★★★☆☆
As a note, I did read the first of the series, which I had totally forgotten about. Here's my review of the Mistress of Trevelyan at Booklikes.
I (apparently) liked this book a whole lot more than I did the first book.
Juliet Boucheron is a widowed (probably) woman in post-Civil-War New Orleans trying to keep her house and household together. Her husband (probably) ran off with Rebel gold and abandoned her, and she has turned her formerly-glorious home into a boarding house to make ends meet.
When the story starts, she is boarding a theatre troupe and has gotten an alarming warning from an investigator she has hired to find her husband. A mysterious, and fabulously wealthy man shows up as a boarder right around the time that weird, and dangerous (deadly) things start happening, and we get to watch the mystery unravel. Sure enough, sexy-times happen. Mysteries are solved, and we get our happy ending.
There's a wee bit of paranormal to the story, not enough to classify it as paranormal, but it's there. What I like best about the book (and how it got much better ratings than the preceding book in the series) is that the female lead is doing fine(ish) on her own. She is not damaged, she is not raped, she is not some shrinking violet and while the man sort of saves the day, the relationship is not (I feel) predicated on his manly awesomeness.
Basically, it's not a horribly sexist story beyond society being patriarchal in general, which is refreshing.
Monday, January 6, 2014
The Strain, by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo del Toro
★★★★☆
Finally. Vampires the way they're supposed to be: Scary and evil as fuck. Or at least horrible and evil because they're hunting and eating you, not because you're in an unhealthy, abusive relationship that needs a restraining order.
This book by no means is the best written thing I've seen in a while. The characterizations have issues, people can be a little shallow, a lot of things are entirely too convenient, but it's a damn fun ride, and for that, I'm going to give it love.
I like the way the vampires become vampires, what the contagion (as it were) is, and how vampirism is spread, why blood drinking is necessary, and just their general physiology. That's pretty solid. The vampire culture (best word I can use for it) is hinted at and a little bit is shown, but I'm going to guess that it's fleshed out in the next couple of books (oh trilogies, how you haunt me).
The pacing is not the most consistent, and to be honest, I really enjoyed the first part of the book best, the part where a plane lands and "dies" and we have no idea what is going on.
General plot:
Plane lands in NYC, goes dark. Cops, security, and eventually the CDC is called in, all trying to figure out what in the world is going on. There is an old, incredibly rich bastard involved and up to general shenanigans, and interspersed through the book is the background of our Van Helsing, giving his history and motivation. In the meantime, there are vampires doing stuff, people fighting them, and humanity generally doing its thing. And there are rats. I ♥ rats.
The book is interesting and it's definitely fun.
Finally. Vampires the way they're supposed to be: Scary and evil as fuck. Or at least horrible and evil because they're hunting and eating you, not because you're in an unhealthy, abusive relationship that needs a restraining order.
This book by no means is the best written thing I've seen in a while. The characterizations have issues, people can be a little shallow, a lot of things are entirely too convenient, but it's a damn fun ride, and for that, I'm going to give it love.
I like the way the vampires become vampires, what the contagion (as it were) is, and how vampirism is spread, why blood drinking is necessary, and just their general physiology. That's pretty solid. The vampire culture (best word I can use for it) is hinted at and a little bit is shown, but I'm going to guess that it's fleshed out in the next couple of books (oh trilogies, how you haunt me).
The pacing is not the most consistent, and to be honest, I really enjoyed the first part of the book best, the part where a plane lands and "dies" and we have no idea what is going on.
General plot:
Plane lands in NYC, goes dark. Cops, security, and eventually the CDC is called in, all trying to figure out what in the world is going on. There is an old, incredibly rich bastard involved and up to general shenanigans, and interspersed through the book is the background of our Van Helsing, giving his history and motivation. In the meantime, there are vampires doing stuff, people fighting them, and humanity generally doing its thing. And there are rats. I ♥ rats.
The book is interesting and it's definitely fun.
Parasite by Mira Grant
★★★☆☆
I received this book from Orbit Books as part of the Goodreads First Reads program. Thanks Orbit!
While we're at it - another caveat: I'm a sciencey person. A research sciencey person at that. And I worked under a parasitologist. Imagine that.
Parasite is the first book in Grant's new Parasitology trilogy.
This book was a complete mixed bag for me, honestly.
Basic plot: Sal(ly) is a young woman who is in a car crash and ends up in a coma. Later on, she wakes up, but with complete amnesia. Though her body was breaking down, to the point where the doctors wanted to yank her on life support, she has a bioengineered tapeworm that brings her back to life (hold on there, I'll get back to that).
She learns to live again (adorably learning new idioms through the book) and learns how to function as an adult (with a boyfriend and everything), but she lives under the thumb of her parents (and her father just happens to be head of AMRIID) and SymboGen, the company who is terribly interested in researching how this came to pass (it's their tapeworm). In the middle of all of this, people start coming down with a "sleeping" sickness where they start wondering around in some sort of sleep-walking state. They don't start out violent, and they aren't out to eat a bunch of brains, so they aren't your typical zombies, just the pre-George Romero, "walking around like a zombie" zombies.
The book ends on a cliff-hanger, which drives me batty. I don't mind trilogies or series as long as the stories have some sort of resolution, this one just ends with a big AHA moment. It lost a star just because of that. I am a fickle reader.
So the foundation of this series is the idea that since we're all living in such sanitized environments (not the same thing as sterile, authors and other people), most of our health issues are due to overactive/bored immune systems, which is not a fictional theory. A company engineers a tapeworm-worm which will 1. keep the immune system busy without causing harm and 2. do some beneficial stuff while we're at it (secreting insulin for diabetics, other drugs or therapies as needed, etc.). This company supposedly plays fast and loose and unleashes (or sells, whichever you prefer) this worm on the public without much testing and things happen. There are hospitals, mega-hella-corporations, the military, secret underground labs and all kinds of other craziness in this book that make it fun.
I give Grant mad props for lots of nice science-y parts (and YAY! worms, because they're cool), but there are some parts that are not-so-realistic (though I'm sure it makes for a better story). I think, as a lay-person, especially if one were a a paranoid conspiracy-theorist lay person, this book probably doesn't even involve a suspension of disbelief. If you have a basic understanding of how research, the FDA or the pharma-complex works (actually works), this book might be a bit much to swallow.
And it is another not-so-common play on the whole zombie phenomenon (without actually being about zombies... really).
I do really like the way the book is structured with laboratory notes, video, personal notes and the first person with Sal (who, for the record, is not someone I'd want to hang out with).
Overall, interesting premise, good story telling, if too unbelievable (for this science person). There was a considerable dash of cheese (overly-contrived plot devices), but it worked out to a decent book. Pacing could have been a bit better, but all in all, I'm mostly disappointed in its thriller un-resolved ending.
I received this book from Orbit Books as part of the Goodreads First Reads program. Thanks Orbit!
While we're at it - another caveat: I'm a sciencey person. A research sciencey person at that. And I worked under a parasitologist. Imagine that.
Parasite is the first book in Grant's new Parasitology trilogy.
This book was a complete mixed bag for me, honestly.
Basic plot: Sal(ly) is a young woman who is in a car crash and ends up in a coma. Later on, she wakes up, but with complete amnesia. Though her body was breaking down, to the point where the doctors wanted to yank her on life support, she has a bioengineered tapeworm that brings her back to life (hold on there, I'll get back to that).
She learns to live again (adorably learning new idioms through the book) and learns how to function as an adult (with a boyfriend and everything), but she lives under the thumb of her parents (and her father just happens to be head of AMRIID) and SymboGen, the company who is terribly interested in researching how this came to pass (it's their tapeworm). In the middle of all of this, people start coming down with a "sleeping" sickness where they start wondering around in some sort of sleep-walking state. They don't start out violent, and they aren't out to eat a bunch of brains, so they aren't your typical zombies, just the pre-George Romero, "walking around like a zombie" zombies.
The book ends on a cliff-hanger, which drives me batty. I don't mind trilogies or series as long as the stories have some sort of resolution, this one just ends with a big AHA moment. It lost a star just because of that. I am a fickle reader.
So the foundation of this series is the idea that since we're all living in such sanitized environments (not the same thing as sterile, authors and other people), most of our health issues are due to overactive/bored immune systems, which is not a fictional theory. A company engineers a tapeworm-worm which will 1. keep the immune system busy without causing harm and 2. do some beneficial stuff while we're at it (secreting insulin for diabetics, other drugs or therapies as needed, etc.). This company supposedly plays fast and loose and unleashes (or sells, whichever you prefer) this worm on the public without much testing and things happen. There are hospitals, mega-hella-corporations, the military, secret underground labs and all kinds of other craziness in this book that make it fun.
I give Grant mad props for lots of nice science-y parts (and YAY! worms, because they're cool), but there are some parts that are not-so-realistic (though I'm sure it makes for a better story). I think, as a lay-person, especially if one were a a paranoid conspiracy-theorist lay person, this book probably doesn't even involve a suspension of disbelief. If you have a basic understanding of how research, the FDA or the pharma-complex works (actually works), this book might be a bit much to swallow.
And it is another not-so-common play on the whole zombie phenomenon (without actually being about zombies... really).
I do really like the way the book is structured with laboratory notes, video, personal notes and the first person with Sal (who, for the record, is not someone I'd want to hang out with).
Overall, interesting premise, good story telling, if too unbelievable (for this science person). There was a considerable dash of cheese (overly-contrived plot devices), but it worked out to a decent book. Pacing could have been a bit better, but all in all, I'm mostly disappointed in its thriller un-resolved ending.
Feed by Mira Grant
★★★★☆
I'm going to start this off by saying that I'm over zombies. By a lot. A whole lot. I'm tired of them in movies, I'm tired of the shows, I'm tired of zombie books. I'm done.
I actually decided to read this book because I was waiting for Parasitology (Grant's new book) to arrive and I thought I would see how I felt about this book since I had picked it up for uber-cheaps on the kindle..
And I'm glad I did. This book wasn't about zombies, it was about bloggers who were busy uncovering political conspiracy/ies. It is set in the post-zombie-lyptic landscape, but zombies are just a part of life, a background issue, like the environment or space is in other sci-fi works.
Shaun and Georgia Mason are bloggers in a post-zombie landscape. Georgia is a "newsie", which means she likes to focus on facts and unbiased reporting, while Shaun is an "irwin" who likes the adrenalin fear of near-zombieness/death. Their blogger team is rounded out with a girl who specializes in computers and poetry (fictional stuff).
They are awarded the opportunity to report on the campaign of a POTUS hopeful and stumble into the political landscape, with conspiracies going full bore.
It's a fun little thriller. There wasn't anything terribly original here, but an interesting way to tell the story. I've read reviews where people were dismayed with the narration, and it's not entirely consistent, but it didn't bother me and I found it to be a decent enough fun read.
One thing - it is the first book in a trilogy, but it does wrap itself up rather tightly. The ends are all tied in pretty little bows and you don't feel like you have to continue although there is enough left of the characters and landscape to continue the series. I have no desire to read further, it was a nice little bite-sized-snack and enough to fill that little thrill, and I'm very happy that I can stop here (it gets an extra half-star for that alone).
I'm going to start this off by saying that I'm over zombies. By a lot. A whole lot. I'm tired of them in movies, I'm tired of the shows, I'm tired of zombie books. I'm done.
I actually decided to read this book because I was waiting for Parasitology (Grant's new book) to arrive and I thought I would see how I felt about this book since I had picked it up for uber-cheaps on the kindle..
And I'm glad I did. This book wasn't about zombies, it was about bloggers who were busy uncovering political conspiracy/ies. It is set in the post-zombie-lyptic landscape, but zombies are just a part of life, a background issue, like the environment or space is in other sci-fi works.
Shaun and Georgia Mason are bloggers in a post-zombie landscape. Georgia is a "newsie", which means she likes to focus on facts and unbiased reporting, while Shaun is an "irwin" who likes the adrenalin fear of near-zombieness/death. Their blogger team is rounded out with a girl who specializes in computers and poetry (fictional stuff).
They are awarded the opportunity to report on the campaign of a POTUS hopeful and stumble into the political landscape, with conspiracies going full bore.
It's a fun little thriller. There wasn't anything terribly original here, but an interesting way to tell the story. I've read reviews where people were dismayed with the narration, and it's not entirely consistent, but it didn't bother me and I found it to be a decent enough fun read.
One thing - it is the first book in a trilogy, but it does wrap itself up rather tightly. The ends are all tied in pretty little bows and you don't feel like you have to continue although there is enough left of the characters and landscape to continue the series. I have no desire to read further, it was a nice little bite-sized-snack and enough to fill that little thrill, and I'm very happy that I can stop here (it gets an extra half-star for that alone).
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Why I'm doing this (or the "about me")
Blogging. I haven't done it for years. With the advent of social networking sites, I haven't felt the need to write out anything overly interesting or in depth on a platform like this. I can chat and discuss and enjoy things like books on social sites and get far more into (and out of) reading than I ever had in the past. The same regarding my dog, opinions, and political shenanigans.
At least, that's how it used to be.
I joined Goodreads in 2007. I initially used it just to catalog the books I read. Then I began to realize how much I relied on reviews (from friends and others) to determine what books were worthy of my time. And because I relied on the reasoned opinions of others, I began writing reviews, I began taking part in book discussions, I became a "Librarian" to help catalog data.
A year or two ago, I realized that Goodreads staff had "hidden" at least one of my reviews (others are "missing"). I am going to assume the author and his/her friends flagged it and GoodReads made it "go away." I think this, because the author has not (as of the writing of this entry) logged back into Goodreads. Shame, really, because s/he would have realized that I found out about it (while reading the feedback forum) and discovered my review was hidden. I contacted GR staff who "unhid" it after "reviewing" my review, to determine that it never violated policy and could stay.
I thought that fascinating, especially in light of their insistence that a person reviews each flag. If so, why did they hide my review to begin with? But I decided to stick with GR, I figured it was some sort of fluke and I continued on my happily reviewing/chatting way.
Then Amazon bought Goodreads. This created quite a kerfluffle, though I don't think many were too surprised. I know GR and other sites exist to make money, and I'm glad Otis & Co came up with something as awesome as GR. A good many people left GR at that point, not wanting to become datapoints for Amazon. Not happy with the acquisition, maybe worried about what would happen to the site, to OUR data. Whatever their numerous (and valid) reasons, I chose to wait it out, hoping Amazon would leave it alone, like I feel they had Audible (another acquired site I use frequently).
And I waited. I was saddened by the loss of opinions as many people I knew left the site and took their reviews down. I loved their opinions, I loved seeing why I should or should not read a book. I felt a bit of grief over my favorite social networking site. I created an account at LibraryThing that I could never quite get into (I didn't care for the interface), and GR seemed quiet enough.
And then a few months ago, GR started "enforcing" new (or old, if you listen to them) policies regarding shelving names and reviews. In the past, GR (including Otis himself, actually) had said that Goodreads was a site for readers and we could shelve our books as we saw fit, that we could write reviews as we sought fit (as long as it didn't get out of hand). Now they were unceremoniously deleting people's content and shelves.
And that bothered me. It is, in my opinion, the beginning of Amazon's censorship and abuse of the site, not to use the reading data to help sales and pimp books, but an attempt to tailor the site to make authors happy. To sell us to them, to tear up the honest and useful reviews and fill the site with rainbows and kittens.
Will I stay on GRAmazon? I'll keep my account there for now. I'll probably keep my content up for now as well, but I don't think I can bring myself to contribute any more unless the stupidity ceases. I want a site for readers. Some place where I can honestly talk about books and authors (I believe authors are an intrinsic part of their books and sometimes deserve being discussed as well) without worry about what kind of datapoint I'm presenting to Amazon and how and when they'll censor me. I didn't mind being part of GRAmazon's data feed, I do mind them manipulating what I'd like to say.
So that's why this blog is here. Until I am comfortable on another social reading site enough to keep my reviews there, I'll be reviewing here. I don't get the site traffic my reviews might get on GRAmazon, but at least I won't have to worry about what will happen to my reviews.
At least, that's how it used to be.
I joined Goodreads in 2007. I initially used it just to catalog the books I read. Then I began to realize how much I relied on reviews (from friends and others) to determine what books were worthy of my time. And because I relied on the reasoned opinions of others, I began writing reviews, I began taking part in book discussions, I became a "Librarian" to help catalog data.
A year or two ago, I realized that Goodreads staff had "hidden" at least one of my reviews (others are "missing"). I am going to assume the author and his/her friends flagged it and GoodReads made it "go away." I think this, because the author has not (as of the writing of this entry) logged back into Goodreads. Shame, really, because s/he would have realized that I found out about it (while reading the feedback forum) and discovered my review was hidden. I contacted GR staff who "unhid" it after "reviewing" my review, to determine that it never violated policy and could stay.
I thought that fascinating, especially in light of their insistence that a person reviews each flag. If so, why did they hide my review to begin with? But I decided to stick with GR, I figured it was some sort of fluke and I continued on my happily reviewing/chatting way.
Then Amazon bought Goodreads. This created quite a kerfluffle, though I don't think many were too surprised. I know GR and other sites exist to make money, and I'm glad Otis & Co came up with something as awesome as GR. A good many people left GR at that point, not wanting to become datapoints for Amazon. Not happy with the acquisition, maybe worried about what would happen to the site, to OUR data. Whatever their numerous (and valid) reasons, I chose to wait it out, hoping Amazon would leave it alone, like I feel they had Audible (another acquired site I use frequently).
And I waited. I was saddened by the loss of opinions as many people I knew left the site and took their reviews down. I loved their opinions, I loved seeing why I should or should not read a book. I felt a bit of grief over my favorite social networking site. I created an account at LibraryThing that I could never quite get into (I didn't care for the interface), and GR seemed quiet enough.
And then a few months ago, GR started "enforcing" new (or old, if you listen to them) policies regarding shelving names and reviews. In the past, GR (including Otis himself, actually) had said that Goodreads was a site for readers and we could shelve our books as we saw fit, that we could write reviews as we sought fit (as long as it didn't get out of hand). Now they were unceremoniously deleting people's content and shelves.
And that bothered me. It is, in my opinion, the beginning of Amazon's censorship and abuse of the site, not to use the reading data to help sales and pimp books, but an attempt to tailor the site to make authors happy. To sell us to them, to tear up the honest and useful reviews and fill the site with rainbows and kittens.
Will I stay on GRAmazon? I'll keep my account there for now. I'll probably keep my content up for now as well, but I don't think I can bring myself to contribute any more unless the stupidity ceases. I want a site for readers. Some place where I can honestly talk about books and authors (I believe authors are an intrinsic part of their books and sometimes deserve being discussed as well) without worry about what kind of datapoint I'm presenting to Amazon and how and when they'll censor me. I didn't mind being part of GRAmazon's data feed, I do mind them manipulating what I'd like to say.
So that's why this blog is here. Until I am comfortable on another social reading site enough to keep my reviews there, I'll be reviewing here. I don't get the site traffic my reviews might get on GRAmazon, but at least I won't have to worry about what will happen to my reviews.
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