"Galaxy in Flames"

Galaxy in Flames (Ben Counter)
 
The last book of the trilogy that opens the Horus Heresy series, this book really closes with a bang. Like the previous two books it has the same cast of charecters, and here's where the shit really starts going down. I think this is probably the darkest W40K book I've eve read, which is really saying something; It has a kind of Empire Strikes Back vibe, except that since this is Warhammer, nobody's frozen in carbonite so much as they are betrayed and horribly murdered. I couldn't put this one down even as I was dreading what was going to befall our heroes. I want to talk more about the grueling battle at the end of the book, but it's spoilers, so I'm just going to give out the grade of...

Grade: A

"Stuff on My Cat: The Book"

Stuff on My Cat: The Book (Mario Garza)

I hate books made out of websites. They tend to be lazy, basically just the stuff you can read online, for free, in a book that you pay for. This book is no different. The website "Stuff on My Cat" is people sending in pictures of stuff on my cat; Here, in this book, is a bunch of those pictures. So if you want to see pictures of stuff on people's cats, go to the website. If you want to spend $9.95 for a book full of them, well, I don't know what to say. Even though this book neatly summarizes everything I dislike about this genre, the title is very honest, so I'm going to bump it up to a...

Grade: F+

"False Gods"

False Gods (Graham McNeill)

Book 2 of the trilogy that opens the Horus Heresy series. I'm convinced Graham McNeill is the only author who knows how to use the Remembrancers; Here, as in "A Thousand Sons", you actually don't dread thier apperance, as they actually move the story along and give a non-Space Marine viewpoint that is sometimes sorely needed. This is all the more impressive considering he's using the same charecters from the first book who got on my nerves so much. One caveat: I'd get Horus Rising, this book, and the next one in the trilogy (Galaxy in Flames) all at once; I didn't and had to bug my wife to order them for me with Amazon Prime because I was hooked.

Grade: A

"Horus Rising" & Genre Advisory

Now a fair warning: I'm going on a W40k kick, so a fair chunk of my reviews coming up are going to be books about it. Hopefully the other contributors will be able to entertain the non-nerd portion of the readership while I plow through these.

Horus Rising: Anniversary Edition (Dan Abnett)

Horus Rising is the first book in the Horus Heresey series, which fills in the long-ago backround of the setting (the books take place around 32,000). I found this to be fascinating stuff, a look at a period of time that has always remained off-camera until now. The book starts with the sentance "It is a time of legends," and they're not kidding; This is when the Emperor of Mankind is still personally leading his race, along with his 18 clone-sons. The shit hasn't started going down in this book yet - Horus is indeed still Rising, and has not yet started his Heresy - but I found this pretty gripping all the same. Getting a look at Horus before his fall makes what's coming all the more tragic, and there's plenty of Space Marines blowing shit up and killing giant spiders to make sure you're rarely bored. I'd say "never", but the parts of the book dealing with the Remembrancers - embedded journalists, basically - are deadly dull. In "A Thousand Sons," the Rememberancers are both interesting charecters, and skillfully used to give another viewpoint of the important events that are happening. Here, neither is the case, and 15 pages of a poet wandering around a city getting drunk is just as deadly dull as it sounds. Luckily, these parts don't make up much of the book, but they do succeed in killing the book's momentum when they appear. That aside, the only other thing to look out for is the introduction, which I recommend skipping, as it includes both the regretable phrases "Oh bazinga" and "awesome sauce". As always with the Horus Heresy series, this may not be the best starting point for a n00b looking to start reading books from this universe, but there's no excuse for missing it if you're already a fan.

W40k Nerd Grade: A-
Normal Citizen Grade: C+

The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century

The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century
Ian Mortimer

Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England is a very good book. Mortimer gives you all the tips you need should you find yourself in England in the 14th century. Should you stay at an inn or a yeoman’s house? Where can you expect to sit in the hall of a noble?
Mortimer gets creative with his answers. He speaks as if you are really there, walking along the road in London. When he speaks about the Black Death, he brings humanity to the staggering statistics. He makes the people and history breathe.
If you are not interested in Social History, skip this book. If you are curious as to what to wear, where to shop, what the dancing is like and questions like this, this book is a must read.
Grade: A

"Altered Carbon"

Altered Carbon (Richard Morgan)

Here's a weird premise: A pulpy detective noir story set in a world where your personality is stored on a chip in your neck - if you get old or killed, just get downloaded into a new body (or "sleeve"). This combination works really well, with the unique setting adding the kinds of twists and turns you can only have when a person who gets shredded by a chaingun can get downloaded into a different body to come after you, or when you can't really be sure the person you're talking to isn't someone who had themselves downloaded into that body.
I have two minor complaints (and I feel bad that the minor complaits take up more space than the rest of the review, because they really are nit-picks): One is that the author imples our hero is facing "real death" - the chip containing his personality getting destroyed - and while the setting would make this a plausible threat, the fact that this book's title contains "A Takeshi Kovacs Novel" kind of implies our hero isn't in any real danger. The second is that when the ending comes, it's a little bit too complicated; Not only does it have a true detective story ending where everyone's doublecrossing everyone at the end, but it's made even more complicated by the fact that people are in each other's bodies.
There is one caveat I'd extend (and here I'm thinking of this author's mom): This book does not shy away from showing sex or violence; Bad guys don't get hit with a single slug from the hero's .357, they get shredded with chainguns, melted with high powered energy weapons, and beaten up in bone-breaking fistfights, etc. Likewise, there's no tasteful camera pan to billowing drapes. I didn't mind this - it adds a nice visceral punch, in fact - so if you can stomach some pretty R-rated sex and violence, I'd recommend this one.

Grade: A

"The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer"

The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer (Matt Ralphs)

A totally in-universe document, this is the publication that anyone serving in the Imperial Guard has to carry and produce on demand on pain of death. Includes a basic rundown of the equipment, duties, and possible foes of an Imperial Guardsman (or woman). The parts detailing the 40k-specific equipment and tactics I found interesting. The parts detailing, for example, guard duty I found less so - it's amusing to think guard duty hasn't changed in 38,000 years, but I don't necessarily need to read three pages about it to get the point. My favorite part is the description of the enemies that may be faced, which are shamelessly falsified to instill confidence; Thus, fearsome armored battlesuits become in this telling ineffective suits of brittle armor given to "warriors who are even more cowardly than their compatriots, and who refuse to enter combat without maximum protection". I also enjoyed the little drawings of the types of Guardsmen who are to be shot after getting corrupted with warp travel, as well as the endlessly quotable uplifting pearls of wisdom printed on the bottom of each page, ranging from statements that "Mercy is a sign of weakness" to advice to "Be strong in your ignorance", "Ask not why, just do", and of course "Obey your orders".

W40K Nerd Grade: A-
Non-Nerd Grade: D

Sellevision (Augusten Burroughs)

Sellevision (Augusten Burroughs)

 

I found this book to be enjoyable and at times hysterical. Sellevision tells the fictitious story of a group of employees from a Home Shopping Network. Each one of the characters is amidst a crisis and on the verge of mental breakdown for completely preposterous reasons. This book to me is dysfunction at its finest. As a warning to anyone who reads this book, you may find yourself watching QVC as a result. I had never watched a home shopping channel in my life prior to reading this, and I have found myself flipping back to it for entertainment purposes ever since. The book is a light whimsical story full of dark humor.

Grade: A

"Too Fat to Fish"

Too Fat to Fish (Artie Lange)

Less catchy, more accurate title: "Sporadically entertaining lies from a drug abuser". This book ends with Lange stating - well, not just stating, trumpeting - that he's clean, but in fact not only was he still addicted to drugs, but after the book came out he tried to kill himself and retired from show business to enter seemingly indefinite rehab. About half the book is Lange talking about how guardian angels aren't just in heaven, they're also the family and friends who look out for you, and these platitudes are impossible to take seriously when you know that Lange is lying through his teeth about no longer being on drugs. That leaves the other half of the book, Lange's entertaining stories. These are pretty good, although the presentation does nothing for them - it sounds like Lange's "co-author" audiotaped Lange telling them and typed them up. Skip the book and just listen to some old Stern shows if you're interested, where all of these stories appeared told by the man himself with more energy than they're presented here, and without the false moralizing.
Grade: F


(Genre note: Since this book presents itself as a autobiography, it is tagged as "non-fiction", although I wouldn't believe anything you read in it.)

Escape (Carolyn Jessop)

Escape (Carolyn Jessop)

Although grammatically this book is not very impressive, and at times the number of family members alone can become confusing, the story itself is fascinating. It’s distressing to learn how children are being raised in the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints community (or cult). The book focuses on the vast physical and mental abuse that occurs by FLDS men, it’s shocking to think that this is still happening today. The level of brainwashing is so extreme it becomes stressful to read but hard to stop. Carolyn is forced into marriage at eighteen, and becomes the fourth wife of a fifty year old man. Her book tells horrific stories of her fifteen years living in this family, which grows to include over 50 members. You will find yourself routing for Carolyn and her eight children as she attempts to escape the highly secured compound and start a new life.

Grade: B+

The Dracula Tape

The Dracula Tape

Fred Sagerhagen

Dracula decides to tell the truth about the events surrounding his trip to England. The book is told entirely from Dracula's point-of-view as he relays his tale to two terrified travelers. He scoffs at the lies written about him and explains his actions. The book is well-written and I enjoyed it a lot more than the original Bram Stoker book. Reading the original is not necessary as The Dracula Tape retells the story well-enough to follow along.

Grade: B+

Lost Girls

Lost Girls

Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie

Alan Moore reimagines the familiar tales of Wendy, Dorothy, and Alice. He has the women meet at a hotel and tell their tales in terms of sexual awakenings, not violence. Beautiful art with moving, funny, and sexy stories. Not being able to put it down, I read this book in one day.

Moore and Gebbie cater to many different tastes; men and men, women and women, group sex, spankings, but sex is not the point of the book. Violence is used in storytelling...a man goes to war and comes home changed, a women survives violence. We accept violence as entertainment, but not sex. Lost Girls challenges the idea that sexuality is only for the bedroom or porn. Sexuality as narrative is well-served by this wonderful book. Grade: A+ (It goes without saying that no one under 18 should read this without parental approval, nor should anyone uncomfortable with sexual images)

Sliding Into Home (Kendra Wilkinson)

Sliding Into Home (Kendra Wilkinson)

I really wanted to like this book, and I must admit I did have trouble putting it down. That being said, I mostly had this trouble putting it down because it was hard to believe how ridiculous it was, and I would have guessed it was written by a 13 year old. The book starts out talking about her difficult adolescent life, being addicted to cocaine and turning to stripping to make cash. Focusing more on this part of the book would have been nice, as it was the only interesting part. She then decides to move to the Playboy Mansion, where her “nighttime parties” with Hef leave a disturbing picture in your mind. Aside from that, her description of her time at the mansion is incredibly boring, and there are few details about her life there. Overall, the most entertaining part of this book is the ridiculous phrases she uses. My favorite is when she attempts to convey her enthusiasm for landing a job at a dental office, so she no longer has to make pizzas: “Suck it Papa John’s”. I actually liked Kendra more before reading this.

Grade: D (too bad I couldn’t give a DD)

Three Kingdoms

Three Kingdoms

Luo Guanzhong (trans by Moss Roberts)

An epic classic of Chinese literature. Three Kingdoms tells the romanticized history of the wars of the three kingdoms of China; Wu, Shu, and Wei. Expect to devote a lot of time to the four volumes of Three Kingdoms, but your time will be well worth it. This book is an excellent read. If you enjoyed The Iliad or just like war stories, you will enjoy Three Kingdoms. Grade: A

"A Thousand Sons"

A Thousand Sons (Graham McNeill)

In the Warhammer 40,000 universe, I tend to find the "bad" guys (the forces of Chaos) more interesting than the "good" guys (Space Marines). This book focuses on one of the more interesting Space Marine legions that came to follow Chaos, the titular Thousand Sons, who ended up as a legion primarily of possessed, dust-filled suits of power armor. As you may expect from the subject matter, and the book's subtitle and opening line of "All is dust," this isn't a very uplifting book (even for the ludicrously dark W40k universe). With all that being said, I thought this was a great book. I read the whole thing over two days while laid low with the stomach flu, and reading this book and dozing off were just about the only thing that made it bearable. I don't recommend getting the stomach flu, but I do recommend reading this book if you're a W40K fan. (If not, I'd recommend starting with some of the Caiphas Cain books, which will provide a much more approachable, light-hearted introduction.)
W40k fan grade: A
Normal person grade: B-

"The Last Battle"

The Last Battle (Cornelius Ryan)

I feel like I'm missing the boat on this book; It's apparently quite well reviewed (not a single 3, 2, or 1 star review on Amazon!) but I only made it halfway through. Frankly, I found the use of personal stories boring -I'll take it on faith that it isn't very much fun living in bomb-shattered Berlin, I don't need to read 15 pages of a milkman making his rounds. I also found the scene-setting (dealing with the preperations SHAEF and the Soviets were making with the final drive on Berlin) to be overlong, not that interesting, and frankly needless - like the personal stories, I felt like this could have been summed up much more succiently. The part that I found myself really interested in was the actual final offensives, and here the book is well-written and backed up with enough good primary sources to be quite gripping - but unfortuneatly this is about a third of the book, and a book being a third great and two thirds skippable isn't something I can recommend.

History nerd grade: C-
Non-nerd grade: C+

"Batwoman: Elegy"

Batwoman: Elegy (Greg Rucka &etc.)

I didn't even know they had a Batwoman, but here's her origin story. This is a great looking book, probably one of the best-looking graphic novels I've ever read, and the story isn't too shabby either. My only complaint is the book's structure - it starts in media res with Batwoman hot on someone's trail, and then the second half of the book is her actual origin story. But when nit-picking about the order the story's told is all I can complain about, you've probably got a winner on your hands. (And to be fair, I may just be looking for a nit to pick otherwise this review would just be "It's great lolz", and that's not even bite-sized book reviews. Maybe if we had amuse-bouche book reviews.)
Grade: A+

"Neverwhere" (Graphic Novel version)

Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman)

If you enjoy a slow-starting story that fails to engage, an unlikeable female lead who leaves the book's main hero stuck without warning or explanation in a London where nobody sees or hears him, and a character drawn to look like an extremely offensive blackface stereotype, this is the book for you! I made it a third of the way in and bailed.
Grade: F-

"Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium" & Warhammer 40000 Introduction

It doesn't get much nerdier than this - Warhammer 40000 is a dark, violent, all-around horrible far-future setting for tabletop games, video games, and for our purposes here, various sci-fi books about people doing hideous things to each other (or the endless swarms of monstrous aliens). I can't imagine anyone reading this list (here I'm thinking of my parents and sister) will be interested in these books, but they're listed here since I read 'em.

Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium (Sandy Mitchell)

The first three Ciaphas Cane books are collected here - Cain is a Commissar (he's attached to infantry units and is in charge of maintaining morale, usually by shooting whatever unlucky soldier is the first one to run away from whatever horror they're ineffectively plinking away at today). The fact that this is as light-hearted as W40k gets probably tells you all you need to know. The novels are well-written, as is the first short story; The other two short story parts I can't say the same for (I don't know how you make an attack by undead space robots boring), but they don't make up much of the total package. This, and the issue that you get in any omnibus (recapping a novel you just finished a few pages ago) aside, I have nothing to complain about.
Nerd Grade: A-
Everyone Else: D-


Editor's Note. On thinking back, this is probably a great starting place for a non-Warhammer 40,000 fan to start reading; I'm not sure what I was thinking with that grade of D-, but please disregard it. Thank you.

"Peter the Great"

Peter the Great (Robert K Massie)

The definitive Peter the Great book, at least as far as I've read. Although it's a big book - 850 pages or so - it's always readable and (almost) always interesting. I admit I did start skipping pages when the author would start going into detail about Peter's various palaces or his wife's social life, but these were only a few pages. Probably more enjoyable if you know basically nothing about Peter the Great before starting (like I did) - the book is written for novices and gives a broad history of Russia as Peter found it, and the tension building up to the defining battle of Peter's reign at Poltava ends up nail-biting if you don't know what's going to happen. The downside is that Peter's later life after peace is made is a little less interesting, but by that point you're on the downslope and it's only about 200 pages before the book's over. Difficult to put down.
History Nerd Grade: A
Non-History Nerd Grade: B-

"I shall destroy all the civilized planets!"

I shall destroy all the civilized planets! (Fletcher Hanks)

A collection of bizarre (even for the era) Golden Age comics. Wisely, the editors have placed the stories of increasing insanity, so the first one or two may not seem that crazy; Soon enough, though, you'll be treated to Super Wizard Stardust Justice (yes, really) using his "rays" to pick up an island, turn it upside down, and drop a crime boss through the middle of it so he gets eaten by a "golden octopus". I'd recommend reading the book in parts (maybe a chapter each of Stardust and his skull-faced counterpoint, Fantomah) - this way you won't become numbed by the increasing craziness and will react appropriately when Stardust tells a villain that "Just as you tried to destroy the heads of state, so your head shall be destroyed" and turns a gangster into a leering head supported on tiny, wingtip-clad feet. Good bathroom book.
Grade: Weird