Miscellaneous Chatter > Literature
Yearly Reading Targets 2022
The P:
Blindsight by Peter Watts (19)
I read this not long ago (2020), but I convinced a friend to read it so I audiobooked it so we could discuss. Not bad, this was my first audiobook experience. It was nice being able to listen while I did boring stuff at work or drove, but I don't think I'd want to multitask if it wasn't a book I was already familiar with. In that case, I'd just read.
The Darkness that Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker (20)
For the slog reread on discord. Really slowing down my reading of The Last King of Osten Ard "trilogy," which are massive books of course. I'll get through it when I get through it. The reread has been enjoyable.
The P:
The Warrior Prophet by R. Scott Bakker (21)
Great, of course.
The Witchwood Crown by Tad Williams (22)
This is pretty standard Tad Williams fare. Solid writing, meticulous pacing. For those who've read MS&T, this sequel series starts slower. It has a much broader scope than The Dragonbone Chair, which is mostly a singular pov character with occasional chapters of ancillary characters. This one has something like 15 pov characters, which is maybe a bit much, but I trust Williams's plotting that they'll all be significant, though some don't have much of an arc in this first novel. Williams does a great job of organically referring back to pertinent events of MS&T. He also does well at aging up the returning characters and making it feel like they've grown/changed in the intervening 30 years, while still being recognizable to their younger selves. While a lot happens in this book, it mostly feels like set up and establishing the pieces needed for the greater story. Things really ramp up in the last 100 pages or so, and I look forward to the next book.
As far as the necessity of the bridging novella I read earlier this year... probably not required to enjoy this series, but I think it helps connect better with the Norn ("bad guys") povs, which were mostly absent from MS&T. There are several references to significant events of the novella, but you could get the gist without having read it.
Wilshire:
Among Others by Jo Walton (11)
This book was great, but I didn't actually enjoy it. The writing was easy get lost in, but the story itself just wasn't that appealing. The life and times of a Welsh14 year old in 70's England just never hooked me, but despite that I still wanted to read it to the end. There are some well imagined fantasy elements, including magic and magical creatures, and it is something of a love letter to the genre as a whole as much time is spent discussing many well-known names in the SFF genre at the time.
The P:
The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay (23)
I liked this one well enough. It was highly praised by a friend of mine, and they're making a movie sometime next year. I figured I'd read it to see how much M. Night ends up making it worse. About 50 pages in, I was worried the book was just going to end up being a 300 page elaborate Trolley Problem. It ends up being more than that, but really drops the ball on some other more interesting concepts it gets close to but then ignores. Maybe that was chosen with a view to keeping it short and quick. What I really think is the author came up with a "wouldn't this be cool/crazy/intense!" scenario and just churned out a story without taking the time to think through some implications.
It was enjoyable to read, plenty of tense moments like any thriller. And there is some good character work; although every pov, of which there were 7 or so, pretty much spoke with the same voice, so I never really felt like I was seeing through different peoples' eyes. It's mostly written in present tense, which is fine I guess. Flashbacks are in past tense. I always feel there needs to be a good reason to choose a present tense narration, and often times it seems it's chosen just to be "different." There was an excessive amount of unnecessary positional descriptions, like the author wanted to write a screenplay or stage directions at points. I don't need to know the detailed layout of the cabin and positioning of everyone in a scene.
That's a lot of criticism for something I ultimately liked. I read it in about a day. And it should make a better movie, but.... we've seen what M. Night is capable of.
Wilshire:
The Torch that Ignites the Stars by Andrew Rowe (12)
An amusing, quick read, but not really something I can recommend. Rowe as some modest talent but is by no stretch a great author. These books are "litrpgs", which basically means they are closer to watching someone play a videogame than reading a a traditional book, while still being full of genre tropes. Despite this, I find them entertaining when I'm in the right mood and this book delivered exactly as expected.
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