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Book, Fiction
Keys to the Kingdom
by Garth Nix This book is a good one! I like it how he named the owners of the keys as: Mister Monday, Grim Tuesday, Drowned Wednesday, Sir Thursday, Lady Friday, Superior Saturday and Lord Sunday its for me A COOL idea! though to disappoint, I've only read "SIR THURSDAY" I bought it from a book sale down the block, they were selling it at such a low price! I couldn't resist! though I've only read the 4th book I think I can already say that Garth Nix's style in writing is very detailed. For example is the maze, the way that it was shifting its location was very specific in the book that your imagination of the scene could be accurate! Another is how our world connects to their world, especially the part in the hospital (--to be continued)
 
Book, Non-Fiction
Zombie Spaceship Wasteland
by Patton Oswalt This is the feel-good book of the year! Go buy a copy for yourself and fifty more for your closest friends and/or facebook contacts.
Hmm.... Still here? Good. Holy shit what a bummer of a book. Which is not to say that ZSW is bad. Actually it's quite enjoyable and laugh out loud funny at times, even when reading it through the gray murk of a Kindle, but this is more like Oswalt being Sarte than Oswalt on Stage. In it Patton stage dives into the human condition and lets you know with a resounding thud when people aren't there to catch him. The pathos is laid on heavy while the humor is light. It could be that we're missing Patton's facial expressions and mannerisms. I've noticed this when reading other comedian's books. Jon Stewart in particular. I know Stewart's shtick so well I can actually see the places where a facial tick or necktie grab needs to be there yet isn't. I don't sense any absences in Oswalt's book, but long story short - it's not as funny as his live performances. One thing that can and should be said about Patton Oswalt is that the guy knows how to write. The opening sections about working in a movie theater or building a snow fort with a friend whose stay at home dad is cheating on his mother are incredibly evocative. The only disappointing thing about them is that they end too soon. The flashback to bad 80's stand-up isn't that great but he more than makes up for it with his blow by blow recollection of hell week in Surrey. So would I recommend ZSW? Yeah. But to frame it in the context of 1980's teen flicks - it's a bit like renting "Better off Dead," getting home and opening the case to find "River's Edge." It's definitely not what you expected, but it's still pretty good anyways. And Patton Oswalt, in the infinitely rare chance that you are reading this, next time why not try your hand at writing a novel. Something tells me that you'd be incredibly good at it 
Book, Non-Fiction
Becoming An Indie Author
by Zoe Winters It didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know about being an Indie author, but it should be said that I know way too much about being an Indie author.
What this book does do is confirm a large number of suspicions I've held about the nature of modern publishing as it is right now and where it will be heading in the near future. It also does so in a very clear and crisp manner, laying out a no-nonsense alpha/omega plan that anyone can follow. It doesn't guarantee success. It requires a lot of work, but hey - this is writing - what did you expect? Which is not to say I completely agree with her, especially when it comes to the writing process. She seems to push the idea that you should write five books and not bother rewriting them because they simply won't be very good. As a young writer you don't yet understand how to structure a story and so rewriting can't help you. I have to call bullshit on that. Rewriting is integral to the writing process no matter where you approach it from. Most people do have a great sense of story, cultivated from being surrounded by story in one form or another since birth. It's just that the writing process is such a slow and daunting one that most people get nervous and too wrapped up in the minutia of creation to tap into it. Zoe also mentions the importance of outlines in writing but she doesn't go too deeply into what constitutes an outline or just how deep one should go. So it's not a very good book on the craft of writing. On the flipside, however, she does a very good job explaining the business side of writing, of how to self-promote without coming across like an annoying idiot, of what websites to go to for copy editors and book cover artists, as well as the importance of copy editors and book cover artists. I look at the shabby offerings on places like Lulu and Smashwords and just wish I could force all Indie authors to read chapters 1 to 3 and chapters 6 to 8 at the very least. Becoming an Indie Author is a good read. It's anti-establishment and anti-English Major - which is strange because it's probably most valuable to people who already know how to write but have been too much a part of the literary establishment to know how to strike out on their own. So if you're one of those, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy today.  
Book, Fiction
Speaks the Nightbird
by Robert McCammon Imagine if Nathaniel Hawthorne was interesting, engaging, intriguing and even funny - that is what Robert McCammon has become. It's almost as if he got sick of being called, "the Southern Stephen King" donned a tricorn hat and disappeared into Colonial Williamsburg, never to return. Until, of course, he wrote this killer novel....
I admit, Speaks the Nightbird was not the easiest book to get into. McCammon has always had a knack for describing things and he lays it on thick during the first three chapters. My eyes glossed over more than one overly long paragraph whose sole purpose was to describe what people were wearing. But once his characters, Magistrate Woodward and his clerk Matthew Corbett, get to Fount Royal and begin conducting the witch trial that they've been summoned to hold the book takes off like a mare shorn free of its plow tethers (as the characters in the book would be likely to say, providing they were played by John Hodgeman). It's a mystery, and not a bad one too boot - especially since the story takes place not long after the Salem Witch trials and not in any of the typical settings which mysteries are known to inhabit. But that's not the reason to read the book. What I enjoyed most about it was just the grand and intricately detailed view it gives us of Colonial America. Normally period pieces of this time are as bright and untarnished as a collection of dutch porcelain dolls. Nothing could be further from the truth in Nightbird. This place makes the world of Ichabod Crane seem like a Disney flick (oh, wait a minute...). Font Royal is dark and dreary and ruled by fear, paranoia and superstition. Everything, absolutely everything about it is twisted and backwards, and yet not without some sympathy for the strange situation the colonists and their neighbors have found themselves in. More than once I wondered if I too would be chanting burn the witch had I lived there at the time. Back in the late 1980's, during the rise of splat-punk, McCammon left the world of horror in disgust. Given what it was I can't blame him, and seeing what it has become through the rise torture porn in the cinema - I am sure he dreads ever being associated with it. But. The pumpkin never rolls far from its vine and this book is not for the faint of heart. Three nights in a row it kept me up until 3:30 in the morning with its spiraling spiel. Yet McCammon knows something which keeps him from disappearing into that charnal pit of entertainment which seems content with nothing more than endless graphic dismemberment - good horror is about contrast and justice. There needs to be a balance between light and dark, hope and despair, and it needs to all happen at just the right pace. Which is just what Nightbird delivers. When I finished the book, it left me feeling pretty good about the world and only sad it had to end. Guess it's on to the next in the series.... Speaks the Nightbird is a mystery. It's not horror - I swear on my finest collection of voodoo dolls. Whatever it is, it's a damn good read, check it out some time. |
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11/29/10
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