossed cloth cover, is absolutely beautiful. The picture on the left doesn’t even begin to do justice to the object itself. The stories inside are also quite lovely, but they seem to lack depth and substance. I could easily say that they don’t require depth and substance, as they are Brothers-Grimm-style fairy tales, but that would then deny the fact that one of the most interesting pleasures of Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell was the fact that she added those qualities to a fairy tale world. Clarke uses many of the same techniques in these stories as she did in her fine, fine novel; the archaic diction, academic paraphernalia of footnotes and bibliographic entries, and the hints at a well-worn mythology are all present, but the shorter form of these stories simply don’t allow them to develop the same impact that they had in her… Continue Reading →

Writing about Gibson’s books can be difficult if one wants to avoid spoilers, and one does in this instance. Upon reflection, I couldn’t imagine reading Spook Country and getting much enjoyment from it if I knew in the beginning what I now know at the end (re-reading is an entirely different kettle of fish, of course). Like nearly all of Gibson’s novels, Spook Country starts with several characters who seem completely unrelated to one another and slowly draws them together as a mystery is slowly revealed (revealed to the reader, that is; many of the characters know exactly what’s going on, although there is normally at least one—in this case a singer turned reporter named Hollis Henry—who doesn’t have a clue). And of course there’s the tech. Gibson is best known for near-future cyberpunk featuring technology that is just beyond our reach, although not entirely implausible. Spook Country is set… Continue Reading →

A few weeks ago my father sent me a box full of historical novels, mostly with a nautical theme. My father has good taste in such books; he was the person who clued me in to the genius that is Patrick O’Brian. Dark Voyage is the first book from box, and while it’s no Master and Commander, it was quite an exciting read. Alan Furst does an excellent job of placing his characters in a believable—an exceptionally believable—picture of Europe and North Africa during the early years of World War Two. Eric DeHaan is captain of the Dutch tramp freighter Noordendam, co-opted by the British Navy for use in clandestine operations that could not be carried out by military vessels. Furst’s prose reminds me of Ian Fleming’s, in that it’s simple, direct, and focuses very much on creating a convincing physical world. In this sort of book its very important… Continue Reading →