novel

The Mars Room

Book Notes kitt decided around 10:15 on 10 November 2018 to publish this:

I really need to start keeping notes about why I add books to my reading list. I'm pretty sure this was a book on some "You should read this" list, as the book is on a number of said lists.

When I first started reading the book, I connected with the Kushner's descriptions of San Francisco. Quickly I realized, however, that her San Francisco was definitely not my San Francisco, nor was the main characters's childhood. The names, places, streets, landmarks, yes, I recognized all of those. The drugs and goofing off and delinquency, not so much, and no.

Everyone's raving about the book, though.

The writing is engaging. The plot was slow, but wasn't a bad thing because the writing was good. The characters were interesting. I don't know, worth the hype, maybe? Would I recommend it? I can't say I would, but that's because the book is outside what I normally read and what I would recommend. It can still be worth reading.

I guess if you're looking for a fictionalized account of a woman's prison life, from the perspective of an innocent (in an objective, just world, one could call the crime she committed justified), this book is good. It triggers my "not fair!" button, along with a couple other buttons about human nature, redemption, loss, and justice. But it isn't a comedy, nor does it try to be funny, which makes it better than most fictionalized women's prison accounts.

Sometimes what other people want is wantable, briefly, before dissolving in the face of your own wants.
Page 8

I sometimes think San Francisco is cursed. I mostly think it’s a sad suckville of a place. People say it’s beautiful, but the beauty is only visible to newcomers, and invisible to those who had to grow up there.
Page 9

Broken Homes

Book Notes Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 21:51 on 2 November 2018

I think I kinda want all my Peter Grant book notes to say the same thing: love the book, love the series, something something rivers, if you enjoy the series keep reading, and, wow, do I love the cultural references, even though I figure I miss more than half of them.

Oh, wait.

This book is the fourth book in the Peter Grant series. It follows Peter as he tracks down a rare book that was flagged for notice if it ended up in the system, which it did. During the tracking of it, Peter finds the thief dead, and heads off to the home of the author of the book, also long since dead, but of interesting architectural interest.

Which leads to wondering what is so special about the book and the buildings and the architect. This resulted in lots of Wikipedia lookups of different architectural styles (by me, not by Peter), and an ending that was completely unexpected and brilliant in its surprise.

We have a hint of a longer story arc, too, which is intriguing, too.

I'm way enjoying the series, and sorta wish there were more good urban fantasy books coming out. If you're a fan of Aaronovitch, of course keep reading! If you're not, well, start at Midnight Riot and fix that.

Nothing kills and injures more police than attending a traffic accident on a fast road...
Page 2

It’s a police mantra that all members of the public are guilty of something, but some members of the public are more guilty than others.
Page 4

Johnny Got His Gun

Book Notes kitt decided around 17:59 on 27 October 2018 to publish this:

Okay, I'm unsure why I picked up this book other than it is a classic, a book that I've peripherally known about for a long time, but had never read. It is THE anti-war book (not a pacifist's book, an anti-war book). Maybe Ryan Holiday had it on his monthly book recommendation list (that list being one I highly recommend for finding good books outside one's wheelhouse).

I am against war. I believe that modern wars are economically motivated, that they are a way for rich people to become richer, that they are about control over resources, and that they grind the poor far far more heavily than they affect the rich. I despise every form of violent action.

That said, I also believe there are circumstances where you need to say, "Enough." There are times when the aggression of others needs to be stopped, when non-violent or pacifist tactics no longer work, and violence is the pragmatic action. I am unsure when that point is. The Holocaust is clearly one such case.

For the record, the ongoing War in Afghanistan? WHAT. THE. FUCK. I mean, LOOK at the U.S.'s backing of Afghan rebels to keep the U.S.S.R. out of Afghanistan and the Middle East, and the U.S.S.R. couldn't win that war, WHAT DID YOU THINK WAS GOING TO HAPPEN? The whole thing seemed to be an infantile vengeance ploy of Baby Bush for Hussein's attack on his father, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of people, an economic drain, continued growing ill-will towards the U.S. and a blight in history.

Whispers Underground

Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 09:50 on 25 October 2018, kitt created this:

I think I kinda want all my Peter Grant book notes to say the same thing: love the book, love the series, something something rivers, if you enjoy the series keep reading, and, wow, do I love the cultural references, even though I figure I miss more than half of them.

Oh, wait.

This is book 3 of the Peter Grant series. I enjoyed this book, perhaps less than the other ones, but still more than most books. More Peter Grant, more London references I need to look up, more learning about Peter's journey into learning magic (hey, anyone can learn magic!), more rivers, more world building.

This one features a dead American, which brings over the whole stereotypical American cowboy stuff. Okay, not cowboy, but definitely that FBI, Men in Black stuff. It worked. I was less excited by the eventual who-done-it plot reveal, but that's fine, I don't have to like all of the plot to enjoy most of it.

If you're reading the series, keep reading.

And yes, I did look up plans for a horizontal plug flow reactor.

Acland Burghley, where countless generations of the Peckwater Estate had been educated, including me and Abigail. Or, as Nightingale insists it should be, Abigail and I.
Page 3

Finally! That "So-and-so and me" thing is really tiring when it is poor grammar.

Like young men from the dawn of time, I decided to choose the risk of death over certain humiliation.
Page 5

Trust No One

Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 22:40 on 21 October 2018, kitt created this:

OMG wow this book.

I don't know what I was expecting from this book, and I don't know how it ended up on my reading list, but the book was impressively well done. I enjoyed it.

Basic premise is an author, Jerry Grey, has Alzheimers and is confusing his plots with reality. Most of his books have brutal murders of women in them. Given his dementia, his confessions to the police are met with skepticism.

Except Cleave has this great, underlying, no-one-talk-about it something going along under the plot. Everyone dances around something that happened in the past. Eventually we find out what it was (or figure it out before the reveal), but the plot twists don't stop.

While the ending was a realistic one, "the only one that could have happened," I still wanted to scream "noooooo!" and throw the book, a good sign that I was invested in the story.

Mom agrees with this one being goooood. Strongly recommended.

Every author eventually has a last book—you just didn’t think you were there yet, and you didn’t think it would be a journal.
Page 11

You got the amazing wife, a woman who can put her hand in yours and make you feel whatever it is you need to feel, whether it’s comfort or warmth or excitement or lust, the woman who you wake up to every morning knowing you get to fall asleep with her that night, the woman who can always see the other side of the argument, the woman who teaches you more about life every day.
Page 12

A woman’s body was found an hour ago, and like always when Jerry hears these type of reports it makes him sad to be a human being.
Page 25

“I have dementia."

The Stone Sky

Book Notes kitt decided around 14:44 on 20 October 2018 to publish this:

This is book 3, the final book, of The Broken Earth trilogy, of which all three have one the Hugo award. This one begins a few weeks after The Stone Sky ended, and continues the tale. It also concludes the tale.

If you want the plot, it is elsewhere on the Intarwebs.

I enjoyed the book, as much as I enjoyed the first two. None of these books had the sophomore slump. All were fantastic reads. Bonus: I've now read five of the last decade's Hugo Award winner books. Go me. Go authors!

The Fulcrum is not the first institution to have learned an eternal truth of humankind: No need for guards when you can convince people to collaborate in their own internment.
Location 116

You are not alone. You will never be, unless you so choose. I know what matters, here at the world’s end.
Location 138

When a slave rebels, it is nothing much to the people who read about it later. Just thin words on thinner paper worn finer by the friction of history. (“So you were slaves, so what?” they whisper. Like it’s nothing.)

But to the people who live through a slave rebellion, both those who take their dominance for granted until it comes for them in the dark, and those who would see the world burn before enduring one moment longer in “their place”
Location 141

The Obelisk Gate

Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 20:43 on 15 October 2018

This is book 2 of The Broken Earth trilogy, of which all three have one the Hugo award. This one begins a few weeks after The Fifth Season ended, and continues the tale.

In this continuation, we know who the characters are. The book is no less intense, magical, heart-breaking, confusing, or interesting for that knowledge.

We learn about Nassun, Essun's child who was referenced in the first book, but mostly as a ghost to chase, a goal for Essun. We begin to learn about when the seasons began. We learn that Schaffa can change, and about the Guardians.

If you read the first one, keep reading. Also strongly recommended, as, as soon as I finished this one, I started the next one.

Like keeping to like is the old way, but races and nations haven’t been important for a long time. Communities of purpose and diverse specialization are more efficient, as Old Sanze proved.
Location 270

Complaining about nothing doesn’t seem like coping to you, but okay.
Location 310

That’s when you no longer need an answer to the question. There is such a thing as too much loss. Too much has been taken from you both—taken and taken and taken, until there’s nothing left but hope, and you’ve given that up because it hurts too much. Until you would rather die, or kill, or avoid attachments altogether, than lose one more thing.
Location 1271

Smoke In The Sun

Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 14:42 on 13 October 2018, kitt created this:

Okay, book two of two of The Flame In The Mist series. For which I would like to say, "Good."

Because I wouldn't continue reading this series.

The first book has the protagonist, Hattori Mariko, escaping an assassination attempt and going off to hide in the woods to track down who ordered her death. At the end of the book, her brother and her betrothed found her and together brought her back to The Palace™. Technically Her Choice™ but in reality a false dichotomy, whatever.

So, now we follow Mariko in palace intrique. We see her with little political saavy navigate royalty and servants, making alliances and insulting some. During all of this, Her Love™ is in danger.

I was sufficiently engaged with the characters in the last book to read this one, but a subsequent book in the series likely won't be interesting to me.

If you like teen romance adventure with a medieval Japanese twist, sure. Otherwise, skip the books.

She’d never known the right words to do so before. Never known how to wield the right weapons. But ingenuity could be a weapon, in all its forms. Her mind could be a sword. Her voice could be an axe.
Page 16

But time had taught Kanako that what was expected rarely came to pass. Death always collected its due. The only thing that remained steadfastly true was power. The power you had. The power you gave. The power you concealed.
Page 33

“You may ask whatever you wish, But I do not owe you a response.”
Page 49

“It appears insults do have an effect on your brother. How predictable.”

Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Book Notes Written with a loving hand by kitt some time around 20:45 on 11 October 2018

I have the book pile problem of having 5 books due at the library in the next eight days, which means that I have less than two days to read each of these books. Which is unfortunate, as Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a book I want to linger over, sit with, ponder. If I want to read these other 4 books before they return to the library, however, I'm not going to linger.

Cal recommended this book when we were at XOXO this year. We were exchanging reading lists (hoo boy, I thought I was doing well at a hundred books a year, I read at half Cal's pace), and he suggested this book. It's heavy, he warned me, don't read it if you're not in a good place.

Which was good advice.

The book is a dystopian future, science fiction, murder mystery novel. It is also a book about grief, about avoiding an all consuming loss, until you can't, and then dealing with it.

Which is why the timing of the book was great. That and after five non-fiction books in a row, I was ready for some fiction.

Anyway, the main character, Blaxton, investigates deaths in the Archive, a fully immersive reconstruction of the world, stitched together from all the digital recordings available of a given area and time. Most people have implants to immerse in this reconstruction, but of course said world is full of ads, because, yeah, that's the way it works, we can't have nice things.

Blaxton comes across an unreported death, becomes obsessed with solving her murder, and his already unravelled life come undone.

Red Clocks

Book Notes Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 15:07 on 15 September 2018

There are five main female characters in this book, and I identify with four of them. Why did I pick up this book again?

Okay, for reals, this was not an easy book for me to read. The plot has five intertwined plots, a single woman who wants a child, an overachieving teen, a wife/mother in a relationship that isn't working, an arctic explorer/scientist, and a hippie / herbalist / off-the-grid non-conformist. Four of them live in costal Oregon, the explorer is the subject of the single woman's biography.

I do not know how this book ended up on my reading list. I suspect because it is a reasonable Handmaid's Tale-like near-future dystopian where Roe vs. Wade is repealed, and an eight-celled blastocyst is considered a full person in the eyes of the law, making even miscarriages suspect under the law, and women are aware that this near-future dystopian is much, much closer than we want to believe.

As far as I'm concerned, abortion can be illegal when we get the equivalent for men, something where they have no control over their own bodies, are shamed by society, forced to live with the consequences of a strongly personal and highly private decision made public decided by someone else, have to risk their lives, and have their bodies destroyed for the rest of their lives. Which is to say, no, abortion should never be illegal because it isn't your decision, it is the carrying woman's and only the woman's decision. The cells are not a person until they can sustain themselves outside of the womb. This book hits nearly every trigger I can imagine when it comes to women being lesser than men.

Anyway.

This book.

The single woman teacher who wants a kid. Fuck.

The overachiving high school student with all the same arguments I make. Fuck.

The wife / mother in a relationship that isn't working. Fuck.

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