Summary: Fiona is a New York City girl who finds herself stuck in a small New Jersey town after her parents get divorced. Not only that, but her new school is the subject of a reality TV show. How can she survive with all those cameras tracking everyone's every move?
Reaction: At first I thought it was yet another book of "transplanted teen feeling sorry for self", but by the end, I had seen that there's a lot more to it than that. I'm debating whether to call it fluffy or insightful and concluding that it's too early for me to come up with something significant. Whatever it was, I enjoyed it, after I got thru the first chapter or two.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Saturday, August 4, 2007
The Light Fantastic, by Terry Pratchett
Disclaimer explaining my forgetfulness: I probably should've done this right after finishing the book Thursday afternoon, but at that point I thought I'd get a chance either Thurs evening or Fri (which maybe I could've, but not with my engrained computer habits)
Summary: The Discworld is on the verge of being destroyed unless all eight Spells are said together some specific day. Unfortunately, one of the spells is stuck in the head of failed wizard Rincewind (I think that's his name), so they have to find him first. Unfortunately, he doesn't know what's going on so he tries to evade capture. Meanwhile, things are going strangely as a result of the visible signs of this potential doom.
Reaction: I rather like the Luggage. Um, yeah. This book has many amusing comments (like, for example the druid complaining about incompetent computer users (the computer in this case being something like Stonehenge)). As do all the Pratchett books I've read. Other than that, nothing really stands out right now.
Summary: The Discworld is on the verge of being destroyed unless all eight Spells are said together some specific day. Unfortunately, one of the spells is stuck in the head of failed wizard Rincewind (I think that's his name), so they have to find him first. Unfortunately, he doesn't know what's going on so he tries to evade capture. Meanwhile, things are going strangely as a result of the visible signs of this potential doom.
Reaction: I rather like the Luggage. Um, yeah. This book has many amusing comments (like, for example the druid complaining about incompetent computer users (the computer in this case being something like Stonehenge)). As do all the Pratchett books I've read. Other than that, nothing really stands out right now.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Monday, July 30, 2007
Operation Typhoon Shore, by Joshua Mowell
Summary: Doug and Becca and the rest of th ecrew of the Expedient find themselves stuck on an island after their ship gets damaged by a typhoon on top of whatever damage they had at the end of the last book where they were fighting Sheng-Fat. This might not have been so bad if it weren't for the massive mining operation on the next island over, run by the guy they came to arrest and staffed by 500 or so warriors.
Reaction: A gripping plotline and several "So this is it, they're going to die?" moments make it hard to stop reading. I think if I wrote my comments right after I finished the book I'd have a better time finding things to say. Never mind that it's usually late enough that that's probably a bad idea. Or I could go to bed at a more reasonable hour, finish the book in the morning, and then write my comments. But I want to know what happens and couldn't possibly put the book down for something so ...unnecessary as that. I'm not sure I had enough of an attention span left last night to really appreciate the book.
Reaction: A gripping plotline and several "So this is it, they're going to die?" moments make it hard to stop reading. I think if I wrote my comments right after I finished the book I'd have a better time finding things to say. Never mind that it's usually late enough that that's probably a bad idea. Or I could go to bed at a more reasonable hour, finish the book in the morning, and then write my comments. But I want to know what happens and couldn't possibly put the book down for something so ...unnecessary as that. I'm not sure I had enough of an attention span left last night to really appreciate the book.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
The Cat Who Knew Shaekspeare, by Lillian Jackson Braun
If this post ends up sounding wierd, it's due to the fact that I'm rather wound up, in a screwy mood, and unable to concentrate for very long.
Summary: Qwill goes about his business in a small town with a rich cultural heritage. Strange things happen, and Qwill finds out the details of any wrongdoings thru talking to the right people. His cat shows an affinity for some random book that predicts (Nostradaumus style) certain plot events. Oh look, I could've been describing any book in the series!
Summary on the back of the book [plus ranting from me]: There's something rotton in the small town of Pickax--at least to the sensitive noses of newspaperman Jim Qwilleran and his Siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum. An accident has claimed the life of the local paper's eccentric publisher, but to Qwilleran and his feline friends it smells like murder. They soon sniff out a shocking secret [if by "sniff out" you mean talk to random people that they probably would've talked to anyway, peolple who happened to have heard something from sombody], but Koko's snooping into an unusual edition of Shakespeare may prove CATastrophic [um, what? The cat's actions accomplish nothing except making him seem smart in a Nostradaumus sort of way.]...because somewhere in Pickax a lady loves not wisely but too well, a widow is scandalously merry, and a stranger has a lean and hungry look. The stage is set for Qwilleran, Koko, Yum Yum, and the second act of murder most meow [um, that line makes no sense]...
Reaction: Well at least this one had some plot to it. It wasn't too hard to predict who the murderer was. This book was an improvement over the other Cat Who book I read, but only enough to make me wonder if maybe they're not so bad after all, and to predict that that's unlikely to be the case...
Summary: Qwill goes about his business in a small town with a rich cultural heritage. Strange things happen, and Qwill finds out the details of any wrongdoings thru talking to the right people. His cat shows an affinity for some random book that predicts (Nostradaumus style) certain plot events. Oh look, I could've been describing any book in the series!
Summary on the back of the book [plus ranting from me]: There's something rotton in the small town of Pickax--at least to the sensitive noses of newspaperman Jim Qwilleran and his Siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum. An accident has claimed the life of the local paper's eccentric publisher, but to Qwilleran and his feline friends it smells like murder. They soon sniff out a shocking secret [if by "sniff out" you mean talk to random people that they probably would've talked to anyway, peolple who happened to have heard something from sombody], but Koko's snooping into an unusual edition of Shakespeare may prove CATastrophic [um, what? The cat's actions accomplish nothing except making him seem smart in a Nostradaumus sort of way.]...because somewhere in Pickax a lady loves not wisely but too well, a widow is scandalously merry, and a stranger has a lean and hungry look. The stage is set for Qwilleran, Koko, Yum Yum, and the second act of murder most meow [um, that line makes no sense]...
Reaction: Well at least this one had some plot to it. It wasn't too hard to predict who the murderer was. This book was an improvement over the other Cat Who book I read, but only enough to make me wonder if maybe they're not so bad after all, and to predict that that's unlikely to be the case...
Friday, July 27, 2007
Player Piano, by Kurt Vonnegut
Summary: The story takes place in a somewhat distant future where machines do many of the jobs once held by humans. More correctly, it's a 1950's view of such a future, so there's much importance placed on vacuum tubes and punch cards and no idea of gender equality. But that's not the point. The point is that machines are taking over all the jobs people had done previously. And there's a high premium placed on protocol.
Reaction: He's got a point, that progress for the sake of progress isn't necessarily a good thing and that one ought to actually, like, look at the system once in awhile to figure out who it's really helping and what kind of effects it's having on the people it's supposed to be helping. Whee, this time I can actually get a handle on what the point was. Some of his other books were mostly good for the "wtfwtfwtf aha" effect. Altho I guess Galapagos did have a definable point as well.
I think Galapagos was a bad place to start when it comes to getting a handle on what Vonnegut's writing is like because that one featured a narrator who knew everything that was going to happen and sometimes referred to it, but only gave the reader those facts on a need-to-know basis. It was a rather intreguing stream-of-conciousness that for the first some amount of the book raised more questions than it answered in any given paragraph. But that all is irrelevant.
I guess Player Piano isn't so good at the entertainment, altho it certainly made me want to find out how the various characters were going to react to things, but it certainly excells at making one think about the way things are going, even if vacuum tubes are pretty much a thing of the past.
Reaction: He's got a point, that progress for the sake of progress isn't necessarily a good thing and that one ought to actually, like, look at the system once in awhile to figure out who it's really helping and what kind of effects it's having on the people it's supposed to be helping. Whee, this time I can actually get a handle on what the point was. Some of his other books were mostly good for the "wtfwtfwtf aha" effect. Altho I guess Galapagos did have a definable point as well.
I think Galapagos was a bad place to start when it comes to getting a handle on what Vonnegut's writing is like because that one featured a narrator who knew everything that was going to happen and sometimes referred to it, but only gave the reader those facts on a need-to-know basis. It was a rather intreguing stream-of-conciousness that for the first some amount of the book raised more questions than it answered in any given paragraph. But that all is irrelevant.
I guess Player Piano isn't so good at the entertainment, altho it certainly made me want to find out how the various characters were going to react to things, but it certainly excells at making one think about the way things are going, even if vacuum tubes are pretty much a thing of the past.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
A Hat Full of Sky, by Terry Pratchett
Summary: Tiffany is a witch-in-training. But after she goes away from home in order to recieve said training, she meets up with a hiver. And that's what drives the plot.
Reaction: Mostly I was just trying to get it finished so I could return it because I couldn't renew it and it was due yesterday (and I couldn't possibly return it without reading it). And now I can't think of anything to say about it. Reflection suggests I could say it has a moral and a happy ending, just like all the other Terry Pratchett books I've read so far. So I guess I'll just say "Um, yeah, I guess it was a good book."
Reaction: Mostly I was just trying to get it finished so I could return it because I couldn't renew it and it was due yesterday (and I couldn't possibly return it without reading it). And now I can't think of anything to say about it. Reflection suggests I could say it has a moral and a happy ending, just like all the other Terry Pratchett books I've read so far. So I guess I'll just say "Um, yeah, I guess it was a good book."
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