One of Scalzi's meatier books, it's a high concept sci-fi detective story about an FBI agent investigating a couple of murders surrounding a sport thaOne of Scalzi's meatier books, it's a high concept sci-fi detective story about an FBI agent investigating a couple of murders surrounding a sport that's played by people who are paralyzed in their own bodies, but control humanoid robots. Like most detective stories, I've already forgotten all of the twists and turns and if I pick up the next book in the series, I'll most likely be lost as to the particulars....more
So, an audio adaptation of a comic series. Doesn't seem like it should work, does it? But it does, and really, really well. I loved the entire run of So, an audio adaptation of a comic series. Doesn't seem like it should work, does it? But it does, and really, really well. I loved the entire run of the comics, and this was a perfect alternative take on the story.
The reason you can take a strictly visual medium and turn it into a strictly aural medium comes down to the production value. This has great voice actors, great sound effects, and great mood music. It's never unclear what's going on, who's talking.
The thing is, though... I don't see how this will ever be a viable medium. Audiobooks are a big business now, but there is so much more involved in the production of something like this. Instead of one narrator standing in front of a microphone for a few days to record a novel, you've got 30-something actors doing different parts and a hell of a lot of editing and producing to do. It's more like recording a music album than an audiobook.
But Audible is giving this out for free at the moment, I suppose to gauge the amount of interest in this new medium. If people get excited about this like I am, I'm all for further productions like this. Bring on the audio comics!
Merged review:
So, an audio adaptation of a comic series. Doesn't seem like it should work, does it? But it does, and really, really well. I loved the entire run of the comics, and this was a perfect alternative take on the story.
The reason you can take a strictly visual medium and turn it into a strictly aural medium comes down to the production value. This has great voice actors, great sound effects, and great mood music. It's never unclear what's going on, who's talking.
The thing is, though... I don't see how this will ever be a viable medium. Audiobooks are a big business now, but there is so much more involved in the production of something like this. Instead of one narrator standing in front of a microphone for a few days to record a novel, you've got 30-something actors doing different parts and a hell of a lot of editing and producing to do. It's more like recording a music album than an audiobook.
But Audible is giving this out for free at the moment, I suppose to gauge the amount of interest in this new medium. If people get excited about this like I am, I'm all for further productions like this. Bring on the audio comics!...more
A blend of memoir and nonfiction exploration of the National Park Ranger career. Did you know that Park Rangers are the most likely law enforcement ofA blend of memoir and nonfiction exploration of the National Park Ranger career. Did you know that Park Rangers are the most likely law enforcement officers to be assaulted? More than border patrol, more than FBI agents, more than beat cops. I’ve imagined a simple, peaceful life of a park ranger for myself a time or two; the point of this book is to disabuse you of the notion that being one is anything but simple or peaceful. ...more
I've been hot or cold on John Scalzi in the past. Sometimes he gets a bit juvenile, but usually he's fun. I found this book inconsequential and unexciI've been hot or cold on John Scalzi in the past. Sometimes he gets a bit juvenile, but usually he's fun. I found this book inconsequential and unexciting, though....more
Whatever you think about Elon Musk, it's undeniable he has become one of the most relevant and influential people in the world. He's not just an eccenWhatever you think about Elon Musk, it's undeniable he has become one of the most relevant and influential people in the world. He's not just an eccentric billionaire anymore; he's in the middle of just about every major issue going on right now. I used to admire him quite a bit. Now I'm conflicted, to say the least.
I admit I thought it very strange when I first heard that Walter Isaacson wrote this book. Elon Musk is just 52. A biography seems premature, especially because it seems we're currently at some kind of tipping point in which Musk's career will either begin to fall apart or he becomes even more consequential to this world. But Walter Isaacson is the right guy for this job, however strange it is. He's great at writing about flawed, divisive geniuses. There are many parallels between this book and Steve Jobs.
Like Jobs, Musk is a genius. Also, an asshole. But it's that dichotomy that makes both of them so interesting. Are they so effective and successful because or in spite of their flaws? Is there something about being a genius that makes you a difficult person? What should we all think or say about a person with so much power and potential, but such a mercurial relationship with the world? Along with the story of Musk's life, these are the questions Isaacson sets to explore, if not actually answer.
One of the reasons I chose to read this is to try to make sense of how Musk, an exceedingly brilliant thinker and strategist, could be making so many bizarre and self-destructive mistakes of late. The answer is simply that he is a severely damaged person. There's a good bit in here about his rough childhood, his absolutely demented father, his mental health struggles, his megalomania, his hero complex, his strained relationships with women and his children. To be honest, it's surprising that he's as healthy as he is.
And if you're wondering specifically about his follies with Twitter, there's quite a bit of that here. The book does a good job of laying out the context of each decision made with Twitter and while Musk definitely has made a lot of mistakes in its purchase and running it, things do make a little more sense than it seems when I scroll Reddit. For one, it does seem like there was a huge amount of waste. Musk does not abhor anything more than waste. He runs lean, no-nonsense companies. One of the biggest themes of the book is Musk's algorithm, which he applies to products, systems, and workforces... question every requirement; delete any piece you can (and if you don't have to add any pieces back later, you didn't delete enough.) The mass layoffs at Twitter were the first step in that algorithm: he deleted so many employees, he's having a hard time hiring back enough of them to run the company. Inhumane, perhaps, but not an insane strategy.
Musk is also an extreme risk taker and an adrenaline junkie. He thrives on drama and is exhilarated by controversy. The amount of times he placed his companies on the line for a risky bet to pay off is almost unbelievable. And somehow, they've just about always worked out. Maybe with Twitter, he's finally running out of luck.
The questions I wanted to answer with this book was this: does the good Elon Musk has contributed to the world outweigh the bad? Is he fundamentally good or evil? And there is no answer, not yet at least. The story's not over yet....more
I listened to this on audiobook on a drive from Kentucky to Florida. I've heard a lot about Blake Crouch's breakneck novels and thought it sounded likI listened to this on audiobook on a drive from Kentucky to Florida. I've heard a lot about Blake Crouch's breakneck novels and thought it sounded like perfect keep-me-awake-while-driving fare, but I found it pretty bland. I'm not sure anyone could have satisfied me with this premise, though: it's about a guy who receives a genetic upgrade that transforms him--within a matter of days--into a genius martial artist who can basically mindread. He's got to go on the run from, but also stop, a group of scientists intent on releasing the upgrade into the general public in a last ditch effort to save the world from climate change.
I don't have a problem with far-out sci-fi. I like ridiculous stuff. But I don't like when something that's supposed to be plausible feels ridiculous. This is supposed to be a near future scenario. Look, I don't know a lot about science or genetics, but I know when somebody tells you that humans only use ten percent of their brainpower and then say that we could unlock the other 90% and become super geniuses, I know that's BS.
This book could have used some subtlety. Every scene ends in a gunfight or an explosion. It probably would work as a movie; I find that action books don't work for me the same way action movies do. I love Mission:Impossible and in the movie theatre I can ignore silliness as long as what's happening onscreen is gripping enough, but I would have no interest in reading a Mission:Impossible book....more
Listened to this audiobook while I measured a big house and it hit the spot. Silly, fast paced, with a great narration. Scott Meyer/Luke Daniels is alListened to this audiobook while I measured a big house and it hit the spot. Silly, fast paced, with a great narration. Scott Meyer/Luke Daniels is always a fun, ridiculous combo. To be honest, I would never read this as a book-book, though....more
A really nice short novel set in Becky Chambers's cozy Wayfarers universe. This one's only got humans--no aliens here, or at least not any sentient onA really nice short novel set in Becky Chambers's cozy Wayfarers universe. This one's only got humans--no aliens here, or at least not any sentient ones. They're out exploring planets, researching slimy creatures, wondering how the folks back on Earth are doing. It's good stuff!...more
This is old school sci-fi horror at its most okay. I've never seen any of the movies, but it's so ingrained into our culture that I felt like I knew tThis is old school sci-fi horror at its most okay. I've never seen any of the movies, but it's so ingrained into our culture that I felt like I knew the story. There aren't too many surprises, but one interesting thing I didn't expect is how much this seemed like a stepping stone between HG Wells and modern sci-fi. The main character is very Wellsian: he's a rational doctor who keeps a level head. If you rewrote this book with some late Victorian prose and relocated it to the English countryside, I'd believe it was written by Wells.
A fine experience overall, but I'm not sure it stands up to its reputation....more
Notes from my reading of Shirley Jackson's letters:
- College-age Shirley writes remarkably well; her early letters have almost the same voice as her lNotes from my reading of Shirley Jackson's letters:
- College-age Shirley writes remarkably well; her early letters have almost the same voice as her later letters, as well as many of her stories. - It’s weird that Shirley and Stanley (her husband) like sports so much. She's constantly telling her parents or others about their experiences at baseball or football games, her hopes for her team's chances at the World Series, etc. When I imagine Shirley in her free time, I picture her practicing some light witchcraft, not cheering on her favorite batter. - Shirley found Joyce's Ulysses to be a bore, which gives me some feeling of validation. - Ralph Ellison was a close friend of Shirley and Stanley and wrote much of Invisible Man while staying with them. -Shirley constantly wrote to her parents to ask for financial help. Even with her relative publishing success and Stanley's career as a professor at Bennington College, they always struggled to make ends meet. -Stanley and Shirley had an open relationship, but not in the fun, modern sense. Stanley was a cheater and Shirley reluctantly allowed him to continue cheating with her knowledge. There are hints that many of his lovers were his students. (What a class act, eh?) There's no evidence that she engaged in any extramarital affairs. -Stanley refused to read Hill House because he’s afraid of ghosts. -Shirley LOVES the Wizard of Oz books and they come up constantly. -Shirley, just like me, considered We Have Always Lived in the Castle to be her best work. She has good taste! -In the end, I'm left with the same somber feeling: if she hadn't die of a heart attack at 48, what amazing literature would she have produced?...more
Pretty disappointing follow up to A Deadly Education. It got way too into the weeds with politics between the students and it's all planning without mPretty disappointing follow up to A Deadly Education. It got way too into the weeds with politics between the students and it's all planning without much action. Plus, our main character becomes way too overpowered, too early on....more
Read for the 2022 Roundtable Fantasy Book Tournament. Set in Eastern Canada around 1000 AD, it's about a clash of cultures between Inuits and Vikings Read for the 2022 Roundtable Fantasy Book Tournament. Set in Eastern Canada around 1000 AD, it's about a clash of cultures between Inuits and Vikings and, a bit less so, Christians. It starts out feeling like historical fiction, then some magical realism trickles in, but by the end it's a flat out fantasy story. I preferred the parts that felt mostly realistic but with a few magical elements creeping in.
It's a really ambitious book with a lot of research behind it and it deserves a lot of praise for that. But I never felt the oldness that should have come with a story set more than a thousand years ago. The narration is very modern and YA-ish. I could have done without the romance completely....more
Read for the 2022 Roundtable Fantasy Book Tournament. This could have been a much better book, but most everything about it was disappointing. It’s abRead for the 2022 Roundtable Fantasy Book Tournament. This could have been a much better book, but most everything about it was disappointing. It’s about a concubine and a mapmaker who run away from their sultan ‘cause the Spanish Inquisition is out to get ‘em. The mapmaker can draw maps and change reality with them; he can draw a tunnel and one will appear, which is a really cool idea, but it wasn’t used very much or very well. Then a lot of stuff happens, but the story and the writing and the characters are very unsatisfying. ...more
One of the things I dislike about my critical faculties is that I always have to compare the book I'm reading to to others I've read. I wish I could rOne of the things I dislike about my critical faculties is that I always have to compare the book I'm reading to to others I've read. I wish I could read a book and evaluate it on its own merits. This book kicked my compare/contrast instinct into overdrive. A Venn diagram formed itself in my mind, with overlapping circles representing Shirley Jackson, Sayaka Murata, JD Salinger, Maria Semple, and plenty of others.
This is a Shirley Jackson-esque tale of an awkward young woman dealing with repressed trauma. It's a Sayaka Murata-esque character study of a social misfit. It's got the first-person narrative style of Salinger and it attempts to find the quirk (even more so in the advertising than in the text itself) or Maria Semple.
That's not to say that it has no personality of its own. Despite how dark the book gets, its overall outlook is more optimistic than any of the authors mentioned. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite achieve the magic that Jackson or Salinger are capable of. The plot is easy to predict, the humor is very on the nose, and while it's an entertaining and satisfying book to read, it lacks any subtlety whatsoever....more
Another fun book in the same vein as Kings of the Wyld, though it lost a bit of its luster for me, on account of the world and creatures being familiaAnother fun book in the same vein as Kings of the Wyld, though it lost a bit of its luster for me, on account of the world and creatures being familiar. Instead of feeling like a brand new story, it felt like a remix: mostly new characters, new enemies, but same formula....more
Girl on a Motorcycle - Great story about Kushner doing an illegal motorcycle race in Mexico and crashing. Feels like it was pulled directly from The FGirl on a Motorcycle - Great story about Kushner doing an illegal motorcycle race in Mexico and crashing. Feels like it was pulled directly from The Flamethrowers, but of course, The Flamethrowers pulled this story directly from Kushner's life.
We Are Orphans Here - Travelogue about Kushner's visit with refugees in East Jerusalem. It's both depressing and inspiring, because it deals with humans treating each other inhumanely, but it's about how beautiful humans can be as well.
Earth Angel - Essay about the author Denis Johnson. I've only read his Train Dreams, which I loved, and this made me excited to read more.
In the Company of Truckers - A simple story about receiving kindness from strangers.
Bad Captains - An entertaining read about cruise ships, especially that one that crashed in the Mediterranean and the bad captain who abandoned ship ahead of all his passengers instead of going down with it.
Happy Hour - An essay about Jeff Koons, an artist that I love to hate.
Tramping in the Byways - About an obscure author David Rattray; to be honest, I skimmed this one.
Flying Cars - Essay about Kushner's love of classic cars. I don't care about classic cars even a little bit, but I appreciate her enthusiasm.
Picture Book Horses - Essay praising Cormac McCarthy's works, which is an easy sell for me.
Not With the Band - Chronicles Kushner's time as a bartender at some pretty cool sounding music clubs in the 90s. Run-ins with lots of famous musicians.
Made to Burn - About some Italian history that inspired The Flamethrowers. I should have been more interested, considering how much I loved that book, but when people start talking about things that happened in real life a long time ago, I admit my eyes glaze over.
Popular Mechanics - Italian movies and novels that have tie-ins with The Flamethrowers.
The Sinking of the HMS Bounty - One of the more free-flowing essays, in which the sinking of the HMS Bounty (a replica of a ship that was sunk two hundred years before, which also sank) inspired meditations on mimesis, art, and death.
Duras With an S - Biographical and critical essay about Marguerite Duras, who--let me tell you--was a real character.
Woman in Revolt - About an obscure (to me, at least) Italian film from the seventies, starring a drug-addicted, pregnant teenager who disappeared after the film was made.
Lipstick Traces - A biographical and critical look at Clarice Lispector. I was moved by Kushner's passion for Lispector's work, but it's still not for me.
Bunny - About the painter Alex Brown and his influences on Kushner and her work. Look up his art, it's really cool.
The Hard Crowd - Interesting autobiographical account of Kushner's teens and twenties in the San Francisco punk scene....more
If there's a writer who can faithfully put on the page emotions and situations that just about any reader can identify with, it's got to be this guy. If there's a writer who can faithfully put on the page emotions and situations that just about any reader can identify with, it's got to be this guy. This book is full of observations—some chuckle-worthy, some cringe-inducing—that had me swimming back through time, remembering similar pieces from my life.
Reading this book is like me and Knausgaard as children, sitting in the back seat of a sedan, with our hands out the window, imagining a sword extending from the tips our fingers, cutting down stop signs and telephone poles as they zoom by. Knausgaard and I nervous at a high school party when we see our crush walk past, or me and Knausgaard going through waves of grief and relief (and subsequent guilt) after a loved one's passing.
That's both the virtue and downside of this book. Knausgaard is a genius at honestly distilling normal, mundane life onto the page in a way very few other authors are capable of. It's brilliant. At the same time, I don't always want to read some that is so close to the uncomfortable mundanity of my own life.
It's a good book; a really good book, maybe. But is Knausgaard the second coming of Proust? Is he some kind of literary god? I'm not as sure as others. I think he's a very good diarist, but he's not going on my favorites shelf....more
True crime is a tricky business for me. I have a morbid streak, so I'm drawn to stories of unsolved mysteries, creepy happenings, and tragic murders oTrue crime is a tricky business for me. I have a morbid streak, so I'm drawn to stories of unsolved mysteries, creepy happenings, and tragic murders or disappearances. But I almost always end up creeping myself out, or finding myself in a dark state of mind that just feels unhealthy. Plus, I always feel a little bit of guilt from deriving entertainment from others' tragedies.
This book, however, is just far too entertaining. It reads more like a Gillian Flynn novel than the average, dry nonfiction book. The author is more of a main character in this book than he is a reporter. He's basically a gonzo journalist; he gets way too involved in the stories he investigates. There's a point in this book that, in order to recreate the circumstances in which a woman goes missing, he gets himself drunk and drives by the scene of her disappearance. He finds himself in jail for taking his investigation too far. This guy does not make good decisions, but his writing is truly compelling....more
An interesting all-around summary of QAnon's history, but I didn't learn that much more from it than I did from HBO's docuseries Q: Into the Storm. I An interesting all-around summary of QAnon's history, but I didn't learn that much more from it than I did from HBO's docuseries Q: Into the Storm. I think the main value it provides that I haven't seen from many other places is that it has a greater empathy for those who have fallen for Q, who aren't all crazy or stupid or evil. They've been taken in by what is essentially a cult. So instead of belittling them or writing them off completely, maybe ask what Q is providing that they weren't getting elsewhere, how they've been tricked, and be there for them if/when they're ready to return to reality....more
Decided to listen to the second in this series to convince myself that I missed the virtues of Murderbot, only to have my initial impression confirmedDecided to listen to the second in this series to convince myself that I missed the virtues of Murderbot, only to have my initial impression confirmed: Murderbot just isn't for me....more
Christopher
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