Anders Monsen

Lost worlds and ports of call

Category: books (Page 25 of 26)

Books read

April 4, 2010 /

I finished Paul McAuley’s latest novel, Gardens of the Sun, his sequel to The Quiet War. I actually liked most of this novel better than the first. McAuley seemed more comfortable with his characters and the events of the story, although several main characters from the first book either died or underwent radical change. Excellent hard sf novel on a grand scale, so for the most part the characters played their parts and drifted off, exit stage left.

Gardens of the Sun

Gardens of the Sun


I also read Sarah Hoyt’s novel, Darkship Thieves, a book that focused very much on the characters, especially the female protagonist. This character tended to be unsympathetic almost until the end, while her male co-star sulked a great deal throughout the novel. The book was far from unfavorable, and I am planning a longer review in Prometheus, but I have not processed all my thoughts about this book yet.
Darkship Thieves

Darkship Thieves

Angela Carter

April 2, 2010 /

What a master of style and images. Just finished her novel, Nights at the Circus, about a half woman, half swan trapeze artist at the turn of the 19th into the 20th century, and the journalist who follows her across Europe and Siberia. Bawdy, breathtaking, funny, bizarre, and brilliant. I had read several of Carter’s short stories in her collection Burning Your Boats, but this was her first novel I tackled. I think I need to add her to the list of authors worth searching for at the local used book store.

Surrealist fiction

March 19, 2010 /

I just finished re-reading Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, two stories I vaguely remember having read many decades ago. Since then my perceptions of the two stories have been clouded by movies, popular culture, and dim memory. I both stories very surreal, almost bizarre, with characters spouting nonsense and misdirection. Yet digging deeper there are some very interesting metaphysical notions, as well other critical insight into the workings of morals and language. I have not seen the new Tim Burton movie yet, but as for the stories, I think they are ones that are strange and curious, though I am not tempted to return there.

John Shirley novel

December 7, 2008 /

From Gauntlet Press, this announcement:

Coming in 2009: New John Shirley Novel
We are pleased to announce we’ll be publishing a new John Shirley
novel in the fall of 2009, Welcome to Freedom. Here is the author’s
description:
“After a disaster wrecks a long section of the California northern coast, the town of FREEDOM, which has attempted to live without federal interference as much as possible, finds it has a little too much chance to go it alone. Vicious human predators take advantage of the situation, waves of brutality roll through the area, and a young man new to town has a coming of age confrontation with what it takes to survive at any cost… The town wants to maximize its freedom from outside help, influence and control. See what happens when you have real freedom day after day, and no rules? Is it heaven–or hell?”

The book is scheduled for a January 2009 release.

The fiction of Garet Garrett

September 22, 2008 /

I scoffed with some light-hearted disdain the other day at at certain web site, some of whose writers are associated the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Despite my disagreements with certain aspects of what appears on the lrc site, the LVMI continues to publish some outstanding books in terms of intellectual interest, as well as books historical interest. Several of the early libertarians of the 20th century, while most well-known for essays and non-fiction, also wrote and published fiction prior to Ayn Rand. These include Rose Wilder Lane, Isabel Paterson, and Garet Garrett. Bruce Ramsey recently wrote a review of Garrett’s novels for Liberty Magazine, books which the LVMI reprinted in 2007. This review also appears online, and shows the perils of non-fiction writers trying out fiction. Although it’s been nominated a few times for the LFS Hall of Fame, I have rarely read as poor an excuse for fiction as Henry Hazlitt’s Time Will Run Back. Hazlitt’s non-fiction is remarkable for its clarity and economic sense, but fiction is a different genre altogether.

I think this paragraph by Ramsey about Garrett’s reporting relates well to current economic issues in this country.

The nut of wisdom was not to over-borrow. Many farmers had feasted on credit during World War I, when food prices, and therefore the value of farmland, were high. They borrowed to buy more land and equipment. When prices came down, borrowers were in trouble. Garrett had the bad manners to point out that they had done it to themselves.

Little Brother

August 19, 2008 /

This weekend I read a tough little cookie of a YA novel, Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother. Published earlier this year, the book is already nominated for next year’s Prometheus Award, and could indeed be a strong contender. I’m working on a review of the novel for Prometheus (unless any other brave souls out there would like to contribute a review…), but I’m already jokingly calling this the book that sent me to the ER.

The Young Adult fiction market these days is smokin’ hot. As a grown up reading some these books I can’t help but be irritated and impatient with the tendency toward a very simplistic style. I struggled to get going with Little Brother, and the ended certainly fizzled into a “Rock the Vote” solution that does nothing to advance individual liberty (a recent conversation with L. Neil Smith comes to mind, where he said that it’s easy to write dystopias, as we all can agree upon what we are against. But it’s damn tough to come up with better solutions. ) Still, the middle part of Doctorow’s novel is worth every penny, and is the part that most readers probably will remember.

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