The Rogue Republic: How Would-Be Patriots Waged the Shortest Revolution in American History (William C. Davis)
Here's a book I wanted to like. I'm always interested in the parts of history that largely go un-examined - hence my excitement to get my hands on this book, a history of how Spanish Florida came to be part of the United States in between the end of the Revolutionary war and the War of 1812. Unfortunately, I didn't find the book itself that great. I don't know if it's because of the huge cast of characters, or the author being a better historian than he is a writer, but I had a lot of trouble keeping everything straight at some points. The biggest five or six characters are fine, and the first half of the book, focusing on the guerilla war of one family versus the nervous, tottering Spanish colonial administration, is great. However, once the Spanish are overthrown and the second half of the book starts with the West Florida Republic's entire government being introduced, I had a hard time keeping who was what with the things and oh boy. This isn't helped by the second half of the book's mostly being a bureaucratic history of the republic's short-lived existence. Overall, I don't regret buying or reading this book, but it's hard to really recommend unless you're a huge nerd. Cough.
Grade: C+
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Journey to the West
Journey to the West
One of the Four Classics of Chinese Literature. I've now read half!
Journey to the West has inspired anime, video games, and movies. The story is about, I feel, Monkey. He grows powerful, disrupts heaven, and must redeem himself by protecting a monk on a long journey to worship Buddha and receive holy scrolls. Along the way, Monkey, Pig, Friar Sand and the monk are beset by demons who want to eat the monk and they must overcome all.
Like Three Kingdoms, there are four volumes and this is a long read. I highly recommend it though if you liked Three Kingdoms or if hero journeys appeal to you. I have nothing else to say other than read it!
Monday, December 26, 2011
"The Horus Heresy: Collected Visions"
The Horus Heresy: Collected Visions (Alan Merrett)
Well, I didn't think I was going to read this whole thing, but here we are. This is a nice big hefty coffee table book about the Horus Heresy, mostly art comissioned for some collectible card game that's too nerdy even for me. The art makes up probably 80% of the pages and is the real star, although the text isn't bad, describing the entire Heresy from start to finish. Fellow W40K nerds should beware that the text contains a few passages that may charitably be described as perhaps inaccurate and maybe more accurately described as heretical; This includes the Emperor directing Russ and the Space Wolves to flat out destroy the Thousand Sons instead of just ferrying Magnus back to earth (and the text later contradicts itself on this point anyway), and weirdest of all, having the Emperor and Horus have a big dumb hollywood fight at the end where Horus pulls one of the Emperor's arms off and stuff. (I was under the impression that the Emperor could have defeated Horus any time he wanted; It was only his love for his son and his humanity that was staying his hand, not that Horus was able to beat him up as depicted here.) (Also, if you understood any of what I just said, you are a giant nerd.)
Highlights:
Page 200, which features what appears to be a demonically laughing woman zooming across the page powered by what can only be described as a massive jet fart
Pages 362 & 363, a full page spread of probably the greatest piece of W40K art of all time featuring the Emperor confronting Horus on the bridge of his ship
Grade: B
Well, I didn't think I was going to read this whole thing, but here we are. This is a nice big hefty coffee table book about the Horus Heresy, mostly art comissioned for some collectible card game that's too nerdy even for me. The art makes up probably 80% of the pages and is the real star, although the text isn't bad, describing the entire Heresy from start to finish. Fellow W40K nerds should beware that the text contains a few passages that may charitably be described as perhaps inaccurate and maybe more accurately described as heretical; This includes the Emperor directing Russ and the Space Wolves to flat out destroy the Thousand Sons instead of just ferrying Magnus back to earth (and the text later contradicts itself on this point anyway), and weirdest of all, having the Emperor and Horus have a big dumb hollywood fight at the end where Horus pulls one of the Emperor's arms off and stuff. (I was under the impression that the Emperor could have defeated Horus any time he wanted; It was only his love for his son and his humanity that was staying his hand, not that Horus was able to beat him up as depicted here.) (Also, if you understood any of what I just said, you are a giant nerd.)
Highlights:
Page 200, which features what appears to be a demonically laughing woman zooming across the page powered by what can only be described as a massive jet fart
Pages 362 & 363, a full page spread of probably the greatest piece of W40K art of all time featuring the Emperor confronting Horus on the bridge of his ship
Grade: B
Sunday, December 25, 2011
The Alienist
N.Ham and I read this book out loud to each other, each of us trying to do voices and accents for the characters. I enjoyed the first 75% of the book but once our heroes had an idea who the murderer is...I just wanted them to catch the killer already.
The novel is set in the late 1800s in New York City during Theodore Roosevelt's time as police commissioner. A journalist (who is a complete moron but is supposed to be the audience stand-in), a lady (omg, she might show her ankle off), an alienist (psychologist), and two detectives set out to invent modern crime solving and catch a killer of young boy-prostitutes. The detail in the setting of the novel as well as the nascent crime fighting techniques are interesting. I did think it was odd how enlightened all the 'good guys' were for the late 1800s. I suppose we wouldn't root for racist, sexist homophobes though.
Read if you like old timey crime solvin'.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
"The Chronicles of Harris Burdick"
The Chronicles of Harris Burdick: Fourteen Amazing Authors Tell The Tales (Various authors)
One of the neater Chris Van Allsburg books is "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick", a collection of 14 images with cryptic captions (my favorite being the last one, a house blasting off with the title "It was a perfect lift off"). The idea is that you use the little cyptic caption and the picture and write a short story, or just let your imagination go wild. In this collection, fourteen authors are rounded up to write their own take on an image.
This book lives or dies on the writing quality (well, I guess every book does, but even more so). Some of the shorts - "A Strange Day in July" and "Uninvited Guests" - are great. Some of them, like "Missing in Venice" and "Under the Rug" are enjoyable larfs. Unfortunatly, there's a lot of stinkers. "Another Time, Another Place" and "The Seven Chairs" are both really bad, not just badly written, but squandering some great concepts. ("The Seven Chairs" is the worst offender here; The image is a nun flying 100 feet up in a chair and the title "The fifth chair ended up in France," and the story is, there's this woman who can fly in chairs, and the fifth chair she can fly in goes to France, and she becomes a nun. Oh, you wanted to know if the story had a point? No; At least, not one besides the author getting paid.)
All in all, this is an interesting book, but there are more bad stories than good - I want to say it's about a 2:1 ratio - and the one-two punch of the book ending with Chris van Allsberg's own completely boring and pointless contribution and Stephen King's awful story about an abusive history professor dad (who drives a Porsche?) based on my favorite picture of the house lifting off kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. I found it enjoyable when I viewed each take not as the final word on these images, but just as each author's take. That being said, I feel like you'll have more fun with the original book making up your own stories.
Grade: C-
One of the neater Chris Van Allsburg books is "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick", a collection of 14 images with cryptic captions (my favorite being the last one, a house blasting off with the title "It was a perfect lift off"). The idea is that you use the little cyptic caption and the picture and write a short story, or just let your imagination go wild. In this collection, fourteen authors are rounded up to write their own take on an image.
This book lives or dies on the writing quality (well, I guess every book does, but even more so). Some of the shorts - "A Strange Day in July" and "Uninvited Guests" - are great. Some of them, like "Missing in Venice" and "Under the Rug" are enjoyable larfs. Unfortunatly, there's a lot of stinkers. "Another Time, Another Place" and "The Seven Chairs" are both really bad, not just badly written, but squandering some great concepts. ("The Seven Chairs" is the worst offender here; The image is a nun flying 100 feet up in a chair and the title "The fifth chair ended up in France," and the story is, there's this woman who can fly in chairs, and the fifth chair she can fly in goes to France, and she becomes a nun. Oh, you wanted to know if the story had a point? No; At least, not one besides the author getting paid.)
All in all, this is an interesting book, but there are more bad stories than good - I want to say it's about a 2:1 ratio - and the one-two punch of the book ending with Chris van Allsberg's own completely boring and pointless contribution and Stephen King's awful story about an abusive history professor dad (who drives a Porsche?) based on my favorite picture of the house lifting off kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. I found it enjoyable when I viewed each take not as the final word on these images, but just as each author's take. That being said, I feel like you'll have more fun with the original book making up your own stories.
Grade: C-
Friday, December 16, 2011
"The Christmas Lamp"
The Christmas Lamp: A Novella (Lori Copeland)
You're probably already familiar with the idea, if not the formal definition, of the idiot plot - the plot that would be solved in five minutes if everyone wasn't a dumbass. I admit that I have real problems with these. You can ask K. Ham - I'll often end up yelling angry advice and orders at the TV ("Just shoot him!!!"). Unfortuenatly, The Christmas Lamp has one of the worst idiot plots I've seen in a while. As the book opens, the town of Nativity has set up a town christmas tree in an intersection. A car intersection, that you drive through, with your car, is where the town christmas tree is. Now wait, I hear you asking, don't people hit the christmas tree in the middle of an intersection with their cars? Yes they do. In fact, that's how the book starts. The male lead, who may as well be named Grinchy Lesson Learner, shows up and, surprise, hits the town christmas tree, which is in the intersection, with his car. Later, he proposes that, if the tree gets hit by another car, they not bother putting it back up. This is supposted to show us how much he hates Christmas, and Jesus, and mom and apple pie. He then gets into a fight with the moronically named "Roni", the book's female lead, about wether or not they should put the tree back up if it gets hit by another car.
At this point I had an idea. How about you move the tree? Maybe - I don't know - cars wouldn't hit the tree if it wasn't in a fucking intersection? However, this never occurs to our happy little band of morons. No, instead there's geninue tears and hurt feelings over not keeping up a tree, in a intersection, where it's hit by cars several times each year.
At this point I have to confess I put the book down. I could already tell what was going to happen - the male lead, who at this point is Evil(TM), and is described as such ("He detested Christmas and all its phony sentiments"), is going to learn that Christmas means putting up a tree on the fucking street where it gets hit by cars all the time, and he'll marry "Roni", even though she's at the age of 29, which makes her an old bag who needs to get married and start popping out kids right this second.
Regrettably, The Christmas Lamp is another in the depressingly quickly growing collection of free Kindle books that are so bad I still feel ripped off.
Grade: F
You're probably already familiar with the idea, if not the formal definition, of the idiot plot - the plot that would be solved in five minutes if everyone wasn't a dumbass. I admit that I have real problems with these. You can ask K. Ham - I'll often end up yelling angry advice and orders at the TV ("Just shoot him!!!"). Unfortuenatly, The Christmas Lamp has one of the worst idiot plots I've seen in a while. As the book opens, the town of Nativity has set up a town christmas tree in an intersection. A car intersection, that you drive through, with your car, is where the town christmas tree is. Now wait, I hear you asking, don't people hit the christmas tree in the middle of an intersection with their cars? Yes they do. In fact, that's how the book starts. The male lead, who may as well be named Grinchy Lesson Learner, shows up and, surprise, hits the town christmas tree, which is in the intersection, with his car. Later, he proposes that, if the tree gets hit by another car, they not bother putting it back up. This is supposted to show us how much he hates Christmas, and Jesus, and mom and apple pie. He then gets into a fight with the moronically named "Roni", the book's female lead, about wether or not they should put the tree back up if it gets hit by another car.
At this point I had an idea. How about you move the tree? Maybe - I don't know - cars wouldn't hit the tree if it wasn't in a fucking intersection? However, this never occurs to our happy little band of morons. No, instead there's geninue tears and hurt feelings over not keeping up a tree, in a intersection, where it's hit by cars several times each year.
At this point I have to confess I put the book down. I could already tell what was going to happen - the male lead, who at this point is Evil(TM), and is described as such ("He detested Christmas and all its phony sentiments"), is going to learn that Christmas means putting up a tree on the fucking street where it gets hit by cars all the time, and he'll marry "Roni", even though she's at the age of 29, which makes her an old bag who needs to get married and start popping out kids right this second.
Regrettably, The Christmas Lamp is another in the depressingly quickly growing collection of free Kindle books that are so bad I still feel ripped off.
Grade: F
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
"The Epcot Explorer's Encyclopedia"
The Epcot Explorer's Encyclopedia: A guide to the flora, fauna, and fun of the world's greatest theme park! (R. A. Pederson)
Not really an encyclopedia - The author, I assume, avowedly avoided appliciable advice to always abstain from alliteration - this is really a history and rundown of Epcot, from the pavilions to the rides. Most of the book - about 80% - is about the front half of Epcot, Futureland (understandable, since the back half, the World Showcase, is mostly un-changing shops). The star attraction is the detailed rundowns of the rides, and as far as I've seen, this is the best place to get information about what the rides used to be like - the written information in this book is much more comprehensive and understandable than shaky YouTube footage, and the behind the scenes information sprinkled in is a nice touch. (It seems like this is a great resource if your husband never went on, say, Horizens, or the original Journey Into Imagination, and you're going crazy attempting to explain it to him.) About the only bad things I can say is that, being what looks like a self-published labor of love, there are a few goofy grammar and spelling errors, and that obviously if you don't give a fuck about Disney you'll be bored out of your skull. You grinch you.
Grade: B
Not really an encyclopedia - The author, I assume, avowedly avoided appliciable advice to always abstain from alliteration - this is really a history and rundown of Epcot, from the pavilions to the rides. Most of the book - about 80% - is about the front half of Epcot, Futureland (understandable, since the back half, the World Showcase, is mostly un-changing shops). The star attraction is the detailed rundowns of the rides, and as far as I've seen, this is the best place to get information about what the rides used to be like - the written information in this book is much more comprehensive and understandable than shaky YouTube footage, and the behind the scenes information sprinkled in is a nice touch. (It seems like this is a great resource if your husband never went on, say, Horizens, or the original Journey Into Imagination, and you're going crazy attempting to explain it to him.) About the only bad things I can say is that, being what looks like a self-published labor of love, there are a few goofy grammar and spelling errors, and that obviously if you don't give a fuck about Disney you'll be bored out of your skull. You grinch you.
Grade: B
Monday, December 12, 2011
"Lesbian Pulp Fiction"
Lesbian Pulp Fiction: The Sexually Intrepid World of Lesbian Paperback Novels 1950-1965 (Katherine V. Forrest, editor)
This is an interesting book, but I'm not really the target audience. The editor describes finding one of these novels in 1957 as "as nessessary to me as air"; Since that doesn't apply to me I found it to be more of an interesting collection of curios. For being pulp paperbacks from the 50's and early 60's I was surprised at how good most of the writing is, and Forrest's careful selection runs the gamut - although most books at the time had to have downer endings where the heroines either were locked up or were "cured" and happily settled down with Good Men (TM), Forrest has managed to either pick books without this mandated theme or excerpted the parts without it, so you get all kinds of different flavors. As a result the book's always interesting, and if you find a selection you don't like (and I'm not sure I ever did), it's just a few page flips before you're in a totally different world. I'm not really sure who to recommend this to, but I guess if you've read this far you'll be able to figure out if this is the kind of book you'd be interested in.
Grade: Uh, good?
This is an interesting book, but I'm not really the target audience. The editor describes finding one of these novels in 1957 as "as nessessary to me as air"; Since that doesn't apply to me I found it to be more of an interesting collection of curios. For being pulp paperbacks from the 50's and early 60's I was surprised at how good most of the writing is, and Forrest's careful selection runs the gamut - although most books at the time had to have downer endings where the heroines either were locked up or were "cured" and happily settled down with Good Men (TM), Forrest has managed to either pick books without this mandated theme or excerpted the parts without it, so you get all kinds of different flavors. As a result the book's always interesting, and if you find a selection you don't like (and I'm not sure I ever did), it's just a few page flips before you're in a totally different world. I'm not really sure who to recommend this to, but I guess if you've read this far you'll be able to figure out if this is the kind of book you'd be interested in.
Grade: Uh, good?
Friday, December 2, 2011
"Pompeii"
Pompeii: A Novel (Robert Harris)
Here's a interesting idea: A historicial fiction novel about Pompeii where the hero is a Roman aquaduct engineer, with the events leading up to the apocalyptic explosion explored as a series of phenominia that disrupt the water supply of towns around the bay.
That may sound boring - and for our non-nerd readers out there, it probably is - but I found this to be a very fresh and interesting approach. Combine the unconventional presmise with with the ever-present sense of doom hanging over the hero (he may not know what's going to happen, but you do, and the author starts each chapter with a snippet from a science tome about the fearsome power behind volcanos), and then pile on the fact that there's a mini-murder mystery (the hero is investigating the mysterious disappearence of his predecessor) and the fact that there's a corrupt plutocrat who is even more dangerous to our hero in the short term than the volcano.
If that sounds like a lot, it is, and it's packed into a slight book, but Harris has a very deft touch, and the result is the most suspensefull thrill-ride about Roman aquaducts you're likely to read.
Grade: A
Here's a interesting idea: A historicial fiction novel about Pompeii where the hero is a Roman aquaduct engineer, with the events leading up to the apocalyptic explosion explored as a series of phenominia that disrupt the water supply of towns around the bay.
That may sound boring - and for our non-nerd readers out there, it probably is - but I found this to be a very fresh and interesting approach. Combine the unconventional presmise with with the ever-present sense of doom hanging over the hero (he may not know what's going to happen, but you do, and the author starts each chapter with a snippet from a science tome about the fearsome power behind volcanos), and then pile on the fact that there's a mini-murder mystery (the hero is investigating the mysterious disappearence of his predecessor) and the fact that there's a corrupt plutocrat who is even more dangerous to our hero in the short term than the volcano.
If that sounds like a lot, it is, and it's packed into a slight book, but Harris has a very deft touch, and the result is the most suspensefull thrill-ride about Roman aquaducts you're likely to read.
Grade: A
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