Library Mama

Actually I started listening to it, and realized that there was no way I could finish it before the audio book was due back at the library. So I ripped the part I hadn’t yet listened to (to make sure I wouldn’t just keep it forever) and put it on my mp3 player to finish. And when I was finished the exciting book that I’d checked out to listen to next didn’t seem nearly so exciting, so I started listening one-third of the way through the book again. Maybe I’ll get over it enough to start listening to something else. Maybe I’ll have to buy the audio book for myself so I can listen to the whole thing legally, over and over again.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Read by Wil Wheaton. It’s a dark, dystopian future. The Recession never ended, and the ongoing energy crisis has ended the era of easy travel. Most people are unemployed, living in large stacks of trailers just outside the city. Life in the real world is so grim that the vast majority of people spend all their time logged into the Oasis, an immersive on-line alternate reality. Getting on to the Oasis and its main planet are free; it sustains itself and a large portion of the overall economy by charging for on-line goods and travel to its millions of other planets. The Oasis was imagined and designed by a hard-core socially impaired geek by the name of James Halliday. When he dies without heirs, he sends out to all the millions of Oasis users an invitation to participate in a treasure hunt for three keys leading to the location of an Easter egg hidden in the game. Our hero is one Wade Watts, an orphan living in the trailer stacks who is attending his senior year of high school in the Oasis. He’s named his avatar Parzival after the Arthurian grail-seeker and is determined to find the egg himself. In addition to all the time he spends in the Oasis, he’s devoted himself to mastering the 1980s arcade, computer and role-playing games, movies and movies that were formative during Halliday’s teen years. Geek children of the 1980s, this book is for you. There are multiple clues and puzzles which you might be able to figure out before Wade if you are familiar with the right movie or game, and even if you don’t, the trivia lessons are fun.

Even if the 80s weren’t your era, the plot of the book keeps on moving. Wade may be just one of millions of gunters (as the egg hunters come to be known), but we know from the beginning that he’s the first one to find the first key. His rivals include his best friend H and the zaftig and beautiful (at least on-line)if reclusive Art3mis, but the real enemy is the giant corporation IOI. They have an army of corporate warriors bent on finding the egg to give ownership of the Oasis to IOI, so that they can then start charging monthly fees and adding more advertising to the Oasis. Can our poor, self-educated hero find the egg or help his friends get there before the evil corporation takes over the current refuge of the poor? Wil Wheaton, geek extraordinaire, gives a pitch-perfect narration here. Though this features a teen narrator, it is aimed at adults. There’s a little sexual reference (no actual sex) and some violence, mostly in the game. The language is foul throughout. This is one of my very favorite books this year, and I urge my fellow geeks to seek it out right now.

Cross-posted to http://library-mama.dreamwidth.org and http://sapphireone.livejournal.com .

In which your faithful Library Mama learns, once again, that battle scenes are not quite her thing. This audio series is on loan from my dear brother-in-law. My love and he both listened happily to the whole series. But, since they don’t write book reviews, here are my thoughts on it.

The Lost Fleet: Dauntless by Jack Campbell. Narrated by Christian Rummel. The Lost Fleet is a science-fiction series based on two interesting ideas: What if a long-lost hero of legend, one whom people always said would come back at the hour of greatest need, really did come back? And what if what he came back to was not an immediate stunning victory, but just trying to rescue the shattered remains of a battle fleet from the middle of enemy territory? John Geary was in suspended animation in his escape pod for a hundred years before he was picked up by another Alliance vessel. While he slept, the war with the Syndics or Syndicate Worlds that was just beginning when he was last conscious built into a constant way of life. And, his final actions grew into the legend of Black Jack Geary, the best commander ever, whom the Living Stars would send back to help the Alliance some day. Soon after he awakened, the Alliance Fleet suffered a crushing defeat near the Syndicate home world. The Syndic CEO murdered the Alliance leaders in full view of their troops, unwittingly putting Captain Geary back in command of the fleet. He then vows, against all odds, to get the fleet back home again. The book has a lot going for it – an intruiging premise, interesting reflections on the cultural changes that might happen with a culture at war for a century and Captain Geary’s clashes with that culture. There are the politics of Captain Geary both not wanting to believe in himself as a legend and needing to use that reputation to lead the fleet, much of which is inclined to distrust him. Campbell has a good theory of space movement and, as a former Navy man himself, a good command of tactics which he is able to translate well into three-dimensional space. This is plot-driven fiction with a good setting and decent if not terribly nuanced characters. Christian Rummel’s narration sounds somewhat harsh to me, but suits the military nature of the book well. If closely-fought space battles with some politics float your boat, this series is for you.

Originally posted at http://library-mama.dreamwidth.org .

Return of the Dapper Men by Jim McCann and Janet Lee Once upon a time there was a world where time stopped, and all that was left were children and machines. The machines lived above ground and the children below, with only one robot girl and one human boy daring to risk friendship across that divide. Then one day, a whole host of dapper men – very dapper men, in white pin-striped suits with green umbrellas – falls from the sky. Only one of them talks, and he only talks to Ayden and Zoe. At this point, I was expecting something along the lines of the Grey Gentlemen from Michael Ende’s Momo - quite decidedly evil. But this turns out not to be the case at all, and it is only like Momo, and The Little Prince in that inside of a story for children is a message probably best captured by adults on how to appreciate life. The story is beautifully told, but the artwork really shines. It’s done in an Art Nouveau style, but with the figures in watercolor and ink cut out and pasted on pre-treated boards. I bought this for the adult collection at the library, but I think now it would do just as well in the children’s section, though it probably has too much of the air of the innocence of childhood to appeal to teens. I could be wrong, though. That art might pull just about anyone in. Go look at it, and see if you don’t think so.

Pirate Freedom by Gene Wolfe A young but worldly-wise priest is writing his memoirs. It started when Chris was put in a monastery school in Cuba and decided he didn’t want to take orders. When he left the monastery, the Havana he knew was gone, replaced by a much smaller one. Without money, food or shelter, he found work on a pirate ship. He made friends with Cap’n Burt, but didn’t want to become a murderous pirate himself. So much for good intentions. After several more adventures, he finds himself captain of his own pirate ship, pursued (romantically) by the wily and courageous Novia. The straightforward prose suits the book well, telling the plain facts of real pirate life. The action is violent without being romanticized and the plot does several quite unexpected flips. And while Father Chris is writing his memoirs and working at the Teen Center, he’s plotting how he can get back in time to the wife he left behind. I hear Neil Gaiman’s calling it essential reading.

You may wonder at my long silence, or you may think that I have been too busy with holiday preparations and a baby to read of late. And while I have indeed been busy, I have yet been diligent in seeking out yummy books for my friends and myself. My latest effort, as seen below, was well over 900 pages and thus took me nearly the entire three-week lending period to read.

A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon The saga of Jamie and Claire Fraser continues with this sixth book. As the story picks up, Jamie and Claire are living in their house on Fraser's Ridge in North Carolina, with their daughter Brianna, her husband Roger, and their son Jemmie. They are all transplants, Jamie from the Highlands and Claire, Brianna and Roger from the twentieth century. The year is now 1773, and the Revolutionary War is brewing. In the back of their minds, too, is the newspaper clipping that sent Brianna back, saying that Claire and Jamie Fraser were killed when their house burned down. Claire and Jamie have always had a powerful romantic relationship, and in this book, Brianna and Roger's marriage also comes into its own. Gabaldon manages to capture amazingly well the small details of eighteenth century life and the human relationships. The war comes into being in the small chaos and conflicts of local politics, the outcome known for certain only by our heroes. They are not permitted to watch from the sidelines, but suffer from multiple kidnappings, murders and robberies – a genuine roller-coaster ride before their invention. Since the genre-spanning series was first published as a romance because that was the best-selling of all possible genres, Gabaldon keeps romance clichés firmly in mind – at one point the kidnapped Brianna thinks that if this were a romance novel, she would lower herself out of the window with the sheet, except that the window is barred and they didn't leave her a sheet.

If you haven't read any Gabaldon yet, I'd recommend starting with the first in the series, Outlander. And don't be scared by the length of the books or the series – we're mostly following our characters and the progression of history here, not the progress of the One True Ring, so if you just want a taste, you can stop after the first one. On the other hand, since becoming a librarian, I've become the queen of reading only the first book of popular series, and I've read the whole series voraciously. If you've been following the series, too, you won't want to miss this one.

Romance! Action! Intrigue! Sex! Humor! Men in kilts! What are you waiting for?

And a brief mention of three fun books for children, which I picked up based on starred reviews in Booklist.

Once Upon a Time, the End: Asleep in 60 Seconds by Geoffrey Kloske. Illustrated by Barry Britt Once upon a time, a tired father was reading to his child, who wouldn't go to sleep without "one more story". So as time went on, the father started cutting bits out of the stories to make them shorter, so his child would go to sleep and he could go to bed himself. Goldilocks decides that her bed is more comfortable after all, Sleeping Beauty wakes up refreshed, and the fallen Goliath looks like he's sleeping. This one made all the staff in the break room giggle when I read bits of it aloud.

Winter Friends by Mary Quattlebaum. Illustrated by Hiroe Nakata This one (and the last one) In this series of linked poems, we follow a little girl on her journey through a snowy day trying to find the owner of a lost mitten. I'm not usually much for poetry, but the imagery here is just delightful – dawn comes up in a pink bathrobe and striped pajamas, and Mama's whistle is "a kiss that sings". Even Mr. Froggie Pants enjoyed the sound play of the words. The luminous watercolors tie the story together beautifully.

Three French Hens by Margie Palatini. Illustrated by Richard Egielski Three French hens are sent as a Christmas gift from a cat to her lover Phillippe Reynard. But the package goes astray; they find themselves in New York and track down one Phil Fox. He's alone and hungry and ready to dine on the three fat chickens on his doorstep – until they give him a Queer Eye-style makeover. Since dinner is now impossible, he invites them to join his Christmas celebration, only to find out that their holiday is Hannukah.

Today, for your enjoyment – two new and highly rated books, and a trio of mysteries.

The New Books

I know, I said I was only going to review books I liked. Well, I can’t say that I loved these books, but they were interesting and got good reviews from other people, so I thought I’d let you know what I think.

Alva and Irva, the Twins Who Saved a City by Edward Carey. Library Journal listed this as one of the best science fiction novels of 2003. Alas, the setting, a fictional European city, is as close as it gets to science fiction. Alva and Irva are painfully socially awkward, unsure even how to relate to each other. To save their own relationship, they decide to make a plasticine model of the entire city, with Alva taking notes on the buildings and Irva making them. When the city is hit by a massive earthquake, this model is the only remaining record of how the city was. The twins are lauded as the saviors of the city. The writer is not French, but lives in Paris, which perhaps accounts for the odd feel of the book, written like an experimental film with odd lighting and film angles, giving ordinary things unusual prominence. Was it enjoyable? The jury is still out. But memorable and thought-provoking, definitely.

Bandbox by Thomas Mallon. This book was billed as a romp through the exciting publishing world of the 1920s. It is that, chronicling the battle between two men’s magazines. The biggest drawback to this otherwise fine book is that the perspective switches from section to section between any one of about 20 main characters. It took me most of the book to remember all of them. Write them down at the beginning, and you should be able to enjoy the book.

The Mysteries

These are all mysteries of the type called “cozy” by librarians – no graphic violence or sex (romance allowed), usually set in a small village, and generally feel-good-at-the-end books. If you liked Agatha Christy, you’re likely to like these.

Aunt Dimity’s Death by Nancy Atherton. This novel is about as comfort-read as it is possible to get, with nary a sharp edge. Down-and-out American Lori Shepherd finds she must spend a month in a cottage in England (all expenses paid), to fulfill the last wishes of Aunt Dimity, previously known to Lori only as a bedtime story. No, no murders or thefts, but this book does feature some friendly ghosts, plenty of romance, and a stuffed pink bunny. This is the first book in the series, which is still on-going, and seems to get only better as it goes on.

Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters. A mystery classic – this is the first in a series that has been going on for nearly thirty years, and still has legions of fans. Our heroine, Amelia Peabody, is (at this point) a sharp-tongued Victorian spinster, who would rather have her mind than a man, thank you very much. She sets off on a journey to Egypt for some amateur archaeology, taking the waif-like Evelyn under her wing along the way. When somebody – with the audacity to try to look like a mummy – tries to kidnap Evelyn, Miss Peabody sets out to stop the miscreant. I really enjoyed this as a recorded book, where the snap of Miss Peabody’s character comes through especially vividly.

OK, I lied. It was supposed to be a trio of mysteries – I’m still reading the third. I’ll get back to that one.