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Wednesday Reading Meme
Dec. 2nd, 2015 07:34 pmWhat I've Just Finished Reading
A couple of ghost stories by Margaret Oliphant: "The Open Door" and "The Portrait." Both of them are interesting and rather unusual takes on ghost stories, but I thought "The Open Door" in particular was quite marvelous. It's wonderfully atmospheric, lots of tromping around at night in the ruins of an old house in Scotland; and the ghost - well, this is not a ghost that's like a regular human in every way except for having the misfortune to be incorporeal; it's uncanny and terrifying and desperately sad. The main thrust of the narrative is to find a way to help it, which is not uncommon in ghost stories, although it tends to go with more approachable ghosts.
I also finished The Martian, which I enjoyed as supplementary material to the movie, although I'm not sure that I would recommend it on its own. I actually think that Watney himself is pretty well characterized - not perhaps deeply, but he's certainly individuated - but you can't really say that for any of the others. (I thought that the movie deepened Commander Lewis's character in particular.)
Well, actually, I think I would recommend it to people who really enjoy survival narratives; I have a weakness for them myself, and that aspect of the book is top-notch, very thoroughly worked out. But for someone who doesn't have a particular yen for that, I wouldn't recommend it purely as a novel.
What I'm Reading Now
Marie Brennan's The Voyage of the Basilisk. I think this series gets better with every book. Not that I didn't enjoy the first two, but I thought they were both slow to start out - the first one in particular takes forever to get to the part where Isabella finally gets to go looking for dragons - whereas this third book has a single svelte chapter of set-up before Isabella and company set out on their round-the-world quest for draconic knowledge.
It helps, of course, that with two books of set-up to rely on, the intellectual puzzle-box nature of the books can really shine. Isabella is trying to figure out a taxonomy of dragons: which species fit in the broader category of dragon? Which don't? What are the criteria for dragonhood? Because she's working with a fictional class of animals, the readers don't know the answers either, so it's a lot of fun to follow along and try to figure it out.
What I Plan to Read Next
Robert Galbraith's Career of Evil.
I've also put in an interlibrary loan request for Pat of Silver Bush, although goodness knows how long it will take to show up.
A couple of ghost stories by Margaret Oliphant: "The Open Door" and "The Portrait." Both of them are interesting and rather unusual takes on ghost stories, but I thought "The Open Door" in particular was quite marvelous. It's wonderfully atmospheric, lots of tromping around at night in the ruins of an old house in Scotland; and the ghost - well, this is not a ghost that's like a regular human in every way except for having the misfortune to be incorporeal; it's uncanny and terrifying and desperately sad. The main thrust of the narrative is to find a way to help it, which is not uncommon in ghost stories, although it tends to go with more approachable ghosts.
I also finished The Martian, which I enjoyed as supplementary material to the movie, although I'm not sure that I would recommend it on its own. I actually think that Watney himself is pretty well characterized - not perhaps deeply, but he's certainly individuated - but you can't really say that for any of the others. (I thought that the movie deepened Commander Lewis's character in particular.)
Well, actually, I think I would recommend it to people who really enjoy survival narratives; I have a weakness for them myself, and that aspect of the book is top-notch, very thoroughly worked out. But for someone who doesn't have a particular yen for that, I wouldn't recommend it purely as a novel.
What I'm Reading Now
Marie Brennan's The Voyage of the Basilisk. I think this series gets better with every book. Not that I didn't enjoy the first two, but I thought they were both slow to start out - the first one in particular takes forever to get to the part where Isabella finally gets to go looking for dragons - whereas this third book has a single svelte chapter of set-up before Isabella and company set out on their round-the-world quest for draconic knowledge.
It helps, of course, that with two books of set-up to rely on, the intellectual puzzle-box nature of the books can really shine. Isabella is trying to figure out a taxonomy of dragons: which species fit in the broader category of dragon? Which don't? What are the criteria for dragonhood? Because she's working with a fictional class of animals, the readers don't know the answers either, so it's a lot of fun to follow along and try to figure it out.
What I Plan to Read Next
Robert Galbraith's Career of Evil.
I've also put in an interlibrary loan request for Pat of Silver Bush, although goodness knows how long it will take to show up.
