the phantom 30 second book reviews
by John at 2/04/2006 10:02:00 PM
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Several times I had heard that this was a great book, and yet I never thought much about reading it. I didn't know what it was about. Then one day I was wandering through the fiction stacks in the library and I saw it - the librarians had pulled it from its place in the shelf and propped it up on some sort of stand so that passersby (like myself) would notice it. It worked! I noticed it, and remembered hearing about how great it was. It looked interesting. I mean, the cover looked interesting: It was a bird's eye view of a small white boat on the water, with a large orange tiger and a small brown boy laying in the boat. Hmm. This turned out to be an accurate description of the plot of the story. I highly recommend this book. In addition to being a fairly thrilling adventure tale* of an Indian boy and a killer tiger lost at sea, it's also about man's relationship to nature and the nature of belief.
The Amphora Project - William Kotzwinkle
This book came with a few great cover blurbs, including one from Kurt Vonnegut praising the author. Looking inside the cover, it turned out the author also wrote E.T. The Extraterrestrial, so I figured I had to read it just to find out what kind of author writes E.T. and gets amazing praise from Vonnegut. As Michael Caine once said, "What a shock." After reading the first several chapters, I had decided this was either a badly cliched semi-comic space opera, or it was an extremely subtle parody of the same. I pushed through, and eventually the forced puns and boilerplate characters turned into an actual story that was moderately interesting. But I'm easy that way. Don't waste your time on this tale*, there are undoubtedly better things out there that you haven't read yet.
Everyone In Silico - Jim Munroe
Munroe, I figure, is Canadian, so this tale* take places in Canada. As a USA-centric American, this strikes me as odd (who writes about Canada?) but I'm pretty sure it is perfectly normal for a Canadian author to write such a story. Overall, I enjoyed this one. The plot hinges on Self, a company that has perfected the art of downloading people's minds into avatars that live in a virtual San Francisco. Anyone can go, and for a price, you can even get the advertising banners removed. While you are there, Self takes care of your body so can come back to the real world whenever you want, provided you give at least two weeks notice. Naturally, everything is not what it seems, and a disparate group of people ranging from a marketing coolhunter and genesplicing performance artists to a twelve year old hacker and his septagenarian grandmother are organized by a shadowy figure intent on finding out the truth.
Available as a free e-book.
Flyboy Action Figure Comes with Gasmask - Jim Munroe
This tale* also takes place in Canada (go figure) and is about a couple of Toronto hipsters who have superpowers. They form Superheroes for Social Justice, and fight against cigarette smoking, sexism, and draconian anti-drug laws. It's better than it sounds, but it's not great, unless, maybe, you live in Toronto and hang out with hipster types. I didn't hate it, but by the end I felt that the story violated an important rule of filmmaking: Show it, don't say it. The first person narrator spends too much time being introspective and telling us his feelings instead of letting us find out what he is feeling by the things he does. Maybe that's not a big deal, but it just didn't work out for me.
Available as a free e-book.
Foreign Babes in Beijing: Behind the Scenes of a New China - Rachel DeWoskin
Don't let the title and the cover fool you, because this book is not as salacious as it sounds. (Aside: This was the first book I put on hold at my library, and when the librarian handed it to me, she was all, "Woohoo, look at those fishnets! I thought it said 'Foreign Babies' but I guess not." She thought I was some kind of pervert. While that may be true, she did not have evidence of it in her hand at the time.) This the true story of the author, who went to Beijing in 1995 to work for a PR firm and have some adventures. She ended up staying for five years and managed to play a main character on a very popular Chinese primetime soap opera, called Foreign Babes in Beijing. This book is about her experience living in China, working with and dating young Chinese people. She also expounds upon the Chinese relationship with the West, and in particular views of the USA and the ascent of capitalism. If you are interested in China or foreign travel, this might be a book you would like. Check it out.
Fifty Degrees Below - Kim Stanley Robinson
This is the sequel to Forty Signs of Rain, a story I felt didn't need a sequel. I liked it (a lot) but it wasn't as moving as the previous. It is a tale* of times much like our own; it may, in fact, be 2004. The world is in deep shit, because the Gulf Stream has stopped due to large influxes of fresh water in the northern Atlantic. Without the Gulf Stream for warmth, Northern Europe is going to feel a lot more like Northern Canada, and in January, the coldest winter in ten thousand years hits the northern hemisphere. Our protagonists at the NSF are trying to think of ways to mitigate the crisis while facing unusual personal problems, the least of which is that Charlie and Anna's two year old is most likely the reincarnation of a revered Tibetan Buddhist leader. Robinson is always a writer I enjoy. He likes to mix the tide of history with the personal. He holds science and scientists in high, but not unrealistic, esteem. He's not afraid to stand up for his liberal political views. If these things don't turn you off, and you haven't yet, read Forty Signs of Rain and then pick up this one. Pretty darn good.
-----
* It's the word I thought of last time, and I'm going to wear it out.
Several times I had heard that this was a great book, and yet I never thought much about reading it. I didn't know what it was about. Then one day I was wandering through the fiction stacks in the library and I saw it - the librarians had pulled it from its place in the shelf and propped it up on some sort of stand so that passersby (like myself) would notice it. It worked! I noticed it, and remembered hearing about how great it was. It looked interesting. I mean, the cover looked interesting: It was a bird's eye view of a small white boat on the water, with a large orange tiger and a small brown boy laying in the boat. Hmm. This turned out to be an accurate description of the plot of the story. I highly recommend this book. In addition to being a fairly thrilling adventure tale* of an Indian boy and a killer tiger lost at sea, it's also about man's relationship to nature and the nature of belief.
The Amphora Project - William Kotzwinkle
This book came with a few great cover blurbs, including one from Kurt Vonnegut praising the author. Looking inside the cover, it turned out the author also wrote E.T. The Extraterrestrial, so I figured I had to read it just to find out what kind of author writes E.T. and gets amazing praise from Vonnegut. As Michael Caine once said, "What a shock." After reading the first several chapters, I had decided this was either a badly cliched semi-comic space opera, or it was an extremely subtle parody of the same. I pushed through, and eventually the forced puns and boilerplate characters turned into an actual story that was moderately interesting. But I'm easy that way. Don't waste your time on this tale*, there are undoubtedly better things out there that you haven't read yet.
Everyone In Silico - Jim Munroe
Munroe, I figure, is Canadian, so this tale* take places in Canada. As a USA-centric American, this strikes me as odd (who writes about Canada?) but I'm pretty sure it is perfectly normal for a Canadian author to write such a story. Overall, I enjoyed this one. The plot hinges on Self, a company that has perfected the art of downloading people's minds into avatars that live in a virtual San Francisco. Anyone can go, and for a price, you can even get the advertising banners removed. While you are there, Self takes care of your body so can come back to the real world whenever you want, provided you give at least two weeks notice. Naturally, everything is not what it seems, and a disparate group of people ranging from a marketing coolhunter and genesplicing performance artists to a twelve year old hacker and his septagenarian grandmother are organized by a shadowy figure intent on finding out the truth.
Available as a free e-book.
Flyboy Action Figure Comes with Gasmask - Jim Munroe
This tale* also takes place in Canada (go figure) and is about a couple of Toronto hipsters who have superpowers. They form Superheroes for Social Justice, and fight against cigarette smoking, sexism, and draconian anti-drug laws. It's better than it sounds, but it's not great, unless, maybe, you live in Toronto and hang out with hipster types. I didn't hate it, but by the end I felt that the story violated an important rule of filmmaking: Show it, don't say it. The first person narrator spends too much time being introspective and telling us his feelings instead of letting us find out what he is feeling by the things he does. Maybe that's not a big deal, but it just didn't work out for me.
Available as a free e-book.
Foreign Babes in Beijing: Behind the Scenes of a New China - Rachel DeWoskin
Don't let the title and the cover fool you, because this book is not as salacious as it sounds. (Aside: This was the first book I put on hold at my library, and when the librarian handed it to me, she was all, "Woohoo, look at those fishnets! I thought it said 'Foreign Babies' but I guess not." She thought I was some kind of pervert. While that may be true, she did not have evidence of it in her hand at the time.) This the true story of the author, who went to Beijing in 1995 to work for a PR firm and have some adventures. She ended up staying for five years and managed to play a main character on a very popular Chinese primetime soap opera, called Foreign Babes in Beijing. This book is about her experience living in China, working with and dating young Chinese people. She also expounds upon the Chinese relationship with the West, and in particular views of the USA and the ascent of capitalism. If you are interested in China or foreign travel, this might be a book you would like. Check it out.
Fifty Degrees Below - Kim Stanley Robinson
This is the sequel to Forty Signs of Rain, a story I felt didn't need a sequel. I liked it (a lot) but it wasn't as moving as the previous. It is a tale* of times much like our own; it may, in fact, be 2004. The world is in deep shit, because the Gulf Stream has stopped due to large influxes of fresh water in the northern Atlantic. Without the Gulf Stream for warmth, Northern Europe is going to feel a lot more like Northern Canada, and in January, the coldest winter in ten thousand years hits the northern hemisphere. Our protagonists at the NSF are trying to think of ways to mitigate the crisis while facing unusual personal problems, the least of which is that Charlie and Anna's two year old is most likely the reincarnation of a revered Tibetan Buddhist leader. Robinson is always a writer I enjoy. He likes to mix the tide of history with the personal. He holds science and scientists in high, but not unrealistic, esteem. He's not afraid to stand up for his liberal political views. If these things don't turn you off, and you haven't yet, read Forty Signs of Rain and then pick up this one. Pretty darn good.
-----
* It's the word I thought of last time, and I'm going to wear it out.
