American Gods (2001)
by Neil Gaiman
The ideal situation going into a book would be to know nothing about it and don’t have any preconceptions. But the title or the name of the author can often be enough to void this ideal situation. And if the book doesn’t fit into the hypothetical mold you’ve created in your mind, what it should be about or what it should be like, things are off to a bad start. Few books survive this onslaught of preconceived notions about them well. But a few utterly defeat these preconceptions by giving you something even better.
American Gods was one of these books for me. The title made me expect a story about modern gods utterly rooted in modern, american culture, like a fast food god or a god of baseball or similar stuff. And to some extend some of these turn up and play a role, but they are far from the focus of the books. It’s about the old, european gods who went (or at least copies of them) with the first settlers to the shores of the new continent and have since struggled to survive in the new world.
It’s not what I expected, but in the end I liked it far more than what I wanted from it first. Part of that is that I really liked the main character, an ex-convict who has reached a kind of dead end in his life and is trying to figure out where to go from there. He’s the silent but thoughtful type of character, who doesn’t lament his personal tragedies out loud, but works through them in his own ways. Which can take time and may seem a bit cold from the outside, but Gaiman allows the reader an in depth look which makes him far more sympathetic.
Rating: 5/5
Making Money (2007)
by Terry Pratchett
36th Discworld novel
Making Money sees Moist von Lipwig, the hero of Going Postal, on another attempt at renovating an old but barely working institution, a bank. The patrician has used Moist successfully in the past to install a modern information infrastructure, now he puts him up to create a functioning financing infrastructure to generate enough money for the modernization of the whole city. The book hints that next might be the tax system.
It’s always interesting to see how far the Discworlds novels have strayed from the fun but mostly harmless initial novels of the series, and yet remain as assessable and fun as those early parts. There hasn’t be a Discworld novel I didn’t liked, which makes me the worst judge of them. Pratchett’s style, his sense of humor, his philosophical musing, all that is part of his fiction, just resonates with my likes. Can’t wait for the next one.
Rating: 5/5
The Dream Hunters (1999)
by Neil Gaiman, Art by Yoshitaka Amano
part of the Sandman setting
A truly wonderful short novel about the encounter between a monk and a fox and what follows from there, that reads like an old, japanese folk tale. Gaiman, with the aid of excellent art by Yoshitaka Amano, captures the style and the mood of these kind if tales nearly perfectly. Yet despite feeling like an old folk tale, he spins a yarn that feels like it is infused with a modern sensibilities. Also he neatly integrates his Sandman character into the story, without making it a Sandman story. He is a background character, important for some elements of the story, but not as prominent as the monk and the fox.
Rating: 5/5
Cruel Zinc Melodies (2008)
by Glen Cook
12th Garrett file
With such a long-running series you face a host of problems: accessibility, quality, novelty and stagnation. While all Garrett books have been more or less accessible, the quality of each part has never fallen off and every book tried to find a fresh and novel mystery, there’s been some stagnation on the part of Garrett’s development. While CZM has all the strengths of other Garret novels, it also made me (more than normal) enthusiastic again for further sequels, which can be contributed to Cook trying to break the character stagnation. Garrett has matured, not enough to not make snarky remarks here and there, but enough to actually consider the repercussions of his remarks on other people. There’s also some development with his on-and-off-girlfriend Tinnie Tate. If that weren’t enough, Cook has added Singe to his household, the Dead Man makes an error and Garrett finds the solution and other tiny but neat details.
The story itself doesn’t sound that interesting at first, an unfinished opera house that is plagued by bugs and ghosts, but which turns out to have a big and fascinating mystery in its cavernous underbelly. Halfway into the book there’s a sort of reveal of what is hiding deep down, which is actually an ingenious misdirection, until the real mystery is revealed in the last pages. This book has also one of the best ending sequences I read for some time, with stuff happening that harkens back to Old Tin Sorrows (my favorite Garrett novel) and Garrett’s love for a lady who he never met in real live.
Rating: 5/5
So Dark The Night (2008)
by Cliff Burns (Download)
So Dark the Night has a similar character dynamic as Conan Doyle’s famous duo, only that Sherlock is a woman and Watson hopelessly in love with her. The story is told from the viewpoint of the later one and shows their current case, a former, rather harmless gathering of occultists who have become a shade darker. I’m not sure what I expected a novel by Cliff would look like, since I’ve read only some of his shorter work, but I surely didn’t expected such an accessible and fun read. Furthermore, I’m addicted to books that mix elements of the fantastic with detective fiction, so this was right up my alley.
As I already said, the main character dynamic is drawn from a tried and true schema, but Evgeny Nightstalk (the Watson) and Cassandra Zinnea also have elements of hardboiled/noir. Evgeny is the typical hard shell but emphatic core private dick (who still loves to fight) and Cassandra is the unattainable beauty who loves to play with fire. But there’s more to both of them. While Evgeny is always talking about how smart Cassandra is, for example, the most memorable quality of her that we see is her unwavering moral code, always willing to do what is necessary to protect the weak and helpless. She is the heart and Evgeny the fist.
There’s also a host of other interesting characters that help the two, for example a Sherlock Holmes mini-me version (Burns captures the nature of the original Sherlock perfectly, but has also fun with turning the original upside-down by giving him an unexpected weakness).
Before I close this, I have to mention how much I liked the inclusion of real events, people and stuff in the book’s own secret occult history. More than once I went to wikipedia to look something up, only to find myself traversing wikipedia for hours.
This was all a bit over the map, but it all adds up to one book I can heartily recommend. It’s a great read and I hope I will one day hold a paper edition in my hands, because this one deserves it.
Rating: 5/5
The Last Hero (2001)
by Terry Pratchett, Art by Paul Kidby
27th Discworld novel
The discworld novels by Pratchett have become something of a constant in my reading habits. I always wonder when I will pick one of them up and be utterly disappointed, but it hasn’t happened yet. There’s not much that comes to my mind that doesn’t seem like I’m repeating myself (great plot, great characters, great writing and so on). While I liked the main plot, the Horde going after the gods and bringing Prometheus fire back, I liked the side plot involving Leonard of Quirm, Captain Carrot and Rincewind even more. It’s a rare treat to see someone reenact the first moon landing in the context of a fantasy world and yet make it feel genuine. I also have to mention the excellent artwork by Paul Kidby, who has long come out of the shadow of Josh Kirby. As Kirby was the perfect choice for the early Discworld novels, Pratchett’s writing has grown so much that now Kidby’s artwork seems like the perfect choice, showing a much broader scope from fun to serious without setting both sides of the spectrum at odds with each other.
Rating: 5/5
Embracing the Starlight (2003)
by Dave Smeds
This is nearly a flawless collection of short stories by an author I’ve never read before. The writing is excellent and couldn’t be much better, but not all of the stories were equally of interest to me. The two Vietnam inspired stories that close the collection, the alternate history about the aging musician and some of the others just didn’t capture me. And sometimes the endings felt too simplistic and convenient, for example the otherwise brilliant Suicidal Tendencies had a solution that just felt emotional unrealistic, the sudden revelation of the daughter not quite believable. The high point of the collection was IMHO Fearless, mixing virtual reality and karate in an interesting way. It somehow reminded me of the movie Best of the Best, because like it, instead of emphasizing the action aspect, it showed karate as a force of personal growth. For this story alone it was worth reading this collection. Another highpoint of the collection are the extensive introductions to each story, I’d like to see other authors follow Smeds’s example. Overall, well worth reading.
Rating: 4/5
Dzur (2006)
by Steven Brust
10th Vlad Taltos novel
The latest part of the Taltos series sees the titular hero procrastinating for two thirds of the novel, until he finds a way to resolve the current problem of his ex-wife. After the adventure with the Jenoine in the last book, this part feels very low key in comparison, with Vlad back to the territory of the earliest books in the series. But, since Vlad has changed, the reader and he himself realizes that you can’t go back and seeing Vlad trying to do his old stick doesn’t work that well anymore.
Even when not much is happening and the story flounders around aimlessly, it never becomes boring. Brust’s excellent writing makes even the most mundane activity seem fun, but even that doesn’t stop this from feeling like a filler episode until the really interesting things start to happen again.
Rating: 4/5
The Halloween Tree (1972)
by Ray Bradbury
The original source from which the animated movie of the same name draws. In comparison both, movie and book, are very close, but the minimal differences make each stand on their own. Since I saw the movie first and read the original book only afterwards, the book felt like a rough draft and the movie the refined version. In the movie there are only four kids, not eight, three boys and a girl, instead of just boys. The movie, due to its visual nature, made the kids much more distinct, in the book, apart from Tom, no one has more than just a name and a costume. And I liked that they made Pip steal his own pumpkin in the movie, making him more like the proactive character that the story tells us he is, which is something that doesn’t surface in the book.
But, what the book has and the movie can’t match is the excellent prose by Bradbury. His writing is just superb, sometimes, with just a few words, he captures some profounds truths while also telling a fine story. While both, movie and book, are truly a lecture about Halloween and its origins, the book goes even further, showing us the role that the cycle of life and death has played in our culture and how it has changed in time. Like I said at the begin, both are worth reading and watching for their own sake, both versions bring something to the table the other doesn’t. Both are excellent.
Rating: 5/5
Moon Called (2006)
by Patricia Briggs
1st Mercedes Thompson novel
Another first novel of an urban fantasy romance series, more or less following the whole pattern that is symptomatic for this genre. Strong-willed heroine with an odd gift (this time she’s a walker who can easily transform into a coyote), who is more or less an outsider but has contacts to the local supernatural community (werewolves, faes, vampires) and has to help her friends with solving some problems including murder and kidnapping.
This feels like an optimized and adapted variation of the Anita Blake world, instead of all supernatural creatures coming out, only the weakest have, while the stronger ones are still in hiding and watching how the coming out of supernatural creatures turns out. In a neat, SFnal twist the coming out is forced by the level of technology humans have developed in the last century, since hiding becomes more and more difficult, even with the aid of magic.
It’s a nice read, but two thirds into the book it turns out the real villain is less than impressive and his plan is extremely convoluted to gain a simple goal, which IMHO would never have worked at all, because people, even predictable ones, have a tendency to not follow carefully laid plans. Still, a nice read and I’ll try the next ones in the series.
Rating: 4/5
