Amph What book are you reading right now?

VLM, Sword of Shannara is not a good book, it's appallingly derivative, with wooden writing and flat characters. Elfstones of Shannara is much better. I suspect Brooks took a creative writing course between the two.

 

Stormbringer by Michael Moorcock. One of my favorite books period.

 

Aftermath

 

Something I noticed as I'm rereading Outbound Flight: it mentions the Chancellor's representatives (Doriana) taking DNA/genetic samples from those on Outbound Flight to make sure they're healthy and for safekeeping. The implication there is that's when Palpatine got the genetic information to clone C'baoth.

 

Peter Huddleston & The Rites of Passage by Miguel Lopez de Leon

 

only book i never got through in my adult life. usually, when i start a book i feel committed to finishing it. this book i could not

 

Finished reading The Martian last night. Now, I can devote all my energy to Moby Dick.

 

The Approaching Storm

 

Fiction - Gestapo Mars by Victor Gischler.
Nonfiction - The Wisdom of Psycopaths by Kevin Dutton.

 

Jedi Apprentice #14

 

Making Jack Falcone. Bought this as a gift for my mom, who loves both crime stories and the FBI, and it caught my interest enough that I read it first. It's a very quick, breezy read, an autobiographical (with ghost writer) account from an FBI undercover agent who managed to infiltrate the New York mafia. The agent, Joaquin Garcia, had a pretty impressive career of almost constant undercover work, facilitated by the fact that, at six foot four and pushing four hundred pounds, he looked nothing like any form of law enforcement officer. The subject matter is fascinating, as Garcia and his ghostwriter Michael Levin focus on his years-long infiltration of the Gambino crime family but also sprinkle in highlights of a bunch of other undercover operations, both multiple other unrelated ones he was involved in while undercover with the mafia and in the course of giving a general backstory of his FBI career and how he developed into a talented undercover agent. It's full of pulpy incident and mob/law enforcement detail.

The drawback is that it's very amateurishly written. It's got that rambling, excessively-conversational-yet-awkwardly-stilted style of an interview subject being filtered through a pretty poor ghostwriter, the kind who knows exactly the expected cliche for every situation. There's not a whole lot of storytelling skill in it -- Garcia comes off like a very likable, everyday Joe neighbor trying to tell you a long, involved story at a party and mostly succeeding, but without a lot of flair. And the everyman persona, while casting Garcia in a relateable light and no doubt true to how he sees himself, doesn't really play to the dangerous world-of-crime material and bring that world across. Instead it mostly plays like, "Hey, how awesome is it that I got to be in a real-life Goodfellas?"

That said, though it's a frustratingly amateurish read, it's fast, pulpy, and very engaging, brimming with intriguing detail. I couldn't put it down.

 

<i>Carry On</i> By Rainbow Rowell

 

Beloved by Toni Morrison

This was a quick read, and better than I expected. Deserves the praise it gets.

The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck

I never finished this book when it was assigned to me in high school lit. I recognize its quality now.

 

Empire Of Imagination. A D&D bio.

 

Well, I'm reading the Glass Megenarie (for school)
Rereading The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
annndd... Trying to finish Star Wars: The Black Fleet Crisis: Tyrant Test Book #3 by Michael P Kube Mcdowell

 

So it might be possible Gary Gygax and his family lived in a house with carbon monoxide poisoning.

 

My condolences.


The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013) – Neil Gaiman



“Why do you think she’s scared of anything? She’s a grown-up, isn’t she? Grown-ups and monsters aren’t scared of things.”

“Oh, monsters are scared,” said Lettie. “That’s why they’re monsters.”

This is Gaiman’s latest book, unless I’ve missed something, and it’s a real knock-out. The unnamed narrator has returned to the small hamlet where he grew up for a funeral of some kind and he takes a detour to visit the old street where he lived as a child. And then the memories come back. Strange memories of his childhood and the weird occurrences surrounding a car theft, the three women at the end of the lane and a trip to the woods with serious consequences. I really, really loved this book. It’s just a really deep book about memory and childhood and all that kind of thing, while also being a fast-paced, and at under two-hundred pages, very short book. I read it in a couple of days; a less busy person could conceivably knock it out in one sitting and, trust me, I wanted to do so. Gaiman’s writing is sharp and crisp, his characterizations great and his world-building typically amazing. Just when you think the book has shown you everything it has to offer, you turn a corner and there’s a whole new vista of weirdness in front of you. The book captures the awe of a child encountering unnatural forces perfectly and there are some genuinely terrifying sequences. Ursula Monkton is one of the most compelling villains I’ve encountered in a long, long time and there’s an incredibly disturbing sequence that doesn’t really involve her at all. If you’ve read the book, you’ll cringe when I say “bathtub.” I mean, Jesus. I found this book to be really enjoyable, really thought-provoking and incredibly imaginative. It’s high literature and great genre at the same time. Highly recommended. 4 stars.

tl;dr – melancholy novel about childhood and memories is also a rivetingly suspenseful, often terrifying work of fantasy; beautifully written, well characterized: a must read. 4 stars.

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Desolation Island. Jack Aubrey must take a ship full of transportees to Botany Bay, but the real point is the transportation of Louisa Wogan, a spy who may be working for the French. Stephen Maturin is there to figure out the extent of her complicity and try to compromise her contacts. It's a simple premise, but there's plenty of drama in the voyage, whether it be an outbreak of typhus, a determined pursuit by a superior Dutch warship, or an iceberg strike in Antarctic waters that leaves the ship's survival incredibly unlikely. O'Brien gets the most out of it -- Stephen's clever, measured intelligence work is wonderful, as he works to subvert Wogan and her stowaway lover, and Jack gets to struggle with having a stubborn lieutenant who used to have his own command. O'Brien's writing is, as ever, magnificent. He understands the period, its manners and its speech, and he understands the trade of sailors at the time, and he conveys both in a way that makes them come alive and makes you understand the sheer joy of being able to experience them through fiction. He's got a great way with words, tremendous storytelling ability, and wonderful wit. He also knows how to paint a picture. I was completely gripped by the long, nightmarish sequence in which Aubrey's Leopard, in the high, cold seas beyond the Cape, is shadowed by the Dutch Waakzaamheid, seemingly unshakeable, until a tremendous storm blows in, the terrifyingly relentless Waakzaamheid pursuing the Leopard through heaving seas in which the slightest mistake or damage is death, to a conclusion that captures the sheer, utter terror of the sea. What an adventure. What a book.

 

Attack of the Clones novelization

 

The Dread Wyrm by Miles Cameron. FINALLY. It felt like forever to get this 3rd book out.

 

She by H. Rider Haggard

 

The Lair of the White Worm (1911) – Bram Stoker

I shall gladly learn . . . it may help me on other occasions.

I hope to God it will not!

So this was the final novel by horror icon Bram Stoker, written while Stoker was terminally ill, from syphilis, some scholars believe. And it is a strange book for certain. The gist of it revolves around the fact that this highborn lady in England is capable of transforming into a giant white snake. I mean . . . that’s kind of it. It’s a book that I really kind of feel at a loss to talk about even having read it. It’s such a disconnected jumble and it’s far, far too long. I read Stoker’s original published version in a Penguin edition, but in later printings it was often heavily abridged and, frankly, for once I’m on the side of the editors because this thing is a trainwreck. The main characters are forever gathering around the breakfast table to talk at great length about psychic abilities and snake legends and how they’re going to get off their butts and actually do something just as soon as they finish eating their waffles or whatever. And there’s a black character here that is just . . . I mean, Stoker has something to prove here; there’s a solid half a page in here of Stoker just essentially going on a racist tirade about black people that’s just hilarious and disturbing at the same time. But anyway the book is deeply symbolic, drenched in sex, just as Dracula was or, really, even more so. I mean, at one point, the great white snake rises up over some trees and it’s literally described as a “tall, white shaft.” The way in which Lady Arabella functions in the book is of great interest really; there’s a well in her basement from which various strange liquids ooze and smells rise, which is obviously very vaginal (there’s a great scene where a guy gets killed by being pushed into it; Stoker’s got some deep seated fears going on here). But at the same time, as Stoker’s characters fear Lady Arabella’s womanhood, she is also able to transform into that “tall white shaft,” the massive white snake of the title, which is obviously symbolic of her usurping their manhood. It’s kind of indicative of misogyny, even still currently, that it attacks women both for owning their womanhood and for usurping manhood. Stoker is terrified of women in a real double bind of a way; he’s terrified of being seduced by their womanhood and of being replaced by their rising equality with men. As such, this book has a lot of interesting themes and such, but it’s really just often painfully boring. There are a few nice horror moments, like a scene where the black servant carries a bunch of small black snakes in his arms or a scene where nature begins to go a bit crazy and a character realizes that his kite is blowing against the wind. But on the whole, it’s just a long, long series of dull conversations being had by bland, underwritten characters. 1 star.

tl;dr – Stoker’s final novel has interesting symbolism and reveals the author’s psychology in tantalizing ways, but it’s ultimately just a tedious, dull read. 1 star.

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I totally read that title as The Lair of the White Women. I'm so disappointed.

I was hoping, at long last, we might learn where the white women at.

 

Star Wars: Secrets of the Jedi by Jude Watson

 

The Fortune of War. Brilliant as ever. O'Brian seems to be undertaking to string his stories directly together, as this picks up in the aftermath of Desolation Island, with Aubrey's battered Leopard limping into port, and ends in a way that flows directly into the sequel. He doesn't seem to have gotten the disaster bug out of his system, either, topping Desolation Island's perilous near-shipwreck with an actual wreck. That's not really the story, though, and as ever O'Brian keeps his stories remarkably fresh; six novels in and, despite the seemingly limited premise of Jack captaining a ship and Maturin serving as his surgeon on some kind of naval adventure, no two books have had quite the same subject matter or structure. ("Six novels in!" you say. "What a series!" I have fifteen more to go.)

Upon arriving in port halfway around the world, Jack and Stephen are immediately ordered to return to England so Jack can take command of a promising, prestigious ship. They never get close; Jack doesn't command a ship the entire book. Rather, O'Brian's real interest in the story is to explore the outbreak of war with America, the early months of the War of 1812 in which the fledgling American fleet thoroughly embarrassed the proud Royal Navy. The ship our heroes take passage in burns, casting them adrift in the ship's boats and allowing them to be taken in by Java, which is captured by Constitution after a terrific battle. O'Brian does a wonderful job of depicting the intense battle, and is clearly deeply interested in the War of 1812 and the way it affected the Navy. This leads into the real heart of the book, with Jack and Stephen as captives taken to Boston; it's here that Stephen takes over the story. Stephen Maturin, with his intellect, reflectiveness, emotional insight, and complex characterization initially seemed more like a way for O'Brian to comment on the world, a viewpoint for the audience and a way to explore his deep characterization, but Stephen's work as an intelligence agent has been increasingly driving the plot alongside Jack's captaincy. And it's fantastic. In Boston, Stephen cultivates the aid of those friendly to Britain, matches wits against Henry Johnson, an American agent who happens to be keeping Stephen's long-beloved, heartbreakingly unreliable Diana Villiers as his mistress, and tries to keep from being blown by murderous French spies out for revenge. And it all builds into a hell of a climax. I couldn't put it down. O'Brian knows how to deliver thrills alongside thoughtful characterization and beautiful evocation of a bygone culture. These are wonderfully immersive books, some of the best stuff I've read.