“Very well,” said Coll, “if that is all that troubles you, I shall make you something. From this moment, you are Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper."
“Very well,” said Coll, “if that is all that troubles you, I shall make you something. From this moment, you are Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper."
Like many people, I knew this story first from the Disney film (titled The Black Cauldron, which is actually the name of the second book in the series).
It follows Taran, a boy...being raised by two old men (I think he was orphaned?). They give him lessons, and he takes care of a pig named Hen Wen. But, it turns out, Hen Wen isn't just any pig. She's an oracular pig. Yes, that's oracular as in oracle. Because of this, some bad dude who likes to wear another person's skull on his face raises an army of dead to retrieve the pig, all for...reasons.
Taran is joined by multiple people/beings along the way. They typically have a specific quirk, like a dwarf who visibly strains to go invisible like the other dwarfs, a creepy-sounded man-hound hybrid named Gurgi (which they opted to make small and cute in the cartoon), and a bard whose harp strings break dramatically when he lies.
"I’m not officially a bard.” “I didn’t know there were unofficial bards,” Eilonwy remarked. “Oh, yes indeed,” said Fflewddur. “At least in my case. I’m also a king.” “A king?” Taran said. “Sire …” He dropped to one knee.
The author drew from Wales and Welsh mythology. In theory I like that, but in practice, my simple memory of the Mabinogion was clearly not enough to fully appreciate it.
I swear I'm not just being mean when I rate this 2 stars ("it was okay"). It's actually hopeful, because I see a lot of reviews that say this is the worst of the series, and I hadn't otherwise planned to continue. So, I'll save the 3 for those if they really are better.
I think my main issue is that I never felt invested, either because it felt too simplistic, or because of the lack of reasons for what was going on. Maybe it's also because it's a travel-adventure narrative, which tend to be episodic (and which I tend not to like).
Is not late May an odd time for a wedding, with so much here that has to be done, and with Spring plowing and planting? Joy and sorrow, says o
Is not late May an odd time for a wedding, with so much here that has to be done, and with Spring plowing and planting? Joy and sorrow, says our father, each makes its own season.
I'm going back and forth between two and three stars for this. The reason is because this book isn't as good from a story perspective as any of the Dear America books I've read (to which A Gathering of Days is a clear precursor). It reads more like a diary than Dear America, with some entries just being little snippets or quotes.
Honestly, this book is like jamming together the plots of multiple different children's historical fiction novels. You've got the white kids helping a runaway slave. You have the dead friend and deader mom. Teacher drama, winter stuff, the making of maple syrup. It might be realistic, but it doesn't make for much of a story arch.
The berries grow so close to the briars one can not have one without the other.
It follows Catherine, a teenaged girl who lives in Meredith, New Hampshire. Her diary is wrapped inside an extra layer, which is a note from Catherine to her own granddaughter, to whom she is giving her diary decades later.
Interestingly, the author had a specific plot of land in mind when she wrote this, but I'm not sure what her connection to it was; Wikipedia says she lived in Michigan....more
“Your mind is free now,” he’d said to me. “There’s nothing binding it. It’s free, absolutely free.”
So we're back with Richard Matheson and
“Your mind is free now,” he’d said to me. “There’s nothing binding it. It’s free, absolutely free.”
So we're back with Richard Matheson and some of the same things I didn't like about The Shrinking Man.
We start with a strong premise: a man's hidden psychic potential is released after his brother-in-law puts him under hypnosis during a party. He begins to know things--and see things--such as a woman in his house. This leads us to a unique haunted(?) house story.
“What’s the matter,” I said, “do you have something to hide? Maybe a—”
“Everyone has something to hide!” she burst out.
I think there are two major things that kept me from enjoying much of this.
1. Matheson seems to have had a tendency to overwrite about boring things. I say this as a former history major who thinks the stock market and genealogy are interesting.
2. It feels dated in a "man writing women" type of way. This ties into the first point, because being so traditional and stereotyped makes the plot boring, and yet most of the book focuses on female characters. The women revolve entirely around men and babies (men first, babies second). They didn't feel like people. Matheson even squeezes a preteen girl (team baby) into that tiny space. The "outburst" above from the main character's wife saying that everyone has something to hide was the only interesting thing from a woman in this whole book.
“Think of it this way,” he said. “You—and the great majority of undeveloped mediums—are traversing a dark tunnel with a flashlight that goes on occasionally—completely beyond your control. You catch fleeting glimpses of what’s around you, never knowing what you’re going to see, never knowing when you’re going to see it.”
Maybe this book would have seemed better if I hadn't seen the movie. Maybe it would have seemed better in a month other than October. For me, it was just okay....more
This collection includes some of Ito's early work (despite the recent publishing date shown as the first release for this collection). It was better tThis collection includes some of Ito's early work (despite the recent publishing date shown as the first release for this collection). It was better than I thought it would be.
Like his other short story manga collections, some of them are well developed while others feel more like an outline.
One of my favorites was about a sect of ascetic monks (the Buddhist kind) who turn themselves into mummies while still alive in a creepy catacomb. The title story, "Deserter," is a bit different as a historical story: a family keeps a WWII soldier who deserted in their storage room, lying to him that the war is still going on and even staging searches for him. Another memorable one is about a girl stuck playing with a younger boy (which interferes with her creeping on her crush); she gradually finds that she enjoys bullying him.
Since so many of the rest are like sketches, it's easy to forget their entire plot. But in a story collection, liking more than a few stories is just a bonus, so that is okay to me....more
I picked this up because I'm trying to gradually read through award-winning books. Starship Troopers won the Hugo Award in 1960. Although I never saw I picked this up because I'm trying to gradually read through award-winning books. Starship Troopers won the Hugo Award in 1960. Although I never saw any of the adaptations, just the title alone made me think this would be a comedy or parody. But this is actually quite literal and serious.
I'm rating it two stars because, while interesting in some ways, this just wasn't an enjoyable read for me. I had to make myself read 5 to 10 percent a day like homework. People who are more into or have experienced a modern military lifestyle would probably like it more, but I think I prefer my military-heavy fiction to at least be about real wars. But I honestly can't think of a single person I would see and be like "you should read Starship Troopers," so...
People who haven’t been out don’t really believe in other planets.
Maybe it's a bit like a veteran's memoir about a fictional/future war. And I think Heinlein is telling us more about the (American) military of the present era through the lens of a possible future than he is really telling a sci-fi story. Well, of course, that's what sci-fi is, but it's just very direct and explicit here.
The focus was on training (more philosophical than physical) and the chain of command more than combat. There was a strange amount of detail about how the suits worked. So much so that the only thing regarding suits I'm sure of is that there were suits.
Under our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage.
This isn't a plot-based novel. It's more like a platform for Heinlein to espouse various opinions. This can be interesting sometimes as the 1950s were just long enough ago for the opinions to feel alien themselves. The most shocking to our modern eyes or ears will be the parts in support of corporal punishment and limiting the vote to military veterans.
But I don't want to paint Heinlein's view as lacking nuance. He seemed troubled by issues we still see, such as teens with problems being passed up eventually to adult charges and adult prisons instead of ever truly helping them. It's just that Heinlein puts forward in the idea in Starship Troopers that help equates to trying to train people as if they were dogs. Ironically, some civilian thugs perplexingly decide to try to beat up a group of army infantry in this novel, so it seems these ideas don't even stop crime in their own book.
Despite how that sounds, Heinlein seems to have been genuinely open minded for his time. He made women more desirable enlistments in the military than men due to their better agility and math skills needed to serve as captains/pilots (unfortunately, there is no back story on how that came to be). The main character, Johnny/Juan Rico, is Filipino and likes jewelry quite a bit....more
Geek Love follows the Binewski family magical-realism style. It starts with Al, the soon-to-be father who gets the notion in his head of breeding his Geek Love follows the Binewski family magical-realism style. It starts with Al, the soon-to-be father who gets the notion in his head of breeding his own freak show.
People talk easily to me. They think a bald albino hunchback dwarf can’t hide anything.
The absurdity of this unhinged narrative only ratchets up from there, and it's beautiful and ugly.
We follow Olympia/Oly, who is a...bald albino hunchback dwarf. She has several siblings who are more impressive than her from a freak standpoint, but I'll just tell you about one of the dead ones for now:
Leona’s jar was labeled “The Lizard Girl” and she looked the part. Her head was long from front to back and the forehead was compressed and flattened over small features that collapsed into her long throat with no chin to disturb the line. She had a big fleshy tail, as thick as a leg where it sprouted from her spine, but then tapering to a point. There was a faint greenish sheen to her skin but I suspected that Arty was right in claiming that Al had painted it on after Leona died. “She was only seven months old,” Lil would murmur. “We never understood why she died.”
Horror is one of the top tags for this. I'm not sure that I really agree. It's macabre and bursting with dark humor, but I think it would be a mistake to come into it expecting a horror novel. I can definitely see that the Freak Show season of American Horror Story could have been partly inspired by this, however (although that show is barely horror itself tbf).
Most of the "horror" probably comes from Arturo/Arty's storyline.
‘The only liars bigger than the quack are the quack’s patients.’ Arty used to just keep me in stitches. Eleven years old he was then.
Arty...imagine if Artemis Fowl had no hands or legs and pretended not to be super bitter about it, and that's about how Arty, the Aqua Boy, is. Confined to a powerless body, he quickly learns to use his mind as his means of controlling his environment and those around him. He is one of the most important siblings and is the one Oly is closest to.
“I get glimpses of the horror of normalcy. Each of these innocents on the street is engulfed by a terror of their own ordinariness. They would do anything to be unique.”
While I no doubt have a lot of pondering to do before I can fully understand and appreciate this book, one of Dunn's major themes is that deformity can cover the full range of people/personality. They don't have to be nice, and they don't have to pine away the wee hours in dreams of being a "norm." In fact, it's more often the opposite sentiment that drives this story to its wildest peaks.
My only caveat would be that the chapters that happen in the present (most of the book takes place in the past) can be a little off putting when they first appear. I recommend pushing past that to get to the core of the book. Despite that, this is my favorite book of the year....more
This book marks the first appearance of Chee in the series, and I feel this book was a bit more about introducing him than the mystery itself. LeaphorThis book marks the first appearance of Chee in the series, and I feel this book was a bit more about introducing him than the mystery itself. Leaphorn makes an appearance as a brief phone call.
“I’ve noticed that Navajos build their houses as far as they can possibly get from other Navajos,” Mary said. “Any significance to that?”
“We don’t like Indians,” Chee said.
Chee is (somehow) another Navajo police officer based out of a different office (Crownpoint, New Mexico). I say somehow because of how unprofessional his behavior is. He tells a random young woman (Mary) details about an investigation, brings her around while he's working on it, and ends up putting her in danger.
I think Chee is basically just out of college. I'm just really confused why he was involving this civilian, so that felt contrived. There is also something Mary says at one point that has aged terribly, which provoked the biggest head shake moment for me this whole reading year.
"We even had one [monster] they called One Who Kicks People Over the Cliff.”
“How’d they do him in?”
“His hair grew out of the cliff, keeping him from falling,” Chee said. “Monster Slayer gave him a hair-cut.”
He's supposed to have more Navajo spiritual knowledge than Leaphorn, who doesn't believe in things like witches.
An antagonist was given a background that was kind of interesting, but it was also kind of unnecessary, and I was never excited when the story switched to his perspective.
As for the actual mystery, I don't even know where to start to describe it. It's convoluted and seems to start with an explosion that took place 30 years before, which was in the 1950s. Also a drug "religion" in the wake of legislation against recreational peyote use. And cancer and some rich guy and his stupid keepsake box.
Our protagonists make some weird leaps to figure all that out, but overall it was an interesting premise. I also appreciate how it builds on the cultural aspects discussed in previous books, like Navajo witches, ghosts, hogans left to the dead, as well as the more quotidienne social norms....more
This was an average King novel to me. It didn't bore me or make me roll my eyes the whole time, but it doesn't stand out as exceptional or anything thThis was an average King novel to me. It didn't bore me or make me roll my eyes the whole time, but it doesn't stand out as exceptional or anything that will be an all-time favorite. But to be fair, it was better than I thought a novel of more than 700 pages about a car would be.
"That shitting car, I’ll be fucked if I know why you want it, boy. It’s the ace of spades."
The concept ended up being pretty cool. A nerdy boy named Arnie becomes enamored by a broken-down old car he passes. It was owned by some old vet with a chip on his shoulder named Roland D. LeBay, who affectionately named it (HER!) Christine. I liked Arnie enough to care what was going on. Plus, we get the (sort of) small-town story that King usually does really well with.
But my favorite thing about it is the way you can see precursors in some of the stories in Night Shift, particularly "The Mangler" and "Trucks." So it's fun to see King go back to this blue-collar mechanical horror.
If you hung around the shitters for long enough, Arnie reasoned, everything started to smell like shit.
There is a lot of good build up in the beginning of subtle but unsettling things. We also get a backstory. On the other hand, some of the parts that I guess were supposed to be climaxes of the book got stale quick. Reading page after page of the specific movements of a car can start to be ridiculous. Could you at least make it quick, Christine, you bitch?
This is also weirdly not too different from the Chucky comedy-horror franchise in some ways....more
When their eyes cleared again, they found that the horses and ponies had been reduced to the size of cats! “What?” blurted Bruenor, but Regis
When their eyes cleared again, they found that the horses and ponies had been reduced to the size of cats! “What?” blurted Bruenor, but Regis was laughing again and Harkle acted as though nothing unusual had happened. “Pick them up and come along,” he instructed.
I didn't like this as much as the first one. While neither are great literature and aren't intended to be since they're purposefully based on the most well known fantasy archetypes, this was more of an episodic adventure, or a series of weird places, which isn't my preference. The first book told a much more cohesive story set in a single area.
It didn't help that I also disliked the antagonists. I was bored during the parts with them. They were capable of anything, so long as it was convenient for the plot (this actually goes for every character LOL). Not to mention that the assassin is such an edgelord.
The short-lived humans might have toppled a thousand kingdoms and built a thousand more in the few centuries that a single dwarven king would rule his people in peace.”
This book promised to be about Mithral Hall, the semi-mythical dwarven city Bruenor grew up in 200 years ago until almost everyone was killed by something that attacked from within the depths they'd mined out. It was supposed to be about Bruenor uncovering its forgotten location, figuring out what happened back then, and reclaiming it for his clan.
And it was. Crammed in there in the last fourth of the book or so. But the vast majority of the book consists of stops at/through various arbitrary locations along the way while our A-team of dwarf, dark elf, halfing, and barbarian are pursued by the Drizzt-clone assassin and others, as if we needed more Mary Sues in this story....more
I've been wanting to read Michener's expansive historical fiction novels, so instead I read this...US military-focused Korean War novella? Me, who assI've been wanting to read Michener's expansive historical fiction novels, so instead I read this...US military-focused Korean War novella? Me, who associates the Korean War with old man dementia due to my boyfriend's dead grandpa. Well, before the dementia, his experience as a clerk on an oil tanker in the Korean War somehow transformed that rural, uneducated Missourian born in a town that is literally no longer on the map into a regional oil executive. Those must have been the days...
I guess the idea was that if I could get through this, I knew I could get through any of Michener's other work.
And maybe I'm dumb, but I just learned what aircraft carriers are.
This solitary man had to judge the speed and height and the pitching of the deck and the wallowing of the sea and the oddities of this particular pilot and those additional imponderables that no man can explain. Then, at the last screaming second he had to make his decision and flash it to the pilot.
The thing that stands out to me in this novella are the descriptions of the tense, snap judgements people in different roles had to make. From the guy trying to predict the sea to the one trying to direct pilots of janky aircraft to a safe landing on the ship. The guy whose job it is to risk his own life to try to rescue pilots who crash into the freezing sea.
And while the story is mostly focused on the perspective of doing one's duty from both a military and manhood perspective, I like that Michener slipped in other views.
When the morning sun was bright and the girls had risen, Harry Brubaker and his wife still had no explanation of why they had been chosen to bear the burden of the war.
Harry Brubaker, a pilot, gets the spotlight for the most time. Because he is the one who knows that one day, it will be on him to bomb the bridges at Toko-Ri (which are apparently fictional but based on real bridges???). His family shows up in Yokosuka, a US "liberty port" in Japan.
“I got nineteen monsters in the bird cage. Every one of them was a hero in Korea. But in Tokyo they’re monsters.”
Most of the men take off to wreak havoc, however. Because the next time they leave, it will be for those heavily guarded bridges whose destruction may prove crucial in ending the war.
In the end, we don't find a hero's tale, but a war story....more