mschatelaine (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mschatelaine) wrote2006-02-07 09:53 pm
mschatelaine) wrote2006-02-07 09:53 pm
Entry tags:
Books read so far, 2006
I'm going to have a go at the 50 books in a year thing; not officially by joining the list or anything, but just counting the ones I go through and commenting on what I read.
So, what have I read so far this year? (cuts for spoilers, but I'll try not to give too many)
Jon Courtenay Grimwood, _9Tail Fox_
This was a slipstreamy book, on the face of it mostly a detective novel, but with the protagonist a cop who has returned from the dead in someone else's body and is trying to find out why he was killed. The reason he's back could either be fantasy or SF, it's left quite open. The detective plot was fine and the fantasy/SF elements were interesting but for me the good bit was how the cop gets to see what everyone thinks of him after the funeral is over and to compare this with his own self-image.
Alastair Reynolds, _Pushing Ice_ (corrected from Paul MacAulay, me being half asleep when I wrote it)
Hard SF, with no recourse to faster-than-light travel and with the rest of the magical ultra-technology also conforming to what we think we know about the universe. Janus, one of the more interesting moons of Saturn, suddenly becomes even more interesting when it leaves its orbit and starts accelerating out of the solar system. The only people in a position to make a rendezvous are the crew of an ice mining ship who end up going along for the ride. Most of the story is about survival on the way and once they get where they are going, with politics, betrayals and civil wars among the tiny human community. There are some dei ex machina (literally in one case) but the story stays at the human level against the backdrop of huge mysteries and is resolved by the actions of the characters. I enjoyed the story of the humans' struggle and survival, and also the gosh-wow of the big mysteries and alien settings.
Christopher Fowler, _The Water Room_
The second Bryant & May mystery, this is shelved in the bookshops under horror because that is what Fowler has written up till now. It is a good creepy book and a decent mystery, although I don't read detective novels enough to be able to comment on that. The backdrop of London, especially the hidden rivers and other waterways, forms a large part of what the story is about. It edged a little towards infodumping in parts although it was saved by the fact that the enormous mass of detail and background was delivered by an obsessive who would go off on facinating tangents, and that some of the detail was actually important but it was impossible to tell what until after the fact. I enjoyed the twists and turns of the plot, the creepy mood and the wealth of detail. Got to love a police department called the "Peculiar Crimes Unit".
Only three in six weeks, but I've read a couple more that aren't published yet and I'm not sure I should talk about them here and now so I'm not going to count them.
So, what have I read so far this year? (cuts for spoilers, but I'll try not to give too many)
Jon Courtenay Grimwood, _9Tail Fox_
This was a slipstreamy book, on the face of it mostly a detective novel, but with the protagonist a cop who has returned from the dead in someone else's body and is trying to find out why he was killed. The reason he's back could either be fantasy or SF, it's left quite open. The detective plot was fine and the fantasy/SF elements were interesting but for me the good bit was how the cop gets to see what everyone thinks of him after the funeral is over and to compare this with his own self-image.
Alastair Reynolds, _Pushing Ice_ (corrected from Paul MacAulay, me being half asleep when I wrote it)
Hard SF, with no recourse to faster-than-light travel and with the rest of the magical ultra-technology also conforming to what we think we know about the universe. Janus, one of the more interesting moons of Saturn, suddenly becomes even more interesting when it leaves its orbit and starts accelerating out of the solar system. The only people in a position to make a rendezvous are the crew of an ice mining ship who end up going along for the ride. Most of the story is about survival on the way and once they get where they are going, with politics, betrayals and civil wars among the tiny human community. There are some dei ex machina (literally in one case) but the story stays at the human level against the backdrop of huge mysteries and is resolved by the actions of the characters. I enjoyed the story of the humans' struggle and survival, and also the gosh-wow of the big mysteries and alien settings.
Christopher Fowler, _The Water Room_
The second Bryant & May mystery, this is shelved in the bookshops under horror because that is what Fowler has written up till now. It is a good creepy book and a decent mystery, although I don't read detective novels enough to be able to comment on that. The backdrop of London, especially the hidden rivers and other waterways, forms a large part of what the story is about. It edged a little towards infodumping in parts although it was saved by the fact that the enormous mass of detail and background was delivered by an obsessive who would go off on facinating tangents, and that some of the detail was actually important but it was impossible to tell what until after the fact. I enjoyed the twists and turns of the plot, the creepy mood and the wealth of detail. Got to love a police department called the "Peculiar Crimes Unit".
Only three in six weeks, but I've read a couple more that aren't published yet and I'm not sure I should talk about them here and now so I'm not going to count them.