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Ship Breaker
Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi Published: 2010 Series: Ship Breaker, #1 Length: 326 pages I hadn’t realised that this was a young adult novel when I picked it up. I read The Windup Girl a couple of years back, and that is very much not a young adult book, so it was interesting to see the difference in tone between the two. In a way, it felt like the confines of young adult fiction, whatever those may be, may have been good for him. I’ve only read two of his books, but from that sample it seems like Paolo Bacigalupi’s bread and butter is richly-imagined dystopian futures caused by environmental…
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Gentlemen of the Road
Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon Published: 2007 Length: 204 pages I’ve been wanting to read a Michael Chabon novel for quite a while now, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay in particular, and just haven’t gotten to it. At the book sale last month, I found this and thought it might be a good introduction to him, mainly because it’s nice and short. Those were the longest 200 pages of my life. My god. The concept was great. The cover promises an adventurous tale of Jews with swords, and I’m always up for some swashbuckling. The two main characters are a giant man with an ax and…
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The Player of Games
The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks Published: 1988 Series: The Culture #2 Narrated by: Peter Kenny Length: 11:26 (288 pages) This is the second novel in Iain M. Banks’ Culture series. They apparently don’t need to be read in order, and everyone who has read them seems to have their suggested reading order to follow, but I like rules, okay? I’m following the publication order on these. I knew this wouldn’t be related to the first book, but it’s not just a new set of characters, it’s a complete departure. In Consider Phlebas, it was a story taking place in the war between the hedonistic Culture and the…
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Richard Stark’s Parker: Slayground
Richard Stark’s Parker: Slayground by Darwyn Cooke Format: Graphic Novel Illustrated by: Darwyn Cooke Series: Parker #4 Publisher: IDW Publishing Published: 2013 Length: 96 pages I read the first three of these a few years ago, but I never got around to this final volume. Darwyn Cooke sadly passed away last month, in this year of startling deaths, which gave me an unfortunate reminder to pick it up. This volume is certainly a contrast to the last Parker book, The Score, in which Parker and his team planned a heist to rob an entire town. It had a complicated Ocean’s Eleven feel to it. This is a much simpler story,…
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Annihilation
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer Published: 2014 Series: Southern Reach #1 Length: 195 pages A team of four women – a biologist, a psychologist, a surveyor, and an anthropologist – are sent into a mysterious region called Area X. All they know is that there have been eleven previous expeditions. One ending with every member of the team killing themselves, and another with the team all killing each other. Those who managed to returned from Area X had no memory of their time there. The group has been trained to survive and to deal with the unexpected, and each member must keep a journal during their time there. Perhaps my only…
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May in Review
Books Acquired: Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell Tooth and Nail by Ian Rankin Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer The Simple Art of Murder by Raymond Chandler How To Eat: The Pleasures and Principles of Good Food by Nigella Lawson My Little French Kitchen by Rachel Khoo Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant by Tony Cliff Side Effects by Woody Allen Getting Even by Woody Allen Mere Anarchy by Woody Allen Books Read: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer Richard Stark’s Parker: Slayground by Darwyn Cooke The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks I was apparently still on a bit of a book-buying high after the book…
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Brave New World
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Published: 1932 Narrated by: Michael York Length: 08:05 (268 pages) This is about a utopia gone wrong, where science has been twisted to an absurd extreme in an attempt to keep society happy. What makes this novel particularly interesting is how it all makes a sort of perverse sense. The obvious comparison when discussing this book is Nineteen Eighty-Four, both being dystopian futures with a brainwashed populace, and this is like the wacky uncle to that novel. It’s older, doesn’t take itself as seriously, but is clearly in the same family. How do you keep a society happy? Firstly, each citizen must be content…