A-Z Survey of The Best Ever Books

Earlier this week I was reading the blog "Wisdom of Bookmonkey" - which is an amazing read, sharing a lot of my own tastes (shameless plug), so I thought I would both send a thanks to that blog – a reading-themed A-Z survey – and fill some void in my own (by stealing it wholesale right down to the papyrus-coloured background I can't be bothered to figure out how to get rid of)- so here goes:

Author I've Read The Most Books From: I've never counted and I'll have to do it by the numbers later, but it's almost certainly Peter David. I spent many years tracking down his comics and novels in the sf and fantasy genres.

Best Sequel Ever: E.T. The Book of The Green Planet by William Kotzwinkle, because I couldn't put it down and read it all night instead of sleeping. That's nine years old for you. Probably my gateway book to Science Fiction.

Currently Reading: Doctor Who: The New Adventures: Human Nature by Paul Cornell

Drink of Choice While Reading: Raspberry Ginger Ale. For the stains! Actually, I don't usually drink while I read.

E-Reader or Physical Book: I still read more often from physical books, but my iPad and Kobo E-Reader have weight advantages for my weak and kittenish wrists, plus I get to imagine I'm Geordi La Forge having a replicated lunch break in the 24th Century.

Fictional Character You Probably Would Have Dated in High School: Ace McShane- but there's no way I would have survived the experience. (Also assumes the restraining order hadn't been invented.)

Glad You Gave This Book A Chance: Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold, because the Vorkosigan Saga is cool, yo.

Hidden Gem Book: Adventure Time comics by Ryan North, Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb, which is probably very popular already and not hidden at all. So, Empowered by Adam Warren. Neither of these graphic novels is even SLIGHTLY suitable for children.

Important Moment in Your Reading Life: Finishing the bildungsroman (coming-of-age story) Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alexander because when I was eleven that's what I thought epic was. Also, Wikipedia is teaching me German!

Just Finished: Ranma 1/2 Vol. 30 by Rumiko Takahashi. 

Kind of Books I Won't Read: Technically none, but to be fair I am a giant whiny baby with no interest whatsoever in virtually anything outside "Geek Genres", and even there I don't have a great track record with horror, romance, tragedy, or tedium- essentially all fiction books set in real life, about real life.

Longest Book I've Read: The Bible. Although Steven King and George R.R. Martin have a certain heft to them. Their books are long, too.

Major Book Hangover Because: Two months later I still don't feel like going back to the rape and incest of A Song of Ice and Fire- but what can you do? Nobody else has read Dirty Pair by Haruka Takahciho and if they had what kind of conversation would that be anyway? "Do you like lasers?" "Hell, yeah, I like lasers!" "Awesome!"

Number of Bookcases I own: Two. One for the hundreds of books I own but haven't read. Because TV.

One Book I have Read Multiple Times: I love coming back to the DC superheroes graphic novel Kingdom Come by Mark Waid. It gives me the feels.

Preferred Place to Read: The La-Z-Boy.

Quote That Inspires You/Gives You All the Feels From a Book You've Read: JLA's Divided We Fall by Mark Waid page 163: The human half of Patrick O'Brien tells the Martian Manhunter "I Want My Soul Back". 

Reading Regret: I wish for a technology to download books directly into my brain so I could read as fast as that adorable Johnny Five from the Short Circuit movies. Where's my fiction mist, Steven Moffat?

Series You Started and Need To Finish (All the books are out in the series): Connie Willis' Time Travel series- unless there's more coming? So, realistically, the Doctor Who New Adventures series.

Three of Your All-Time Favourite Books: Have Spacesuit Will Travel by Robert Heinlein, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams, and Redshirts by John Scalzi.

Unapologetic Fanboy For: Media Tie-In novels. Yes, I have almost no classical knowledge and I'm bound to regret it every day of my life until I die happy surrounded by bargain bin Farscape and Thundercats pocket books. And, if I'm still very lucky, my wife and friends.

Very Excited For This Release More Than All The Others: The next volume of Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples.

Worst Bookish Habit: Using my precious reading time to watch TV... because it's infinitely easier.

X Marks The Spot: Start at the Top Left of Your Shelf and pick the 27th Book: DC Showcase Presents Booster Gold

Your Latest Book Purchase: Green Lantern: Revenge of the Black Hand by Geoff Johns

ZZZ-Snatcher Book- Book That Kept You Up WAY Too Late: A Semester in The Life of A Garbage Bag by Gordon Korman. Mercifully, I don't read all night anymore. I'm old.

Things I Pretend To Notice: 2011 Book Round-Up

As the year draws to a close I am eager to pare down. No, not my middle-age paunch, but my expansive collection of DVDs and Books (the Paper DVDs)!

Sometimes when I try this, I discover I like everything I own and I want to let nothing go to trades or donations. And that's o.k., too. I can be that horrible junk-covered harridan from Jim Henson's 'Labyrinth' if I want.

I looked back at goodreads.com and discovered that (including super-short books like 'Go The F To Sleep' and Weird Al's 'When I Grow Up') I read 153 books this year. That's a lot for some people, a mere book snackwich for others.

I've never measured it before. I feel mildly disappointed and I wanted to mention five that felt like accomplishments or made a real impression.

5) 'Norstrilia' by Cordwainer Smith is a fun SF adventure tale. It simplified the way I define evil in my own head- suggesting that humans are only evil when they are bored or scared. That felt really true to me, you know? It makes evil feel like it can be fought.

4) 'Earth The Book' by John Stewart and Company was most amusing and reminds me how little I know about anything.

3) David Mack's 'Star Trek Destiny' trilogy, for better or worse, was so enjoyable I started an obsessive Star Trek reviewing project that derailed this very blog in favor of its sister blog and ate a DEVASTATING amount of my spare time since September. I'm... grateful? I guess? Damn it all to hell.

2) 'The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology' by Ray Kurzweil did my noggin in. Turns out there's a way to be extremely optimistic about the future without belief in God's intervention. Or putting that aside, Science might be about to make everything a whole lot better for everybody, whether you believe in it or not.

1) 'Mort' by Terry Patchett. I owe my BFF Bookmonkey great thanks for the loan of the Discworld books, and this was my favourite so far. If that Singularity is never forthcoming, then I pray meeting Death will be for the best. Or good for a laugh.

The forests of the Vasta Nerada won't need to be leveled on my account- I'm sliding inexorably into a paperless reading experience that renders my "paper DVDs" quip meaningless...

I'm saying I am loving my birthday eReader, a gift from my sweet lady wife.

Peace, long life, and great reads to you all in your new year!

Book Review: The Colour of Magic

"When I think I might die without seeing a hundredth of all there is to see it makes me feel... well, humble, I suppose. And very angry, of course."- Twoflower

1983 brought us Terry Pratchett's "first" Discworld novel (if you don't count 'Strata' which was SORT of the same deal only more sci-fi parody than fantasy parody). Strata was really good, too, actually, and it had more spaceships. Of course, there's an anachronistic spaceship in Krull at the edge of the Discworld, too. Sort of...

Anyway, 'The Colour of Magic' is a hoot and I remain intrigued to read the rest of the series: so thanks a million, bookmonkey!

The tale concerns a flat, magical earth-like world on the back of four elephants on the back of an utterly humongous turtle. The turtle is not on anything- unlike Pratchett.

Oh, I kid! (Seriously, how can the guy be so creative without medicinal aid?)

The spoofs are far-ranging, with emphasis on fantasy quests by the likes of Fritz Leiber and Anne McCaffrey.

Our characters are Rincewind: a wizard whose most effective 'spell' is kicking people in the groin, and Twoflower: a wealthy naif from parts unknown with a flair for photography and an enchanted Luggage devoted enough to pursue him into the very afterlife.

Also: Death, Lady Luck, the unspeakable demon Bel-Shamharoth, Hrun the Barbarian, Liessa of Wyrmberg, and some imaginary dragons. Among an unwashed cast of thousands.

Who started the great fire in the city of Ankh-Morepork? Will Twoflower survive once it becomes widely known that he is rich beyond the dreams of avarice and as helpless as a very tiny kitten? Will Rincewind survive a swordfight he has been forced into by a gung-ho enchanted sword? What terrifying fate is in store for Hrun in Liessa's clutches? What sex is the giant turtle?

These questions and many more can be found within the hilarious pages of this and many other fine DISCWORLD novels! Very recommended.

Book Review: The Carpet People

"Some things you should care about enough to do badly."

My BFF Bookmonkey is a dyed-in-the-wool Terry Pratchett fan, and rightly so. Not for nothing does the cover of this book call Mr. Pratchett "Master Storyteller".

I asked Bookmonkey if I might borrow all his Discworld novels and finally see what I've been missing. What a fantastic debut!

"The Carpet People" is the 1971 and 1992 novel by Terry Pratchett and Terry Pratchett. Meaning that it was extensively revised for its reprinting after T.P. got famous. (Oh, dear. T.P.? Nah, it's fine, I'll leave it.)

It's a sword quest of the fantasy variety, in the microscopic hair forests of somebody's carpet.

What a fun concept! I really liked this idea. Their biggest city is smaller than the dot at the end of a sentence. Their bronze mail is forged from a penny the size of a whole country. Their wood they chop from the Woodwall, with varnish imported from far off "achairleg".

A strong brother, the not-so-much-so brother, a king, and a warrior lead the Munrung tribal exodus, driven from their homes by the disastrous natural force called Fray.

My favourite character was the shaman; practical, philosophical Pismire.

The last termagant (seen here in T.P.'s original illustration) is also a highlight.

It made me think twice about vacuuming the rug today. Naw, I'm just kidding.

I never vacuum.

The Hugos: The Big Time

Bookmonkey's posted his review about a Hugo winner by Fritz Leiber called 'The Wanderer'.
My own Leiber for today is 'The Big Time', the 1958 Hugo winning novel. Like almost every other fifties Hugo winner, I liked it immensely and I read it more than three years ago.
I liked it well enough to buy my own copy (pictured left) and to want to reread it again. I liked it well enough to give it 4 stars out of 4 on my little review sheet. I can't for the life of me conjure up a lot of details anymore. I remember thinking it would make a great stage play or awesome low-budget movie, since it's all set in one room: a combination operating theater and nightclub for time-traveling soldiers fighting "The Change War". The Change War or 'Big Time' is a war taking place across all of time. Kind of like the Temporal Cold War of Star Trek: Enterprise or the oft-mentioned Time War of 21st Century Doctor Who. Except Leiber did it first.
Instead of Time Lords vs Daleks or Romulans vs Humans the Change War is being fought by the Spiders and the Snakes. (our protagonist works for the Spiders, so that SORT OF makes them the good guys?) No one fighting it knows for sure. Also nobody knows what started the war or how it ends (if it ever ends) but they know they have to escalate it ad infinitum to affect the ever-changing timeline. They battle on from the murk of mythology to the uncertain future a billion years hence. It's full of cool concepts: one I was particularly fascinated by was a medical device that INVERTED patients without killing them so the doctor could repair their wounds without cutting the skin. If I may be permitted a 'Yeeurggghhh'?
It's a deeply engrossing book with good characters, and it's short and sweet. May I recommend reading it once you've read 'The Wanderer'? Or in publication order. Either way works. (But the Spiders want you to read it in publication order. And the Spiders DEFINITELY have your best interests at heart.)