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Uncertain, Fugitive, Half-fabulous
Stories about people. People who must ponder the implications of their laser gun swords.
Currently reading
Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond
Deathstalker War (Owen Deathstalker, Vol. 3)
Jews Without Money
Subversion: Science Fiction & Fantasy Tales of Challenging the Norm
Got this free as a Kickstarter reward!
When I bought a recent Bujold book it came with a CD-ROM (aw, how quaint) with a bunch of her books in DRM-free PDFs. This was included.
The first two books are a lot of fun, the third has a lot more heft (and feels extra Chandler-y).It feels like I read the first book in this collection a million years ago, (it was four) and intended to take a short break to read something else and then come back to it. Obviously that didn't happen, so I finished it in 2013.
Quick thoughts before a real review:Was this seriously a Chandler book in which Marlowe never got bear up? Crazy.
What strikes me the most here is the contrast between Marlowe and Spillane's Mike Hammer. Both believ that the justice system is ineffectual, flawed, and corrupt, and both move outside of the law to correct that. But when Marlowe counteracts the law he leans toward mercy.
An exciting, funny, and brisk novel that starts as parody and then builds a whole universe around the exigencies of parody, letting itself edge toward some dark implications. This is followed by three codas that hit those depressing, existential ideas lurking in the background much harder: the codas start a little iffy but move toward very, very good and melancholy. By the end of the book, it's a huge tonal shift from the actual novel part, but it works.I would've liked a few physical descriptions of characters, uniforms, and the like, though.
(Side-note, apparently I can't read a book featuring a protagonist named "Dahl" without constantly getting hungry.)
Hope to write more of a review later, but Fallada's now definitely one of my favorites. This book may as well be about my generation.
Is there even a full review of Moby Dick to be written by me? it isn't exactly a neglected text.Uh, it was great, by the way.
I didn't get to read everything in here, because it's a gift and the deadline to mail it is upon me, but just so you know: this shit's insane.That said, with all of the bizarre contrivances and people who act in no way like human beings, the Silver Age "Death of Superman" story might be what set the groundwork for our more modern version of Lex Luthor. That alone makes it a little chilling (morseo than Superman's actual, surprisingly ignoble, death).
A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2)
Welp, I read the first book five years ago and have been meaning to continue ever since. But now everyone in America is freaking out over some big spoiler in book three and I, who was once ahead of the TV show, now feel very left out. So I just picked up book two. I suppose it's time.
The right kind of Dark for comics. Big, gigantic, world-ending darkness; morally gray "heroes" making tough decisions that can impact millions. It isn't the "throw in lots of blood and rape and cussing!" that usually gets passed off as Dark and Adult comics, it's about looking straight at unsettling truths. And then bickering, and then punching them, because, God bless it, it's still comics.Plus, Beast!
Satan Is Real: The Ballad of the Louvin Brothers
Oh hey this book was really really good. More later.
What I like about Matt Fraction's Fantastic Four is that it doesn't just depart very clearly from Hickman's preceeding run, but also pretty heavily from the classic Lee/Kirby stuff. It cranks up the sense of wonder and family adventure so high that it sort of bypasses the Crushing Cosmic Stakes that the Fantastic Four are so often burdened with. Even an issue set at the literal end of the universe is mostly a fun romp. I'm sure the series will get more serious, but for now the darkest thing going on here is relationship drama, and that's actually wonderfully refreshing.
Showcase Presents: The Legion of Super-Heroes, Volume 1
This was honestly one of the weirdest things I have ever read in my life.
