Making Money

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So, it didn’t take as long as I expected to get to my next Discworld novel.  It didn’t hurt that a reader pointed me toward a good reading guide for the series, or that I found the one that followed the last one I read while browsing the library this weekend.  And hey, while we’re on the topic of things that helped me get back around to the series, let’s just say that it’s not often that I get to read books in a series back-to-back (-ish).  So all the points convened on what became a foregone conclusion.

Anyway, Making Money follows right after Going Postal, and follows Moist von Lipwick’s journey from con man to postmaster to director of the Ankh-Morpork mint.  Like the previous story, Moist’s adventures become more perilous than he would have expected, as he butts heads with those who gain to profit from the banks.  And like Going Postal, he has to match wits with a variety of shady individuals in public and private, and still manages to stay charismatic through it all.

The story follows some of the same themes as Going Postal, this time focusing on banks and the industry of money.  Pratchett seems to have a clear opinion of banks and the government, and deconstructs the idea of a national economy over the course of the story.  And like Going Postal, Moist himself comes up with the main idea that manages to keep the business running, which is of course the same idea that we use to run our country today.  It’s a fun conceit, and makes the reader think about how these ideas came to be in the real world.  And there’s a hint at the end of the novel that Moist’s next adventure will involve tax collection, so I imagine there will be a grand simplification of that idea in his next novel.

Making Money is a wild romp and a fun ride, even if it isn’t quite as good as Going Postal.  Maybe it’s because I’ve already seen Moist dodge all the challenges thrown his way, or maybe it’s because the ending was a little too forced and a little too pat, but it just didn’t resonate quite as well as Going Postal (though that didn’t stop me from reading the entire book in one day; Pratchett still tells a wonderful story that’s just plain fun to read).  But that’s not going to stop me from picking up more of his books along the way.  Anyone care to recommend the next place to start?

Ready Player One

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Geek is chic (or so I’ve heard, but maybe that’s just in my own circles), or to put it in an even better perspective, “Geek used to be a four-letter word; now it’s a six-figure salary.”  I wish I could take credit for that quote, but I read that on an Internet forum some years ago.  But with the prevalence of sites like ThinkGeek, the popularity of such pop-culture figures as George Takei and Wil Wheaton, or even the fact that “The Big Bang Theory” is one of the top-rated shows on television, it’s hard to deny that Geek has gone mainstream.  I mean, look at that; I even capitalized the dang word!

Ready Player One is a Geek’s dream, a throwback to all the things that make us who we are.  It references comic books, video games, anime, manga, and music from the 1980s, without irony or derision.  The main characters are plugged into something called the OASIS, which is a virtual reality world where some folks choose to spend most of their lives.  Their quest in the book is to solve a years-old videogame contest by trying to find easter eggs hidden throughout the OASIS, and if anything I’ve written so far (especially if you know what I mean by easter eggs), then this is the book for you.  And if, like me, you’re close to your 40s, then this book will resonate far more with you, since a lot of the pop-culture references here are going to be from your childhood.

The book is flat-out fun, too.  Parzival is our narrator, and he represents the group of gamers who are trying to find the aforementioned easter egg, which in turn will grant him untold riches and fame, and even ownership of the OASIS.  He’s a socially awkward kid who dreams of being better than what he is in the real world, and the OASIS and the promise of those rewards is what drives him through the story.  He’s fighting against a corporation that would like to find that same easter egg, since ownership of the OASIS would equate to more riches for that corporation.  And it’s so damned easy to root for Parzival and his friends over the course of this book.

I had heard a lot of good about this book before reading it, and I knew I was setting myself up for a huge disappointment if it didn’t pay off in the end.  But the story flowed well and had me caught up in the lives of the main characters, all while peppering me with nostalgia for all the things I remember as I was growing up.  I was sucked up like dirt in a Hoover, but I was smiling the whole time.  The book ain’t perfect (some of the plotting was left up to random encounters, and there were a few moments where I found myself thinking, “Well, that’s going to show up later in the story, that’s for sure”), but the storytelling, characterization, and setting were all my thing.  Just last night, I was relating to my wife how a friend, who just turned 43 and talked about going from being the answer to life, the universe, and everything to being prime, was “my people,” and Ernest Cline belongs to that rank, too.  So if you know what I mean by any of those references, find this book, and read it.  You won’t be disappointed.

The Postmortal

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Over the weekend, I discovered The Walking Dead on Netflix.  My wife and I watched the entire first season — all six episodes — back-to-back, and are now officially hooked on it.  I’m still thinking about it, and considering reading the graphic novel series, but I don’t want to spoil anything about the series.  But I found it kind of jarring that I was watching the show while I was also reading The Postmortal, because while The Walking Dead is about a small group of survivors in a world where nearly everyone is dead, The Postmortal is about living in a world where hardly anyone ever dies.

The premise of The Postmortal is that science has finally discovered a cure for aging, and anyone who takes the cure will be locked in at their current age until they die.  People who take the cure can still die, contract diseases, have heart attacks and strokes, etc., but so long as they take care of themselves and don’t run afoul of violence, they can live for as long as they wish.  It’s a pipe dream, especially for anyone who’s contemplated their own mortality, and of course it sounds like a great idea.  But what we don’t often think about when we think about living forever is what the world would be like if no one ever died.  Luckily, Drew Magary thought about it.  He thought about it a lot.

It’s hard to discuss the novel without giving away a lot of it, but it’s not a spoiler to say the world becomes overcrowded in a hurry.  Where that overcrowding takes society I’ll leave for you to discover in the book, but I will say that while the first quarter or so of the book is filled with hope and optimism, the rest of the book takes a much darker look at the reality of that sort of situation.  For all the people who populate the novel, it reads a lot like a post-apocalyptic novel of survival than a science-fictional look at living sort-of-forever.

I turn 40 this year, and over the last couple of years, I’ve found myself thinking more about my own mortality.  It’s becoming less and less of an abstract idea, and I’m not ashamed to say that the idea of dying terrifies me.  But The Postmortal actually made me feel a little more at ease with the idea by presenting the alternative side of living forever.  It’s not a pleasant look at the idea, but it feels like a necessary one.

Going Postal

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I’ll probably lose some geek-cred by saying so, but this is only the third Terry Pratchett book I’ve read (fourth, if you count Good Omens).  I read The Colour of Magic many years ago when I was still in high school, and didn’t think much of it.  Later, I read Equal Rites, and found it to be more interesting, but not enough to make me go back and read the other books in the series.  Another 10-plus years has passed, and I’ve read my third book, Going Postal.  How does it make me feel about the series?

Well, it was good.  I mean, it was funny, but it was also serious.  By that, I mean that it had some humorous moments and situations, but the plot was something to take seriously.  It wasn’t like a Looney Tunes cartoon where a character gets shot by a rifle and gets back up to make a joke about it.  When folks in the book die, they die.  Well … mostly. 

See, Going Postal opens with Moist von Lipwig, a sentenced con man, about to be hanged for his crimes.  The first chapter is a running internal monologue by his character, covering his past enough to give a brief overview of his past, his personality, and what he’s about to face.  And at the end of that chapter, he dies.  Well … he’s hanged.  The thing is, the person being hanged isn’t known as Moist von Lipwig; he’s known by one of his aliases, so when that person dies, Moist von Lipwig is still available to step in and do some work for the Ankh-Morpork government.  And Moist is given the choice to take on the role of Postmaster for the post office, or die a real death.  But from that point onward, if a character dies in the story, he doesn’t pop up with a witty quip; he stays dead.

I was surprised to find that the novel had something to say outside of being just a wacky fantasy story.  Pratchett makes a commentary about digital versus traditional communications, and how we sacrifice humanity for speed of delivery as he pits the traditional Ankh-Morpork post office against the local, corrupt telegraph company.  It helps give the novel a lasting impression beyond the story itself.  And even the story itself is pretty dang good.

So, will I read the others?  Maybe.  The series is up to 39 books now, which is a little intimidating.  I mean, I’m reluctant to pick up The Wheel of Time because I don’t want to be locked in to reading fourteen books, so it’s hard to imagine reading 37 more.  But the reason I picked up Going Postal is because I heard it was easy to read as a standalone book in the series.  Can anyone recommend others that follow that characteristic?

The Night Circus

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When you break down fiction into its basest elements, its beauty lies in a good story, likable characters, and a compelling narrative.  Fiction is also escapism, and that escapism is nowhere more prevalent than it is in fantasy fiction.  There, the world is as interesting as compelling as the people who inhabit it, and in turn, the setting becomes as much a character as those moving through it.  And with The Night Circus, this is exactly the case.

It’s no surprise that the circus acts as a character, since it serves as an extension of Celia and Marco, two magicians caught up in a game pitted between their mentors.  In this game, they create attractions that are bigger and better than anything else the circus has yet offered as a means to prove how powerful and focused they are.  It’s a battle that predates them by decades, if not longer, and one that has consequences of which they’re unaware.  But the enchanted circus consumes them, much as it consumes anyone who visits it.

Readers might find themselves comparing the story to Something Wicked This Way Comes, which I think would be a disservice to both.  Both stories center around a mystical circus, but the themes of the two novels are significantly different.  Where Bradbury’s story focuses on the innocence of youth battling with the responsibilities of growing up, Morgenstern’s story is more about questionable loyalties at war with each other.  It’s more understated and adult, both in theme and content.

The Night Circus is one of these fantasy novels, by turns light and airy, by others dark and brooding.  Though it’s the story of the two magicians, the heart of the story lies with the eponymous circus, and like that circus, the story will wind you through pathways and into mysterious tents, all the while tantalizing you with hidden wonders and the promise of more.  It’s a wonderful story, lyrically told, full of magic and amazement and inventive ideas that keep the reader engaged.  Like any good fiction, it’s a story well worth reading and well worth sharing.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

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This book has an extraordinary start.  It presents the main character and his relationship with his grandfather, paints a broad overview of their lives, suggests the importance of fairy tales in childhood and through adulthood, and introduces the reader to the method of storytelling in this unique book — using found photographs to tell a fictional story.  It’s a good bit of information to convey, but the author does so in just a few pages, and makes the entire section readable, compelling, and interesting.  It hasn’t been since reading the first few dozen pages of Justin Cronin’s The Passage that I felt that kind of connection to the characters in such a brief time.

Unfortunately, The Passage fell apart for me, partly because of its lofty premise, and because it ended with the suggestion that it was only the start of a larger series.  Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children had a premise that matched its depth just perfectly, and was told in such an extraordinary way that I didn’t care when the novel ended with the suggestion that it, too, is just the first book in a larger series.  I started the book on a Saturday night, read about 100 pages, and then finished the rest of it on Sunday afternoon.  If that’s not enough to suggest that this book is a great read, then I don’t know what else to tell you.

Riggs’ method of storytelling — using the aforementioned photographs — started off as a gimmick, but became something to anticipate in the ongoing story.  The first few photographs were odd, to say the least, but as the story progressed, they became less odd, simply a means to illustrate some of the main points of the story.   I resisted the urge to flip ahead to see what the other photographs would be, and it paid off.  Reading the book at its own pace revealed the photographs at just the right time, and I would suggest that anyone else reading this book do the same.

I don’t want to reveal too much of the story — the fact that it’s about “peculiar children,” and features on the cover an antique photograph of a girl apparently levitating should give you enough of an idea to get you started — because it’s just such a joy to discover.  The narrative is compelling, and the characters sympathetic, and tying it all together is some language that captures the moments and the meaning behind them in a wonderful way.  I don’t know that it will become a classic, but I will say that I am eager to read the next book in the series.

I guess now I know how George R.R. Martin’s fans feel.

Level Up

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I was really taken in by American Born Chinese, especially in the way that the author, Gene Luen Yang, played around with a single story told through four different perspectives.  It was a pretty ingenious way of telling the story of his main character, and while it wasn’t necessarily original, it helped to drive the meaning of the story home.  Level Up is another of his stories, and while it doesn’t have the same sort of method of telling the story, the meaning behind the story is just as effective.

In Level Up, Dennis Ouyang is an Asian-American teenager who is coming to terms with his passion and skill for video games, contrasted with the expectations his father has for him.  His father’s death spurs his motivations, in both directions, but when he starts to falter in what his father expected from him, some strange things begin happening which push him in the right direction.  How he manages to reconcile his feelings for both is interesting, and each time you think you might have figured out what Dennis is going to do, Yang plays with the characters a bit more, keeping you engrossed in what’s happening.

Ultimately, Level Up isn’t going to get the recognition that American Born Chinese received.  It’s a good story, with a layer of depth to it that’s almost unexpected, but it doesn’t have the same kind of oomph that ABC had.  I think it’s partly because ABC has a premise that’s a little more universal than Level Up has.  Even though both stories are about teenagers coming to terms with their identities, I think ABC focuses more on family, while Level Up is a little more focused on video games and medical school.  It’s a bit more limiting in scope, and I can’t help but feel that that’s why the book doesn’t feel as significant.

Anyway, it’s probably unfair to compare the two books, but ABC won the National Book Award, so it’s hard to ignore that potential when looking at Yang’s other works.  I see that he has another graphic novel I haven’t read — The Eternal Smile – and I’m sure to read that one, as well.  I don’t know that I will expect any of his other works to measure up to ABC, but I do enjoy his method of storytelling, and the depth that he adds to his characters.

The Help

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Yep, The Help.  I heard about it when it came out, and know a lot of people who liked it, but I just wasn’t all that interested.  I avoid non-genre fiction, book-club books, and bestseller books (mostly) by practice, and The Help was all of those things together, so there wasn’t much there to make me want to read the book.  It wasn’t until I saw the trailer for the movie and realized what the story was about that my interest finally got piqued.  Somehow, I had managed to miss out on the most important point — what the story was about — and almost missed out all together on the book.

I probably don’t need to tell you anything about the story, now.  The book was a runaway bestseller, and by now you’ve probably seen the previews a hoopty-jillion times over, so there’s really no need for me to cover that this book is about a young woman from 1950s-era Jackson, Mississippi who takes on the role of collecting the stories of all the black maids from the town to reveal the social ills behind those roles of employer and employee (which were actually closer to master and servant, when you get right down to it).

There were a few things that were a disservice to the story, overall.  For one, in order to illustrate the full impact these stories would have on the town and its social structure, the book had to be published, to there was never any real tension over whether or not the book would be completed.  It had to be, otherwise a large part of the drama of the story would be lost.  That’s not to say that Stockett didn’t write the story in such a way as for me to realize this; I was still hanging on with Skeeter, Aibileen, and Minnie as they waited to hear the news about the book.  There was also one scene that served to prove to Minnie that Celia viewed her as a person and a friend more than she viewed her as a maid that was just plain random.  I kept thinking that there were a ton of other ways for the author to create a scene where Celia had to come to Minnie’s aid than that, and as a result, I kept expecting that random encounter to come back up at some point later in the story (it didn’t).  Finally, the story is told by the three main characters in alternating first-person narratives, but there was one chapter that was told from a third-person perspective, which just didn’t make any sense to me.  I can sort of see why — the scene wasn’t seen from any one of those three characters completely — but there’s so much more of the story about other characters that’s narrated by the main characters as a “Guess what I heard?” anecdote that I didn’t see why Stockett didn’t do the same with that one chapter.  It was jarring, more so because the voice of the chapter was so similar to the other characters’, anyway.

All that doesn’t change the fact that this is a very readable book, made so because of the characters.  The protagonists were all working toward a great good against a large challenge, and it was very easy to sympathize with them because of that situation.  Stockett did a great job of piling one hardship on top of another for the characters, to make their challenges even more difficult, which in turn makes the reader more supportive of them.  And the antagonists were so despicable and so easy to hate that it was very easy to take sides in the battle.  There was no moral ambiguity in the characters to muddy the waters of who the heroes and villains were.

When I first started reading the book, I was struck with how the author was trying to address a serious social issue that reflected the truth of race relations during that time through something as trivial as “The Help.”  I understand that it reflected the truth of race relations at that time, but it seemed a bit pithy.  Once the story really got underway, though, Stockett used real historical events to remind us that we might be reading a fictional story, but that the issue at heart was very, very real.  It helped ground the story in reality, and remind us that we weren’t going to get through the story without some serious reflection.

I don’t know that this book really needs my recommendation for folks to read it, but I will say this, to folks who are like me and don’s usually read books like this: Don’t ignore it just because it’s popular.  It’s serious, enjoyable, readable, and effective.  And above all, it’s just a damn good story.

Anya’s Ghost

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I recently got in a discussion about the benefits of paying full-price for a book when one could get the same thing at a significant discount at an online seller, and one of the things that came up was the definition of value.  For some folks, they see value only in the final price of something, and — no kidding — look down on others for not having that same definition.  Other folks, though (myself included) assign value to what a bookstore offers, and thus don’t have a problem paying a little extra for those little characteristics.  For me, the ability to browse is one of those things, so if I find something I want by browsing, I reward the bookstore by buying the item there instead of just jotting down the title, going home, and then ordering the book from Amazon.  It just seems right.

Anya’s Ghost is a book I never would have known about without browsing, and to be honest, it was Neil Gaiman’s praise for it (smack dab on the cover) that really sold it to me.  It’s a nice little story about a Russian girl trying desperately to fit in with American culture, and the ghost who insinuates itself into her life.  It’s a very familiar sort of story about identity and friendships — the ghost helps her to become popular and successful, but at the cost of her real friends, and the transformation teaches Anya what real friendship is as she finds out the truth about herself in the process — but it’s well done, and well illustrated.  The use of the ghost as the catalyst was intriguing, if a little dark, and though there were a few moments that seemed a little cliched, it worked well, for the most part.  The art has a simple look, with a very limited, muted color palette, but is still very evocative.  Considering the subject matter of the book, the colors actually work very well in conjunction with the story.  The story was also easy to follow, and the progression of the art made sense.  Too many times I’ve read a graphic novel only to get lost in one or two scenes because the artist was trying to go for a more artistic look, or cram in too much stuff on a panel.  Here, the artwork was just right.

So, I guess the question comes down to: Was it worth the extra money I paid to discover this book?  It’s hard to say.  The story works, and is well told, but it’s a little too familiar in its territory, even though it takes a different approach to it.  It doesn’t take that long to read — I think it took  me less than an hour — and I’m not sure if it’s a book I will revisit in the future.  On the other hand, I’d like to see what else Ms. Brosgol can do, so I suppose if nothing else, I supported an author enough to encourage her to continue writing.  That was definitely worth the extra $4.56 I paid for the book at Barnes & Noble, as opposed to Amazon.

The Last Dragonslayer

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My appreciation for Jasper Fforde and his novels knows no bounds.  The Thursday Next series was and continues to be brilliant; the Nursery Crimes series, while not quite as interesting, was still terribly clever; and the beginning of the Chromatacia series didn’t disappoint.  So it was without hesitation that I bought this YA novel, since it had Fforde’s name on the cover.

In The Last Dragonslayer, Fforde takes us to a modern-day England where magic is present, dragons exist (well, a dragon exists), and people are having premonitions of a big, big change coming soon.  The main character, Jennifer Strange, runs an agency that uses wizards for modern-day repairs.  Apparently, it’s a lot easier for wizards to magic out old pipes and replace them with something better, instead of a plumber ripping out walls to have to do the same thing.  Wizards don’t live the glamorous life, but they can still make a living.  But when a new wizardly recruit joins the agency, and the premonitions of the last dragon dying start to become more prevalent, things start to become more and more engaging for Jennifer.

The story is very much a typical Fforde one, but not because it has the cleverness and witticisms of his previous works.  In fact, I found that a lot of that was missing in the book; is it because the book was targeted for a younger audience, and he didn’t want to lose his readers?  I don’t know.  But what really makes this story a Fforde one is through the character of Jennifer Strange.  She is very much a Thursday Next clone in personality.  She’s clever and fast-thinking, and smarter than those who are trying to undermine her efforts.  She manages an organization that’s always threatening to come apart at the seams, and knows all the ins-and-outs of the regulations that run the organization.  She’s become so familiar with the oddness of her job that she takes all the new quirks and weirdness of her days in stride.  She even has a pet with a one-word vocabulary!  I guess if the character has proven to be successful, then it’s easy to import that same character into a story for a younger audience, but I was disappointed that she was so similar to Thursday.

The story also jumps back and forth from being a serious story to being a comedy of errors, but that’s pretty typical of all Fforde’s work, so that’s not so much a complaint as it is a characteristic.  And it’s not a bad story, to be honest, but it just seems very weak and light, compared to his other series.  To see Fforde move from the light-heartedness of both the Thursday Next and Nursery Crimes series to the more serious Chromatacia series suggested that he was moving on to deeper territory.  To then read what seems to be a step backward behind all three series was a bit of a let-down.  It’s a good book, no doubt, and certainly something to suggest to younger readers looking to scratch the modern fantasy itch, but I can’t help but feel like it could have been a lot better.

That being said, if this turns out to be a series, I’m sure I’ll keep reading them.  Fforde’s a natural when it comes to telling a story, and really, isn’t that most important?