I had visions; I was in them; I was looking into the mirror

Infinite Jest Short Version: you really ought to read it. Long Version: I’m having a hard time approaching Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace’s thousand-page paperweight. I put such a high premium on style that Wallace’s deliberate rejection of it tempts me to write the whole project off. And when you conflate voices in the way [...]

tell all of your friends what you’ve seen

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo: Amazing. Gobsmacking. Addictive. One hell of a novel. Many novels begin with some epigram, used to illuminate or foreshadow, before the opening chapter. Stieg Larsson’s posthumous debut novel begins with the following: Eighteen percent of the women in Sweden have at one time been threatened by a man. No [...]

50 books: 2009

Best Science Fiction / Fantasy Nominees: To Say Nothing of the Dog, The Stress of Her Regard, Accelerando, Earth Abides, Perdido Street Station, The Dispossessed Winner: The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin. Le Guin’s strength has always been to illustrate the odd quirks of human society by depicting them through the eyes of aliens. In [...]

and they brought prosperity down at the armoury

The Dispossessed: One of those novels I wish I’d found sooner. Le Guin has a beautiful economy of language not often found in fantasy writers: making the terse but poetic choice, rather than bombarding a scene. The Dispossessed feels like an epic, though it comes out fairly slim. And like all good science-fiction, the story [...]

and he points to his survival, and he points me down the road

Perdido Street Station: Weird, original and engrossing; a blend of Cronenberg and Dickens. China Mieville builds a city full of fascinating characters and baroque institutions: the steampunk slum of New Crobuzon, where cactus-men jostle with insect-headed khepri and where the militia stalk the skies on tramlines, capturing criminals and sentencing them to Remaking. In this [...]

if it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad

This media blow hasn’t read anything in a while. Brave New World: Again, I read a book that everyone else on the planet has read years ago. I have nothing to add to the decades of critical acclaim heaped on this book, so I’ll talk more about my reactions to it than a critique of [...]

accidents mean no one’s guilty; ignorance means someone’s killed

This media blow might get political, but that’s no fault of mine: The Lives of Others: Oscar-winning German film from 2007. Set in East Berlin in 1984, it follows a Stasi captain ordered to surveill a popular playwright and his actor girlfriend. The passion in their lives draws him in, until he finds himself bending [...]

rule britannia is out of bounds

WALL-E: Another touching and awesome Pixar spectacle. Pixar has mastered animation to the extent that a one-foot robot with only two words in its vocabulary can emote more effectively than most of the stars expected to carry a summer picture today. They’ve mastered comic timing on a level that puts 99% of comedies released today [...]

invisible airwaves crackle with life

This week’s media blow can download over either the 3G or standard wireless networks. House of Sand and Fog: Brutal and moving and impressive. Kathy, a recovering addict whose husband has just abandoned her, gets evicted from her Pacific Coast bungalow for failure to pay a small business tax that she does not owe. In [...]

superstar, but he didn’t get far

I’m visiting family in Baltimore, taking the train down this morning and back on Monday, so don’t expect much. If you’d like to contribute, please recommend a book that’s available on the Kindle. Please note: anyone who recommends one of the first twelve items listed at that link gets five across the eyes.