I was looking for one last non-fiction book for the year to make it an even 12—a lot for me, and I've been in the mood for Christmas reading, if you haven't noticed from my last few posts. Which led me to The Man Who Invented Christmas. No, Charles Dickens didn't invent Christmas, but he did help re-popularize it and shape it as a holiday about family and charity and giving.
Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol at a point where he was almost flat-broke. He self-published the book, supervising everything from the illustrations to the printing. The story provides a lot of information about how books were published and marketed during the Victorian Era, along with how many were pirated and resold under various guises or made into plays without the author/publisher's consent.
While A Christmas Carol didn't make him the money he had hoped, it did become a perennial favorite. It helped shape how we celebrate Christmas and the values we think...
I finished Something Wicked This Way Comes several days ago, but have been putting off writing about it. Usually I put my thoughts down as soon as I can after finishing a book - I'm notoriously forgetful and if I wait too long I lose a lot of most books. It has to make a major impression to stay with me longer than a week or two. But I don't know how I feel about this one.
I listened to Something Wicked This Way Comes for the read along hosted by Michelle at Castle Macabre. It's not something I would have picked up on my own. First, I'm not a huge horror fan. Second, I tend to avoid books that have children/teenagers as the main characters.
The good:
The writing is gorgeous! It makes even the small everyday things seem magical.
The hero is a middle-aged library janitor who loves books.
The carnival and Dark are downright spooky.
The bad:
The writing made everything...
Head On could work as a stand alone, but I think it's best to read Lock In first, to get a full feeling for the world and the main characters Chris and Vann. In the near future, a portion of the population has been affected by Haden’s syndrome, leaving some “locked in,” awake and aware, but unable to move or respond without computer/mechanical help. Our mystery this time around centers on the death of a Hilketa player. The player, like almost all Hilketa players, is a Haden, piloting his specialty threep remotely. Since the crime involves a Haden, it's FBI territory and this case falls to Chris and Vann. It doesn't hurt that Chris was at the game when the player died - Chris's father is potential investor in the Washington franchise.
The world Scalzi has created is well-done - believable and possible, but t heart, this is a police procedural with a cool sci-fi backdrop. Chris and Vann make great partners...
Mystery and science fiction make a great pairing and Lock In by John Scalzi does it well. It's a police procedural set in a future where a portion of the population has been affected by Haden's syndrome, leaving some "locked in, " awake and aware, but unable to move or respond without computer/mechanical help.
I find a read more sci-fi every year and really enjoy it. Lock In is light on the sci-fi side. It's near future and the tech is obviously more advance, allowing human brains to connect with "threeps" (named after C-3PO), the robots that allow locked Haden victims to move, talk, interact with the real world and with the Agora, a virtual world that allows Hadens to communicate with each other, to have their own "spaces" and communal areas. But it all feels distinctly possible and here. It's not space ships and AI robots. There are Hadens who never use a threep, who basically live and work in...
Artemis is at heart a caper story with a sci-fi backdrop. Jazz is a small time criminal who is offered the chance to make big money doing a job she is capable of, because she's brilliant, but is outside of her usual parameters. The job of course goes awry - as they so often do. But, it turns out the job just a part of the larger plan, a plan affecting all of Artemis. So, as she sees it, in order to save her city, she pull together the standard motley crew of misfits, including her dad (who I really liked), her ex-boyfriend's current boyfriend, a Ukrainian scientist, and others to pull off a near-impossible crime.
Set on earth, this would be a fun enough crime novel. Jazz is a good character, smart as all get out, but under-motivated. She's sarcastic and lonely. I didn't always love her sense of humor, especially when she's speaking directly to the reader, it feels...
"I don't like time travel and I don't read much science fiction." Apparently I'm a liar. Just One Damned Thing After Another is my third science fiction-ish book of the year and deals pretty much solely with time travel and I though it was a blast.
Our historian is Madeleine Maxwell (Max) and I have to say I love her. She's smart and funny in that snarky way and she really does seem to be a bit of a disaster magnet. St Mary's is a "secret" organization that specializes in time travel, going back and observing history - not interfering. They take assignments from a university that they are connected with. There aren't very many historians (time-travelers) in part because they end up getting killed on assignments, so the few that there are get to cover all sort of times, not just those they specialize in.
You have to suspend disbelief here and just go along for the fun ride. Yeah, probably sending a non-paleontologist...
