Recent reading, finally
Oct. 25th, 2007 01:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunrabWhew, a longish list.
What NOT to Build, a book on residential architecture and home improvement. Some amusing bits, but often quite repetitive. All right, we get it already, Monticello good, McMansion bad. I thought a few of the photos must have been photoshopped because no one would build anything that awful - and then, the next day, taking a new route to my saxophone lesson, drove right past a new row of 5 McMansions that had most of those awful features, such as fake keystones on windows with straight lintels, window transoms over the door that are taller than the door itself, vinyl siding and brick on the same side of the house... There was at least one example in the book that I spotted that was used as a bad example near the beginning, and then in a later chapter, that same exact photo was the good example.
Children of the Machine - latest in Kage Baker's Company series. Deeply flawed but with some terrific moments. It's the "last" book in the series - we hit 2355, where everything stops, and find out why - and I'm not happy with it. Serious flaws, like all of a sudden a physical Dr. Zeus AI - WTF? But the dinner party Victor throws for Aegeus and Labienus is a wonderful scene, and exactly right. The real hero of the whole book is Preserver Lewis, under the hills with the little people - blind and reciting epic poetry, like Homer.
Heart Seizure by Bill Fitzhugh, the author of Pest Control - this guy writes funny, funny stuff. HS is about organ-napping, sort of. And the FBI. And family. And, well, it's a mess, but a wonderful, funny mess. Only complaint: our protagonists' mom, who has heart failure and is waiting for a transplant - Fitzhugh says her heart is only pumping at "45 to 60% of capacity" - well, an EF of 60% is normal, but if we assume he means 45 to 60% of THAT, then it's an EF of 27% to 36% - and at an EF that high, she wouldn't be on the transplant list, really. *My* EF is only 21%, for pete's sake.
Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? - a collection of the last page questions column from New Scientist magazine. So, a mixed bag - some serious, some not, erratic quality, but extremely full of trivia you never knew you wanted to know!
40 Days and 40 Nights by Matthew Chapman, about the Dover, PA evolution/"intelligent design" trial. A little lightweight - it's as much about Chapman's making a documentary of the trial as it is about the trial - but it's a good read nonetheless - a quick way to get an overview and find out a bit more about the people involved, not just what was said in the courtroom.
Dragon Lovers - a rather flawed anthology of four novellas/novelettes, in the fantasy romance genre. Not worth finishing, despite that two of the authors are actually pretty good writers when they stick to the Regency romance subgenre.
An Ice Cold Grave - latest in Charlaine Harris' series about a young woman who can find dead bodies - mostly murder mystery, slight amount of fantasy. It's OK - but not only the plot, but even much of the details, were awfully reminiscent of Kate Wilhelm's The Price of Silence, a non-fantasy mystery. Interesting side note: in the acknowledgments, Harris mentions Margaret Maron, and the place where Harper is working this time is Knott County - which see, next entry.
Hard Row - latest in Margaret Maron's Deborah Knott series - always good mysteries, and I like the characters, but there was rather more about vegetable gardening than I care about. As usual, touches on a few serious social issues, this time both spouse abuse and migrant labor camps.
Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels (1949-1984) - written in about 1984. Didn't agree much with the author's choices - too British, too New Wave, and he admits he flat-out doesn't like anything Asimov ever wrote, so he sort of picked a random Asimov since he felt it was obligatory.
There, that's about caught up. Skimmed through any number of magazines, of course, including a big lump of knitting and crochet magazines. And a couple of short story anthologies that were obviously forgettable, since I've forgotten what they were. Although I didn't agree with a lot of the "100 Best" above, the author's side comments and discussion reminded me of a few classics I wouldn't mind re-reading, so watch for upcoming old SF!
What NOT to Build, a book on residential architecture and home improvement. Some amusing bits, but often quite repetitive. All right, we get it already, Monticello good, McMansion bad. I thought a few of the photos must have been photoshopped because no one would build anything that awful - and then, the next day, taking a new route to my saxophone lesson, drove right past a new row of 5 McMansions that had most of those awful features, such as fake keystones on windows with straight lintels, window transoms over the door that are taller than the door itself, vinyl siding and brick on the same side of the house... There was at least one example in the book that I spotted that was used as a bad example near the beginning, and then in a later chapter, that same exact photo was the good example.
Children of the Machine - latest in Kage Baker's Company series. Deeply flawed but with some terrific moments. It's the "last" book in the series - we hit 2355, where everything stops, and find out why - and I'm not happy with it. Serious flaws, like all of a sudden a physical Dr. Zeus AI - WTF? But the dinner party Victor throws for Aegeus and Labienus is a wonderful scene, and exactly right. The real hero of the whole book is Preserver Lewis, under the hills with the little people - blind and reciting epic poetry, like Homer.
Heart Seizure by Bill Fitzhugh, the author of Pest Control - this guy writes funny, funny stuff. HS is about organ-napping, sort of. And the FBI. And family. And, well, it's a mess, but a wonderful, funny mess. Only complaint: our protagonists' mom, who has heart failure and is waiting for a transplant - Fitzhugh says her heart is only pumping at "45 to 60% of capacity" - well, an EF of 60% is normal, but if we assume he means 45 to 60% of THAT, then it's an EF of 27% to 36% - and at an EF that high, she wouldn't be on the transplant list, really. *My* EF is only 21%, for pete's sake.
Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze? - a collection of the last page questions column from New Scientist magazine. So, a mixed bag - some serious, some not, erratic quality, but extremely full of trivia you never knew you wanted to know!
40 Days and 40 Nights by Matthew Chapman, about the Dover, PA evolution/"intelligent design" trial. A little lightweight - it's as much about Chapman's making a documentary of the trial as it is about the trial - but it's a good read nonetheless - a quick way to get an overview and find out a bit more about the people involved, not just what was said in the courtroom.
Dragon Lovers - a rather flawed anthology of four novellas/novelettes, in the fantasy romance genre. Not worth finishing, despite that two of the authors are actually pretty good writers when they stick to the Regency romance subgenre.
An Ice Cold Grave - latest in Charlaine Harris' series about a young woman who can find dead bodies - mostly murder mystery, slight amount of fantasy. It's OK - but not only the plot, but even much of the details, were awfully reminiscent of Kate Wilhelm's The Price of Silence, a non-fantasy mystery. Interesting side note: in the acknowledgments, Harris mentions Margaret Maron, and the place where Harper is working this time is Knott County - which see, next entry.
Hard Row - latest in Margaret Maron's Deborah Knott series - always good mysteries, and I like the characters, but there was rather more about vegetable gardening than I care about. As usual, touches on a few serious social issues, this time both spouse abuse and migrant labor camps.
Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels (1949-1984) - written in about 1984. Didn't agree much with the author's choices - too British, too New Wave, and he admits he flat-out doesn't like anything Asimov ever wrote, so he sort of picked a random Asimov since he felt it was obligatory.
There, that's about caught up. Skimmed through any number of magazines, of course, including a big lump of knitting and crochet magazines. And a couple of short story anthologies that were obviously forgettable, since I've forgotten what they were. Although I didn't agree with a lot of the "100 Best" above, the author's side comments and discussion reminded me of a few classics I wouldn't mind re-reading, so watch for upcoming old SF!
