Caleb
Picked this up because I was interested in getting into the fantasy genre as well as reading something a bit "lighter" than I typically read. I ended up breezing through this moderately long book in something like five days which is something I haven't done with a book in a long time. It's an extremely quickly paced story thats loads of fun. That being said the writing is plain to a fault and the dialogue can feel a bit clunky. It almost reads like a YA novel at times. Sometimes the characters can feel a little bit more like ideas than characters, but by the end you really fall in love with most of them.
Plot wise I found the story consistently engaging and thrilling. The world these characters inhabit is pretty standard fantasy fare (evil lord and a feudal system with an oppressed group), but Sanderson richly fleshes it out with enough small and unique details to keep you curious.
The story focuses on a group of thieves planning a heist to overthrow an evil ruler. The catch is that everyone in the crew can use a unique type of magic powered by metals. The heist framework works well because you have a clear goal for these characters and can see how this group moves from planning to execution and how they react when things go wrong. It's sort of an Ocean's Eleven scenario with higher stakes and magic, which makes for some clever ideas and thrilling action. The ending is fantastic and took me by surprise. Despite my problems with some of the prose I think that this made for a great entry into the fantasy genre and I'm excited to read the next two novels in this trilogy.
I enjoyed The Idiot nearly as much as Crime & Punishment, but it tends to meander a bit too much in certain sections for it to be quite as great in my view. It feels very personal in the sense that many elements are taken from Dostoevsky's life, such as The Prince's odd obsession with executions and his recounting of a false execution nearly identical to his own. There are a lot of historical and obscure literary references that are covered in my editions footnotes which was quite helpful. An interesting note from the introduction of my edition: There is less of a sense of place in The Idiot as in Crime & Punishment as Dostoevsky was living abroad to escape creditors while writing it.
Although Dostoevsky viewed the Prince as a pure and Christ-Like figure, someone who is utterly innocent and pure, it was difficult for me to see him as such. Yes, he is generally a good person who has pure intentions, but he doesn't really actively try to do any good in the world. His pureness stems more from his naivety and honesty as well as his inability to recognize the ill intent of those around him. Can this really be considered the image of perfect goodness? It's a good question and Lev Myshkin is an excellent character, but it was hard for me to see him as anything more than a stand up guy in an otherwise cynical and pompous world of aristocracy.
Set in an absolutely bonkers world where people have special powers like precognition, mind reading, etc which are corporatized in order to provide advantages in business. Thus there are also people with powers that can block these other powers which is also corporatized. Also people can exist in a state between life and death called half life and everything is coin operated, including doors and fridges. Plot wise this story is full of twists and mind bending mystery. It’s my favorite of PKD as of yet.
This moves quicker than Wolf Hall in terms of the pacing. Mantel is also more clear in who her pronouns refer to this time around ("He, Cromwell"). I preferred Wolf Hall but this was nearly as good. Here Cromwell's power is established and his influence is vast. You see more of his crueler and calculating side here which is nice. The ending section is fantastic and I am excited to read the last entry in the trilogy.
Le Guin's introduction to this novel is incredible and the insights she gives into the nature of science fiction as a genre, about it's purpose and misconceptions are brilliant. This novel feels like it could have been written today with the thoughtfulness that it explores the cultural significances of gender, not to mention the fact that the main character is black, something that is strangely unusual in science fiction novels. The world she builds is fascinating and I appreciate that she doesn't attempt to dictate each and every aspect of the whole world of Winter, but rather builds our knowledge of it by introducing bits and pieces of mythology such that we understand the planet of Winter similarly to how the the main character Genly understands it. The idea that a human society could develop completely different cultural norms and etiquette is also an interesting notion. The concept of shiftgrethor, a sort of honor and social etiquette code in the Gethenian societies that is constantly baffling to Genly is something I found super neat. What would social appropriateness look like in an alien society? The main intrigue of this novel is its exploration of a society in which individuals are completely androgynous except for a few days of the month in which they transition into a man or a women known as kemmer. The implications of this is that there are no socially constructed gender roles. Consequently there is no rape (being physiologically impossible most of the time and during kemmer most individuals are willing to have sex), no war (this one is a bit more perplexing but Genly supposes that violence on a mass scale is a trait of manhood and sexual frustration), and no associations or expectations that come with raising a child. There is also a liberal view of sex for the most part, with sex being seen as a right during kemmer (interestingly, incest in some cases is also seen as ok). This is a really fascinating society that Le Guin has built and the implications of the absence of gender are far reaching and in some cases very unexpected. Genly, a human in our sense of the word, struggles with untangling our traditional notion of gender with the people he interacts with, refering to most as 'he'. Genly also struggles to differentiate gender from positions that we typically see as being gender based such as the king or ruler of some Gethenian country, who at one point even gives birth to a child. The struggle for Genly is seeing these people as what they are: Human, without the association of gender to go along with it. A brilliant science fiction novel and one of the most interesting worlds I've seen in a novel!
One of the best novels I've read recently. The language is so disorienting and foul but at the same time is very evocative of this chaotic, drugged up, and sweaty landscape these characters live in. Also has almost every messed up thing you can think of in it and very graphic descriptions at that so not for the faint of heart.
I enjoyed this and found the writing compulsively readable but I can't agree with the reading of Stoner as some sort of saint. He essentially rapes his wife (which likely contributes to the resentment she feels towards him) and doesn't do much to help his daughter who is both abused and neglected by his wife. While his quiet suffering is admirable in sections (I think his steadfastness to his principles in regards to the whole Lomax thing is quite honorable), much of Stoners suffering seems to be a result of him refusing to stand up for himself. I also think that Lomax and Edith can come across as almost cartoonishly villainous at times, to the point that they feel as if they are only there to provide painful situations for Stoner to manage.
Haven't read anything like this before but it accomplishes so much in so few pages. Definitely an odd structure as most of the statements are at most a page and contain only brief musings from one of the employees. Love the idea of extraterrestrial objects possessing some kind of sentience or otherworldly qualities that can't be understood. Something about it feels more alien than most visions of alien life are.
The battle royal section (chapter one) is a masterpiece and maybe the greatest thing I've ever read. I honestly can't believe that this was published in the 50s. Everything about this book is so groundbreaking, from the ideas it presents to the style of writing and storytelling itself. Much of the story feels almost dreamlike, especially the battle royal section which is almost surreal in its telling. That section is just so powerful, disturbing, and visceral, I cannot give it justice. Can't say enough great things about this book, it is a new favorite for me.
Some of the stories are super good and some of them are just eh. The writing in general never really elevates itself above just passable but the ideas in PKDs stories is what shines.
My favorites were: I Hope You Arrive Soon (my favorite in the collection), Beyond Lies the Wub, The King Of The Elves, and Rautavarras Case.
Took me a little while to get into this but once i got into it I was very into it. The whole thing is very harrowing but the last third is especially hard hitting. Sarah's story is particularly tragic just because she never really fully understands what's happening to her. Also her “treatment” is by far the most disturbing part of the book.
The dialogue isn't split up at all which took some getting used to but selby gives each character such a unique voice that after awhile it gets pretty easy to tell who's talking. His dialogue for black characters can seem very stereotypical at times but I think part of that is done to differentiate the voices of the characters.
