Rain: A Natural and Cultural History by Cynthia Barnett
295 pages
Published 2015
Read from August 8 to August 16
Rating: 3 out of 5
Did I really just go three months without finishing a book, again? Damn.
After making a bit of progress getting myself back into the reading habit this past winter, I find that my attention span and motivation have foundered once again. Time to gather myself up and make another go at it, from scratch.
Non-fiction often seems easier to read when I get into this book lapses. There isn't the requirement to invest emotional energy into characters and their intimate tragedies. On the other hand, the rewards from non-fiction -- especially this sort of journalistic pop natural history that provides a sweeping but shallow overview of a large topic -- are more meager than those found in a well-written novel.
I found Rain to be a straightforwardly enjoyable example of its type, though it left me unsatisfied, as such surface-level reportage tends to be. I want something more substantial than a few illustrative anecdotes; I don't feel like I really learned anything. But Rain was a nice way to break my recent reading drought, pun entirely intended.
Friday, August 16, 2019
Thursday, May 23, 2019
2019 read #11: The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin.
The Stone Sky by N. K. Jemisin
400 pages
Published 2017
Read from March 27 to May 23
Rating: 3 out of 5
As soon as I finished The Obelisk Gate, the second book in Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy, I wrote in my review, "I'm excited to complete the trilogy." I had read Obelisk Gate swiftly, finishing it at a pace reminiscent of how I used to read books before events we all know and deplore. The same day I posted Obelisk's review, I started reading The Stone Sky. But something was different, and the final book of the trilogy just didn't sustain my interest the way the middle volume had done.
I think the difference was something as simple as a couple new viewpoint characters. I grew to enjoy and appreciate the several-millennia-back flashbacks to Houwha/Hoa's past, but at first those chapters threw me out of the flow of the books. It's one thing to introduce a new viewpoint and more backstory in the middle of a trilogy; in the last book, though, it feels like the story wasn't quite working out as intended and the plot needed some belated course-correction, even if that isn't the case. The addition of Nassun's perspective felt more organic to the narrative, bringing with it—spoilers!—the perspective of systematic oppression and violence against a minority group can lead to the temptation to just wipe everything away, perhaps by slamming the Moon into the Earth. But as a reader, I can't say that Nassun's chapters were my favorites.
All that aside, I did enjoy this book, and I appreciated how the different story threads and perspectives all came together in the end. The odd narrative structure that had been such a prominent feature since the very beginning of the trilogy in The Fifth Season finally clicked into place—we finally know why the narrator was telling Essun her own story, and it fit in perfectly with everything we knew.
400 pages
Published 2017
Read from March 27 to May 23
Rating: 3 out of 5
As soon as I finished The Obelisk Gate, the second book in Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy, I wrote in my review, "I'm excited to complete the trilogy." I had read Obelisk Gate swiftly, finishing it at a pace reminiscent of how I used to read books before events we all know and deplore. The same day I posted Obelisk's review, I started reading The Stone Sky. But something was different, and the final book of the trilogy just didn't sustain my interest the way the middle volume had done.
I think the difference was something as simple as a couple new viewpoint characters. I grew to enjoy and appreciate the several-millennia-back flashbacks to Houwha/Hoa's past, but at first those chapters threw me out of the flow of the books. It's one thing to introduce a new viewpoint and more backstory in the middle of a trilogy; in the last book, though, it feels like the story wasn't quite working out as intended and the plot needed some belated course-correction, even if that isn't the case. The addition of Nassun's perspective felt more organic to the narrative, bringing with it—spoilers!—the perspective of systematic oppression and violence against a minority group can lead to the temptation to just wipe everything away, perhaps by slamming the Moon into the Earth. But as a reader, I can't say that Nassun's chapters were my favorites.
All that aside, I did enjoy this book, and I appreciated how the different story threads and perspectives all came together in the end. The odd narrative structure that had been such a prominent feature since the very beginning of the trilogy in The Fifth Season finally clicked into place—we finally know why the narrator was telling Essun her own story, and it fit in perfectly with everything we knew.
Saturday, May 18, 2019
2019 read #10: Player's Handbook (Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition).
Player's Handbook (Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition) by Wizards of the Coast LLC
312 pages
Published 2014
Read from April 29 to May 18
Rating: n/a
I continue my glacially slow read-through of the core rulebooks of the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons. This one consists of the nitty-gritty rules and counterrules and exceptions and specifics of play, which made for especially dull reading at times. (There's a reason I've never read these books cover to cover before, even though I've been playing the game since 2016.)
These rulebooks are in desperate need of a quick-reference guide. The Player's Handbook gestures toward this with an appendix detailing "conditions" that your character might be subject to during the game (such as blinded, paralyzed, or knocked prone), but fails at completing even this modest goal; the rules for how to get up from the prone condition aren't in the appendix, but in the section on movement during combat, a hundred pages earlier. When I started DMing my own campaign a couple years ago, I tried typing up my own cheat-sheet of important rules, but it wound up an unwieldy twenty pages or so, and I guessed wrong about what the most important rules and exceptions would be. (Most arguments and deliberate "misunderstandings" of the rules revolve around race and class features in the game. Kind of like in real life, I suppose.)
Fifth edition D&D was my first tabletop game, and I'll always be fond of it and eager to play. The rulebooks could benefit from better organization, though.
312 pages
Published 2014
Read from April 29 to May 18
Rating: n/a
I continue my glacially slow read-through of the core rulebooks of the current edition of Dungeons & Dragons. This one consists of the nitty-gritty rules and counterrules and exceptions and specifics of play, which made for especially dull reading at times. (There's a reason I've never read these books cover to cover before, even though I've been playing the game since 2016.)
These rulebooks are in desperate need of a quick-reference guide. The Player's Handbook gestures toward this with an appendix detailing "conditions" that your character might be subject to during the game (such as blinded, paralyzed, or knocked prone), but fails at completing even this modest goal; the rules for how to get up from the prone condition aren't in the appendix, but in the section on movement during combat, a hundred pages earlier. When I started DMing my own campaign a couple years ago, I tried typing up my own cheat-sheet of important rules, but it wound up an unwieldy twenty pages or so, and I guessed wrong about what the most important rules and exceptions would be. (Most arguments and deliberate "misunderstandings" of the rules revolve around race and class features in the game. Kind of like in real life, I suppose.)
Fifth edition D&D was my first tabletop game, and I'll always be fond of it and eager to play. The rulebooks could benefit from better organization, though.
Monday, April 29, 2019
2019 read #9: Dungeon Master's Guide (Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition).
Dungeon Master's Guide (Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition) by Wizards of the Coast LLC
320 pages
Published 2014
Read from April 19 to April 29
Rating: n/a
I've been in another reading lull. I began several books but haven't finished anything since March. I've also been craving D&D, which I haven't played since January. At some point it occurred to me that I'd never actually read the game's core rule books cover to cover, and once I started, I discovered that reading the DM Guide helped me feel like I was part of a game again, even as it left me hankering to play more strongly than before.
To review this as a book, I suppose I'd need to be more conversant with game rulebooks and their comparative merits. Fifth edition D&D certainly has its flaws and shortcomings (social interaction and exploration, supposedly two of the three central pillars of gameplay, aren't given much in the way of specific quantifiable rules; martial character classes peak early and are left to clean up in the shadow of magic-users quickly becoming as powerful as gods), but I enjoy it all the same. I've never played any other tabletop game to compare it to, but I enjoy the rich history and lore lurking within the experience of the game. It has charm and replayability that sleeker, less clunky rulesets seem to lack—though again, I don't have any experiences to compare and contrast with it.
During my read-through of the DMG, I was surprised by how few rules are actually in this book. The bulk of its pages are devoted to worldbuilding advice, tips on handling players and running the game smoothly, and random tables meant to inspire creativity. You could 100% play this edition of D&D without picking up the DMG. As long as you have the Player's Handbook and a nice assortment of monsters, you have all the rules you truly need. That said, I'm a worldbuilder at heart, and I enjoyed those sections of the DMG.
320 pages
Published 2014
Read from April 19 to April 29
Rating: n/a
I've been in another reading lull. I began several books but haven't finished anything since March. I've also been craving D&D, which I haven't played since January. At some point it occurred to me that I'd never actually read the game's core rule books cover to cover, and once I started, I discovered that reading the DM Guide helped me feel like I was part of a game again, even as it left me hankering to play more strongly than before.
To review this as a book, I suppose I'd need to be more conversant with game rulebooks and their comparative merits. Fifth edition D&D certainly has its flaws and shortcomings (social interaction and exploration, supposedly two of the three central pillars of gameplay, aren't given much in the way of specific quantifiable rules; martial character classes peak early and are left to clean up in the shadow of magic-users quickly becoming as powerful as gods), but I enjoy it all the same. I've never played any other tabletop game to compare it to, but I enjoy the rich history and lore lurking within the experience of the game. It has charm and replayability that sleeker, less clunky rulesets seem to lack—though again, I don't have any experiences to compare and contrast with it.
During my read-through of the DMG, I was surprised by how few rules are actually in this book. The bulk of its pages are devoted to worldbuilding advice, tips on handling players and running the game smoothly, and random tables meant to inspire creativity. You could 100% play this edition of D&D without picking up the DMG. As long as you have the Player's Handbook and a nice assortment of monsters, you have all the rules you truly need. That said, I'm a worldbuilder at heart, and I enjoyed those sections of the DMG.
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
2019 read #8: The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin.
The Obelisk Gate by N. K. Jemisin
397 pages
Published 2016
Read from March 25 to March 27
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
It's been about four months since I read The Fifth Season, the first book in Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy. So much has happened since I read it—a move to another state, being away from my child—that it feels like a lot more time has passed. You know that feeling when you hop back into an epic fantasy series a long time after you read one volume? I had plenty of that throughout this book, many moments of "Wait, who is this again? Was this guy important? What does this word even mean?"
Despite that, Obelisk drew in and maintained my interest in a way none of the books I began this past month have managed. And I started reading quite a few.
On one hand, the narration style—conversational, sarcastic, full of asides and parentheses and a tendency to over-explain—can become grating and repetitive. I think I have some internalized expectation that a tale this epic in scope and intent should be burdened with "serious" writing. It's an often graphic exploration of a human-caused global mass extinction event, after all, with themes of abuse perpetuating itself and deep trauma causing those affected by it to make bad decisions. Surely (goes my expectation) it deserves haunting prose and a measured pace, perhaps something akin to the early novels of Helen Oyeyemi, nothing like this casual and (dare I say it!) flip attitude. Maybe I should examine that mindset, though. The plodding "epic" narration style has been codified in fantasy by generations of white male Tolkien imitators, and outside of genuine talents like Oyeyemi, it often just sucks. Perhaps it's a good thing to get beyond.
On the other hand, Obelisk was a swift read, far brisker than its length would suggest. I was shocked at how quickly I finished it, given my recent issues in maintaining reading interest and momentum. Backstory and fresh plot developments alike come at a rapid pace. Characters drop their barriers and make mistakes and grow. As a middle volume of a fantasy trilogy, it was superbly satisfying.
The book ends on a bit of an eye-rolling note. Spoilers! The main character's estranged daughter, rapidly becoming her equal in skill, resenting the abuse her mother put her through, becomes the main character's opposite, committed to destroying the world even as her mother becomes committed to saving it—a family drama trope that feels a bit on-the-nose, merely a gender-swap away from the core dynamic of far too many fantasy novels. Regardless, I feel confident that Jemisin can make something interesting out of it. I'm excited to complete the trilogy.
397 pages
Published 2016
Read from March 25 to March 27
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
It's been about four months since I read The Fifth Season, the first book in Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy. So much has happened since I read it—a move to another state, being away from my child—that it feels like a lot more time has passed. You know that feeling when you hop back into an epic fantasy series a long time after you read one volume? I had plenty of that throughout this book, many moments of "Wait, who is this again? Was this guy important? What does this word even mean?"
Despite that, Obelisk drew in and maintained my interest in a way none of the books I began this past month have managed. And I started reading quite a few.
On one hand, the narration style—conversational, sarcastic, full of asides and parentheses and a tendency to over-explain—can become grating and repetitive. I think I have some internalized expectation that a tale this epic in scope and intent should be burdened with "serious" writing. It's an often graphic exploration of a human-caused global mass extinction event, after all, with themes of abuse perpetuating itself and deep trauma causing those affected by it to make bad decisions. Surely (goes my expectation) it deserves haunting prose and a measured pace, perhaps something akin to the early novels of Helen Oyeyemi, nothing like this casual and (dare I say it!) flip attitude. Maybe I should examine that mindset, though. The plodding "epic" narration style has been codified in fantasy by generations of white male Tolkien imitators, and outside of genuine talents like Oyeyemi, it often just sucks. Perhaps it's a good thing to get beyond.
On the other hand, Obelisk was a swift read, far brisker than its length would suggest. I was shocked at how quickly I finished it, given my recent issues in maintaining reading interest and momentum. Backstory and fresh plot developments alike come at a rapid pace. Characters drop their barriers and make mistakes and grow. As a middle volume of a fantasy trilogy, it was superbly satisfying.
The book ends on a bit of an eye-rolling note. Spoilers! The main character's estranged daughter, rapidly becoming her equal in skill, resenting the abuse her mother put her through, becomes the main character's opposite, committed to destroying the world even as her mother becomes committed to saving it—a family drama trope that feels a bit on-the-nose, merely a gender-swap away from the core dynamic of far too many fantasy novels. Regardless, I feel confident that Jemisin can make something interesting out of it. I'm excited to complete the trilogy.
Sunday, March 3, 2019
2019 read #7: Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees.
Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees
319 pages
Published 1926
Read from February 19 to March 3
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Can books be rebooted? Wait, scratch that question—of course they can be. Reinterpretations of the classics are a mainstay of the publishing field, and some writers (cough, Gregory Maguire, cough) build their entire careers out of chewing up public domain works and regurgitating fan-fiction for mass consumption.
If any book would benefit from a modern reboot, it would be Lud-in-the-Mist. There are glimmers of beautiful strangeness here, a compelling vertigo of life and death and dreams that would be intoxicating in the hands of one of our modern masters of fantasy, such as Helen Oyeyemi, Catherynne M. Valente, or E. Lily Yu. As it exists now, however, Lud is just so obdurately 1926. The central character is a burgher caricature that Verne would have recognized; the narrative swerves and loses momentum updating the reader on the happenings around tertiary characters; the most gorgeous and evocative section of the book, in my opinion, is scarcely longer than a dream sequence. We're supposed to find the main character's stubborn resolve to find his son who has wandered off into Fairyland an admirable example of domestic heroism, yet when the same character's daughter danced off into Fairyland a few chapters before, he barely shrugged, and he only frees her as an afterthought.
There's magic here, though, of one of my favorite varieties: a tale of Fairyland written before Tolkien became the cultural pattern for fantasy for several ensuing decades (much like Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter, from two years previous). I'm intrigued by how Fairyland is linked with the Land of the Dead; both are said to be reached via a walk along the Milky Way, while fairies and the dead alike are known as the Silent People. Master Nathaniel's dream-logic journey into the realm of the Silent People was positively Campbellian, yet felt fresh and compelling.
I would love to see some talented new writer approach an update and deconstruction of Lud, and bring the best of what it has to offer into something more like a readable modern narrative, with characters that are more than caricatures and dramatic flow that doesn't get lost in dead-end backwaters. And also maybe revise its ideological undercurrents. There's a lot to be unpacked from the deliberate parallels between the return of the deposed Duke from Fairyland, bringing with him the return of art and mysteries and commonweal to the stuffy mercantile republic of Lud, and the return of the Stuart monarchy after the Cromwells; while we can all agree that the common folk don't prosper under a government of capitalists, reinvesting in a mystic monarchy is not something my hypothetical reboot would champion.
319 pages
Published 1926
Read from February 19 to March 3
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Can books be rebooted? Wait, scratch that question—of course they can be. Reinterpretations of the classics are a mainstay of the publishing field, and some writers (cough, Gregory Maguire, cough) build their entire careers out of chewing up public domain works and regurgitating fan-fiction for mass consumption.
If any book would benefit from a modern reboot, it would be Lud-in-the-Mist. There are glimmers of beautiful strangeness here, a compelling vertigo of life and death and dreams that would be intoxicating in the hands of one of our modern masters of fantasy, such as Helen Oyeyemi, Catherynne M. Valente, or E. Lily Yu. As it exists now, however, Lud is just so obdurately 1926. The central character is a burgher caricature that Verne would have recognized; the narrative swerves and loses momentum updating the reader on the happenings around tertiary characters; the most gorgeous and evocative section of the book, in my opinion, is scarcely longer than a dream sequence. We're supposed to find the main character's stubborn resolve to find his son who has wandered off into Fairyland an admirable example of domestic heroism, yet when the same character's daughter danced off into Fairyland a few chapters before, he barely shrugged, and he only frees her as an afterthought.
There's magic here, though, of one of my favorite varieties: a tale of Fairyland written before Tolkien became the cultural pattern for fantasy for several ensuing decades (much like Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter, from two years previous). I'm intrigued by how Fairyland is linked with the Land of the Dead; both are said to be reached via a walk along the Milky Way, while fairies and the dead alike are known as the Silent People. Master Nathaniel's dream-logic journey into the realm of the Silent People was positively Campbellian, yet felt fresh and compelling.
I would love to see some talented new writer approach an update and deconstruction of Lud, and bring the best of what it has to offer into something more like a readable modern narrative, with characters that are more than caricatures and dramatic flow that doesn't get lost in dead-end backwaters. And also maybe revise its ideological undercurrents. There's a lot to be unpacked from the deliberate parallels between the return of the deposed Duke from Fairyland, bringing with him the return of art and mysteries and commonweal to the stuffy mercantile republic of Lud, and the return of the Stuart monarchy after the Cromwells; while we can all agree that the common folk don't prosper under a government of capitalists, reinvesting in a mystic monarchy is not something my hypothetical reboot would champion.
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
2019 read #6: The Wizard and the Warlord by Elizabeth Boyer.
The Wizard and the Warlord by Elizabeth Boyer
279 pages
Published 1983
Read from February 14 to February 27
Rating: 1.5 out of 5
I bought this book at a sad little used book shop that an old man had established in the book-stuffed emptiness of his own home. He only accepted cash, and I only had enough cash for one purchase. It was between this and an old edition of Samuel R. Delany's Babel-17. I chose this one because you can buy Babel-17 pretty much any time you want, but I'd never even heard of this book, so you might as well go with the one you don't know, right?
What a slog this turned out to be.
A generic sword-and-sorcery hack-and-slash centered on an orphaned young man's search for the father he never knew, the best that can be said for The Wizard and the Warlord is its setting, an elven land based on Scandinavia and its folklore. Boyer's Alfar are indistinguishable from her human characters in temperament and behavior, and their realm is pretty much identical to the human realm our Sigurd must leave behind, but I enjoyed the rocky fells, the winters of darkness and the summers of midnight sun, the trolls and three-headed horse-bears.
The rest of the book, by contrast... oof.
Sigurd is perhaps the stupidest character I have ever encountered in a work of fiction. I'm not referring to the myriad cliches surrounding his origin or his quest, though those cringe-inducing enough. I'm referring to his capacity for decision-making and navigating the world around him. Every protagonist in this type of story seemingly must begin in a position of naive ignorance and boneheadedness, but Sigurd is MAGA-hat-wearing levels of stupid. And while other chosen-one lost sons eventually wise up with experience and take a more thoughtful approach to their predicaments, Sigurd doubles and triples down on his bad choices. The first Alfar he meets is so obviously Sigurd's father that I could only read on in wry disbelief as Sigurd swore everlasting enmity against him; the unctuous wizard, by contrast, wins Sigurd's undying trust despite repeatedly betraying him and cursing him with magic and trying to wrest Sigurd's own powers away from him. It isn't until page 260 (out of 279) that Sigurd himself realizes, "It seemed to him as he lay helplessly bleeding to death... that he [Sigurd] had betrayed every person he ought to have trusted and he had allowed his enemies to flatter and deceive him with ridiculous ease."
Yeah, no shit, honey.
Sadly, Sigurd does not helplessly bleed to death, which would have been a suitable fate for him. He gets rescued, and having learned and grown at last, goes off with his true friends to reunite with his father. Along the way our heroes casually commit genocide against the entire population of dark elves for the crimes of one warlord. So yay! Job well done, guys. Way to be a bunch of murderhobos.
Actually, that's a good way to describe this book: Imagine that That Guy in your D&D group (every D&D group has one!) who wants to have a secret, dark, gritty backstory that only the DM knows, and who loudly objects when anyone else in the party does anything silly or fun or enjoyable with their characters, got to write down their character's life story exactly as they imagined it. That's this book.
And apparently there are two other books set in this same world. Life's too short to read more than one book like this, alas.
279 pages
Published 1983
Read from February 14 to February 27
Rating: 1.5 out of 5
I bought this book at a sad little used book shop that an old man had established in the book-stuffed emptiness of his own home. He only accepted cash, and I only had enough cash for one purchase. It was between this and an old edition of Samuel R. Delany's Babel-17. I chose this one because you can buy Babel-17 pretty much any time you want, but I'd never even heard of this book, so you might as well go with the one you don't know, right?
What a slog this turned out to be.
A generic sword-and-sorcery hack-and-slash centered on an orphaned young man's search for the father he never knew, the best that can be said for The Wizard and the Warlord is its setting, an elven land based on Scandinavia and its folklore. Boyer's Alfar are indistinguishable from her human characters in temperament and behavior, and their realm is pretty much identical to the human realm our Sigurd must leave behind, but I enjoyed the rocky fells, the winters of darkness and the summers of midnight sun, the trolls and three-headed horse-bears.
The rest of the book, by contrast... oof.
Sigurd is perhaps the stupidest character I have ever encountered in a work of fiction. I'm not referring to the myriad cliches surrounding his origin or his quest, though those cringe-inducing enough. I'm referring to his capacity for decision-making and navigating the world around him. Every protagonist in this type of story seemingly must begin in a position of naive ignorance and boneheadedness, but Sigurd is MAGA-hat-wearing levels of stupid. And while other chosen-one lost sons eventually wise up with experience and take a more thoughtful approach to their predicaments, Sigurd doubles and triples down on his bad choices. The first Alfar he meets is so obviously Sigurd's father that I could only read on in wry disbelief as Sigurd swore everlasting enmity against him; the unctuous wizard, by contrast, wins Sigurd's undying trust despite repeatedly betraying him and cursing him with magic and trying to wrest Sigurd's own powers away from him. It isn't until page 260 (out of 279) that Sigurd himself realizes, "It seemed to him as he lay helplessly bleeding to death... that he [Sigurd] had betrayed every person he ought to have trusted and he had allowed his enemies to flatter and deceive him with ridiculous ease."
Yeah, no shit, honey.
Sadly, Sigurd does not helplessly bleed to death, which would have been a suitable fate for him. He gets rescued, and having learned and grown at last, goes off with his true friends to reunite with his father. Along the way our heroes casually commit genocide against the entire population of dark elves for the crimes of one warlord. So yay! Job well done, guys. Way to be a bunch of murderhobos.
Actually, that's a good way to describe this book: Imagine that That Guy in your D&D group (every D&D group has one!) who wants to have a secret, dark, gritty backstory that only the DM knows, and who loudly objects when anyone else in the party does anything silly or fun or enjoyable with their characters, got to write down their character's life story exactly as they imagined it. That's this book.
And apparently there are two other books set in this same world. Life's too short to read more than one book like this, alas.
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