The X-President (Philip Baruth)
Is there anything more frustrating than a book with a good idea that has no idea what to do with it? That's the case with this novel, based around the idea that Bill Clinton - through no fault of his own - sets in motion a chain of events that leads the world to unite against America, and his biographer is recruited to go back in time and steer him away from this path.
At least, that's what the back cover and reviews say. I got to page 80 (out of 369), and not only has our heroine not yet traveled back in time, she doesn't even know time travel is possible, having farted around for 80 pages getting nothing done. I could forgive how long this takes to get going if the writing was excellent, or if interesting things were happening, but neither of these is the case. The most egregious example, to me, is a clutch of pages wasted showing the heroine returning to her house that she's sublet and breaking up a party that her tenant's teenage daughter is throwing. What do we learn from this? That our heroine doesn't like having keg parties thrown in her house? Why should I care? Why are you showing me this? When is something exciting going to happen?
Urgh. Baruth either needs a more forceful editor, or to have more respect for his readers. This leaden brick is going right in the donation pile.
Grade: D-
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Thursday, July 25, 2013
"The Emperor's Gift"
The Emperor's Gift (Aaron Dembski-Bowden)
Grade: A
Halfway through this book, I thought I
had it all figured out. All the ADB books I've read up till this point were
about Chaos space marines - read irredeemable scum – who have been
humanized, given real personalities and back stories to the point
where I found myself often rooting for them even as they continued doing
horrible things that marked them irremediably as Bad Guys. Here,
ADB's writing instead about the Grey Knights, basically as good a group of guys
as you'll find in the WH40k universe. And sure enough, about halfway through
the book, they end up behaving less than heroically - not of their own free
will, but still.
"Oh,"
I thought smugly to myself. I see what he's doing here; instead of taking bad
guys and humanizing them so they're real characters, he's taking good guys
and making them do bad things, so they're more like
real characters too. And had that been the case, this would have gone
down as a good but not great book - nothing to complain about, but a step down
from ADB's previous work.
As it turns out,
that's not the case. ADB pulls it off, and although I can't really say what
"it" is without getting into spoilers, suffice to say I was shown who is the
boss (Ed. note: the boss is your wife).
ADB is even nice enough to have the book's “villain” come out and sum
everything up:
"Some stories have no villain... Merely a mix of
souls, each seeking to find where the answers lie."
Grade: A
Monday, July 15, 2013
"Billy Phelan's Greatest Game"
Billy Phelan's Greatest Game (William Kennedy)
I was not impressed with the last William Kennedy book I read, but I was not prepared for how truly terrible this one is. I think this may be one of the worst-written books I have ever read, no small feat considering the compitition. I hardly even know where to start with this; within the first five pages, we are told that someone "lived with his bowling ball as if it were a third testicle". Guys, if you keep your bowling ball down your pants, you are both very strong, and probably should see a mental health worker; also, if your testicles are so big that a bowling ball would plausibly be a third one, please consult a medical professional.
Amazingly, it gets worse from here. I'll just pick out one of the passages that had me scratching my head, rolling my eyes, and sighing in annoyance:
This book fucking sucks.
Grade: F-
I was not impressed with the last William Kennedy book I read, but I was not prepared for how truly terrible this one is. I think this may be one of the worst-written books I have ever read, no small feat considering the compitition. I hardly even know where to start with this; within the first five pages, we are told that someone "lived with his bowling ball as if it were a third testicle". Guys, if you keep your bowling ball down your pants, you are both very strong, and probably should see a mental health worker; also, if your testicles are so big that a bowling ball would plausibly be a third one, please consult a medical professional.
Amazingly, it gets worse from here. I'll just pick out one of the passages that had me scratching my head, rolling my eyes, and sighing in annoyance:
Men like Billy Phelan, forged in the brass of Broadway, send, in the time of their splendor, telegraphic statements of mission: I, you bums, am a winner. And that message, however devoid of Christ-like other-cheekery, dooms the faint-hearted Scottys of the night, who must sludge along, never knowing how it feels to spill over with the small change of sassiness, how it feels to leave the spillover there on the floor, more where that came from, pal. Leave it for the sweeper.What the fuck is happening in this paragraph? What is Billy leaving on the floor for the sweeper? Is he so overjoyed at being "devoid of Christ-like other-cheekery" that he's shitting his pants? Is he throwing up, like I wanted to reading this book? Was someone really paid to write "the small change of sassiness"? How did this happen? Why was this allowed to happen??
This book fucking sucks.
Grade: F-
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
"Absolute Promethea" (Book 3)
Absolute Promethea: Book Three (Alan Moore, J.H. Williams III & Mick Gray)
Not to be confused with Prometha: Book Three, this is actually Books Four and Five collected in one huge volume. (I know it's confusing; this is what happens when you switch formats halfway through a series!) Since Promethea only runs to five books, this collection wraps the series up. Upfront, I'll say that it's quite good, and then I'm going to get into some minor spoilers...
A big part of this book is Promethea getting ready to end the world, with the series just about wrapping up as she does so. However, her actions don't really bring around anything like the end of the world. Instead, it's more like she's giving out a revelation. There isn't any widespread distruction, and the only people who die are people who kill themselves because of what she tells them. This is certainly tragic, but not exactly the END OF THE WORLD!!! that so many of the book's other charecters were trying so hard to prevent throughout the book. Also, the revelation she gives out falls a little flat to me; maybe you had to be there.
Anyways, the spoilers are over, and that one issue aside, this is quite good. Actually, wait, there is one other thing; the last issue is Promethea talking directly to the reader, and while I would have really liked to read this, the backround of every page is a huge garish rainbow smear of color, rendering it basically unreadable. Even in this extra-large format under a strong lamp, I could feel my eyes writhing in terror at trying to make out the text.
So that's really the only negative things I can say. Since this is the Absolute edition, there's some nice extras at the end, including two mini-comics about the least-seen aspect of Promethea drawn in early 20th century style that I found quite charming. All in all, if you've come this far you owe it to yourself to finish the series, and if not, uh, I really hope you didn't read those spoilers up there.
Grade: A-
Not to be confused with Prometha: Book Three, this is actually Books Four and Five collected in one huge volume. (I know it's confusing; this is what happens when you switch formats halfway through a series!) Since Promethea only runs to five books, this collection wraps the series up. Upfront, I'll say that it's quite good, and then I'm going to get into some minor spoilers...
A big part of this book is Promethea getting ready to end the world, with the series just about wrapping up as she does so. However, her actions don't really bring around anything like the end of the world. Instead, it's more like she's giving out a revelation. There isn't any widespread distruction, and the only people who die are people who kill themselves because of what she tells them. This is certainly tragic, but not exactly the END OF THE WORLD!!! that so many of the book's other charecters were trying so hard to prevent throughout the book. Also, the revelation she gives out falls a little flat to me; maybe you had to be there.
Anyways, the spoilers are over, and that one issue aside, this is quite good. Actually, wait, there is one other thing; the last issue is Promethea talking directly to the reader, and while I would have really liked to read this, the backround of every page is a huge garish rainbow smear of color, rendering it basically unreadable. Even in this extra-large format under a strong lamp, I could feel my eyes writhing in terror at trying to make out the text.
So that's really the only negative things I can say. Since this is the Absolute edition, there's some nice extras at the end, including two mini-comics about the least-seen aspect of Promethea drawn in early 20th century style that I found quite charming. All in all, if you've come this far you owe it to yourself to finish the series, and if not, uh, I really hope you didn't read those spoilers up there.
Grade: A-
Sunday, July 7, 2013
"Promethea" (Book 3)
Promethea: Book 3 (Alan Moore, J.H. Williams III & Mick Gray)
It's been a while since books one and two (the perils of poaching books off your wife's shelf). Luckily I didn't feel too lost picking up here, although it took me a minute to remember what happened at the end of Book 2 - someone was killed, if that's the right word, and this book picks up with Promethea going after her. To do this she journies into the Sephirot (the Tree of Life, not the bad guy from Final Fantasy 7), which makes up basically all of this book.
And how is it? Pretty good. The writing's what you would expect from Alan Moore, and while apparently some reviewers didn't enjoy the mysticism, I'm not sure why you'd still be reading this series if that was a turn off. (I mean, this is a series where our heroine gets her powers by writing poems about imagination.) The art is also quite nice, although there are a few hiccups (one section done entirely in black and red that I think is supposted to be scary comes off more as eye-punching). I don't really have anything negative to say about this book; if you've already started reading the series, there's no reason not to get it, but I guess you don't really need me to tell you that.
Grade: A
It's been a while since books one and two (the perils of poaching books off your wife's shelf). Luckily I didn't feel too lost picking up here, although it took me a minute to remember what happened at the end of Book 2 - someone was killed, if that's the right word, and this book picks up with Promethea going after her. To do this she journies into the Sephirot (the Tree of Life, not the bad guy from Final Fantasy 7), which makes up basically all of this book.
And how is it? Pretty good. The writing's what you would expect from Alan Moore, and while apparently some reviewers didn't enjoy the mysticism, I'm not sure why you'd still be reading this series if that was a turn off. (I mean, this is a series where our heroine gets her powers by writing poems about imagination.) The art is also quite nice, although there are a few hiccups (one section done entirely in black and red that I think is supposted to be scary comes off more as eye-punching). I don't really have anything negative to say about this book; if you've already started reading the series, there's no reason not to get it, but I guess you don't really need me to tell you that.
Grade: A
Friday, July 5, 2013
"The Secrets of Alchemy"
The Secrets of Alchemy (Lawrence Principe)
I feel like I'm repeating myself lately when making statements that my biggest complaint about a book is that I wanted more of it, but I can't help it. This is a slim little tome (Amazon says 296 pages, but I think the main text barely topped 200) - in this small space the author fits in both a history of alchemy and several practical experiments he conducted following the ancient instructions. This is rather fascinating, not to mention pretty educational, and as alluded to above, my only gripe was that I wanted the author to go more in-depth on the history and do more experiments with the classical recipes. On the other hand, I don't want to give the impression that the author is only skimming the surface; the history section goes so far as to include a section on the cultural impact of alchemy and chemistry, including several poems that are more fun than they have any right to be when read aloud to your wife at Applebee's. So uh, recommended.
Grade: A
I feel like I'm repeating myself lately when making statements that my biggest complaint about a book is that I wanted more of it, but I can't help it. This is a slim little tome (Amazon says 296 pages, but I think the main text barely topped 200) - in this small space the author fits in both a history of alchemy and several practical experiments he conducted following the ancient instructions. This is rather fascinating, not to mention pretty educational, and as alluded to above, my only gripe was that I wanted the author to go more in-depth on the history and do more experiments with the classical recipes. On the other hand, I don't want to give the impression that the author is only skimming the surface; the history section goes so far as to include a section on the cultural impact of alchemy and chemistry, including several poems that are more fun than they have any right to be when read aloud to your wife at Applebee's. So uh, recommended.
Grade: A
Monday, July 1, 2013
"Yesterday's Tomorrows"
Yesterday's Tomorrows: Past Visions of the American Future (Joseph Corn and Brian Horrigan)
After finishing a book but before writing a review, I like going to Amazon and reading the reviews there to sharpen my own thoughts. Most of the time this helps me distill down what I want to write, but sometimes the Amazon authors sum it up so succiently that I'm thrown for a loop. In this case, the top rated Amazon review for this book is titled "Fun but not enough", and that really does sum the whole book up in four words. This book was written to accompany a museum exhibition, and as a result it's stuck inbetween two poles - it isn't just photographs of old visions of the future but neither is it a comprehensive history of the idea, and ultimately it fails to succeed totally on either level. It comes closer with the photographs, which are quite nice but there aren't enough of; the accompanying text gives enough information to whet the appetite but not much else. There's two other minor complaints I have, one being that the book is a little unusually shaped and hurt my arm after holding it up for two chapters (rest it on the sofa!), and the second being that the book came out in 1983, so there's one section that reads like "Will Xanadu foam houses catch on?!" (Spoiler alert: lol, no.) To be fair, neither of these are big complaints - the book's shape isn't that out of the ordinary for an art book, and being old happens to all of us eventually. Added all up, this is probably not the book you're looking for unless your collection must have every book about the retro future, in which case you don't even need to read this review, so, um.
Grade: B-
After finishing a book but before writing a review, I like going to Amazon and reading the reviews there to sharpen my own thoughts. Most of the time this helps me distill down what I want to write, but sometimes the Amazon authors sum it up so succiently that I'm thrown for a loop. In this case, the top rated Amazon review for this book is titled "Fun but not enough", and that really does sum the whole book up in four words. This book was written to accompany a museum exhibition, and as a result it's stuck inbetween two poles - it isn't just photographs of old visions of the future but neither is it a comprehensive history of the idea, and ultimately it fails to succeed totally on either level. It comes closer with the photographs, which are quite nice but there aren't enough of; the accompanying text gives enough information to whet the appetite but not much else. There's two other minor complaints I have, one being that the book is a little unusually shaped and hurt my arm after holding it up for two chapters (rest it on the sofa!), and the second being that the book came out in 1983, so there's one section that reads like "Will Xanadu foam houses catch on?!" (Spoiler alert: lol, no.) To be fair, neither of these are big complaints - the book's shape isn't that out of the ordinary for an art book, and being old happens to all of us eventually. Added all up, this is probably not the book you're looking for unless your collection must have every book about the retro future, in which case you don't even need to read this review, so, um.
Grade: B-
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