The Divergent Series, by Veronica Roth

Oh, teenagers. 

I suspect that the sort of reader who might be reading this blog is the sort of reader who is, at the very least, aware of the Divergent series, even if that reader is not overly familiar with the books.

The opening premise of Divergent, written by Veronica Roth, is that in some dystopian version of the future the population of a city is divided into five factions that are based around personality traits.  Those factions are Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless, and Erudite.  Readers figure out very early on that this city is Chicago, though the implication is that perhaps this is what the rest of the world is like.  Families are raised in factions, but when the children reach the age of 16 (or so), they are able to choose which faction they would like to belong to.  The first novel follows Tris Prior as, not quite a spoiler, she chooses the risk-loving Dauntless faction over her family’s selfless Abnegation faction. That's the cliff notes version of the background, there's a bit more going on than that, plus the meaning of what the title means in the setting of the novels.

There is a lot to like about the Divergent series.  This is a fast paced story that frequently leaves you wanting to know more and to read just one more chapter before stopping.  Divergent is fun, despite having some darker and gloomy elements to the society and the overarching story.  To that point, it is reminiscent of The Hunger Games, to which it will inevitably be compared because of the YA branding of the series as well as because of the forthcoming movie. 

I wonder if the farther away from my own teenaged years (I turn 35 in three weeks), the less I am able to identify whether younger characters are accurately portrayed.  Are my frustrations with teenage characters a frustration with the writing or the frustration of a man who will one day be yelling at those same kids to get off his lawn?  The protagonists of Divergent, and the series, are often impulsive.  But then, they are members of a faction that prize recklessness.  Or, they are teenagers.  The romantic entanglements of Tris, and others, were one of the more frustrating parts of the series.  Part of it is the writing (one character noting to himself that each touch has meaning, that they don’t touch just to touch), but part of it might just be teenagers in love.  At some point, and I suspect I am long past this point, I can’t connect with that adolescent view of love and relationship.  Don’t get me wrong, I do think that these romantic elements are not all that well written, but I am also far from the age where I can recognize that emotion as being exactly correct.  As such, oh, teenagers.

What I very much appreciated about this series, though, is how Veronica Roth is unafraid to continue to open up the world and completely change the nature of what we know and to continue to raise the stakes.  I’m sure her publisher would have been very happy to throw out various faction-era novels and continue to roll in some money, but Roth is building a much bigger story and is touching on a small exploration of prejudice (not very robustly, but it’s there). 

On the whole, the Divergent series is a mixed bag but works as entertainment.  Worth reading, but not with an unhesitating recommendation.

Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson

Several weeks ago I finished reading Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life.  If you pay attention to that sort of thing, and even if you don’t, you have probably seen Life After Life on numerous Best Of 2013 lists. 

What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, a baby is born and dies before she can take her first breath.

During a snowstorm in England in 1910, the same baby is born and lives to tell the tale.

What if there were second chances? And third chances? In fact an infinite number of chances to live your life? Would you eventually be able to save the world from its own inevitable destiny? And would you even want to?

Life After Life follows Ursula Todd as she lives through the turbulent events of the last century again and again. With wit and compassion, Kate Atkinson finds warmth even in life’s bleakest moments, and shows an extraordinary ability to evoke the past. Here she is at her most profound and inventive, in a novel that celebrates the best and worst of ourselves.

(via the author’s website)

At a glance, Life After Life appears to have elements of a novel that I would not only enjoy, but absolutely love.  If you pay attention to the blurbs, this is one of the most remarkable novels to have been published in some time. 

Since I am contrary, I only mildly enjoyed it.  Conceptually, I love the idea of what the novel is about.  I love the branching possibilities and that it is such small changes that makes the differences in Ursula’s life.  When and how she dies are the whim of small decisions (go to London on this day? Is the doctor running late by one minute? Accept the help from this stranger?) and Ursula is not a major player in the world.  She is an individual living her life during some turbulent times, but not much more. 

I appreciated the overall construction of the novel, but I struggled to engage with the characters or the story.  Whether it is the continual death (which, given some of my reading preferences, should not be too much of an issue for me) or the bleakness of what is going on in the world, or the sense that Ursula’s life is one hopeless attempt after another, or something else, I was stuck with the sense that Life After Life is a novel I could only appreciate from afar.  The older Ursula became, the more I engaged, but never fully.  From that perspective, I’m disappointed.  I appreciated it more than some other recent book club picks, and I certainly understand why others love the book, but it just didn’t work for me. 

Life After Life is the February 2014 pick for Books andBars, and one which I expect will lead to some great conversations.  It is also one of the selections for this year's Tournament of Books. 

A Touch of Daggerspell

Last year I followed Aidan’s series of posts regarding his read of Daggerspell with Kate Elliott’s re-read.  Daggerspell is the first entry in a multi-volume, multi-generational epic series of fantasy novels.  The series was one I had my eye on for some twenty years when I had first encountered one of Katherine Kerr’s novels from the middle of the series when I was twelve and for whatever reason, I just wasn’t ready for it and I never went back. But, several years ago I did purchase a copy of Daggerspell and once again, I never read it.

Now, this particular post of mine is fairly out of date because I finally read Daggerspell back in July and August of 2013, so you may well be wondering why I am writing about it now.  The very short answer is that I’m preparing to start reading Darkspell (the sequel) and I wanted to re-familiarize myself with the first book before I dove back in.  I’ve been on something of an unintentional semi-break from science fiction and fantasy and over the last few months and I want to dive back in.  Working on some series that I had always planned to work through seems like a good idea.  Plus, I’d rather not have an accidental five years pass and find myself still have not yet opened up Darkspell. 

The crazily short and absurdly simplified to a fault version of what Daggerspell deals with is reincarnation, fate, and atonement.  So, while this is a multigenerational tale, it is also dealing with the opportunity (nay, requirement) for a particular character to correct a serious mistake of the past and in correcting it, fix himself.  That sounds intensely cheesy and dismissive of just how good of a job Katherine Kerr did in setting up this story and what sort of story it is.  But, I am coming from this more than six months since I read the book and the beautiful interweaving of time periods and characters is somewhat lost in what I have in me to describe the book.

I do highly recommend Daggerspell and would suggest that new readers start with the introduction to the re-read series but not venture beyond them because the next three parts are heavy with spoilers and synopsis of the book.  Do not delve into the posts without working with the schedule of what is being covered.  It’s worth reading, but not before you’ve read the book. 

All that said, I do appreciate Aidan and Kate doing those posts because it helped give me that final push I needed to finally read Daggerspell, and it was more than worth the wait.  Even writing this little bit about Daggerspell makes me itch just a bit to start Darkspell.

Books Read: January 2014

Below is a listing of the books I read in the month of January.  My wife and I were talking about what we were reading and I had mentioned that I really don’t remember having read an actual novel in a while that I thought was extra fantastic. She said, “what about…oh, the one that starts with a W…you know the one, you kept talking about it.”  Eventually we figured out that she meant Wolf Hall, but after looking it up, it turns out that I finished the book in November, so that didn’t really argue against my point. 

1. Tiassa, by Steven Brust

2. Great Whiskeys, by Charles MacLean

3. Humans of New York, by Brandon Stanton

4. Command Authority, by Tom Clancy and Mark Greaney

5. Mercy Kill, by Aaron Allston

6. The Dark Man, by Stephen King

7. Insurgent, by Veronica Roth

8. While the Clock Ticked, by Franklin W. Dixon

9. Sisterland, by Curtis Sittenfeld

10. When Did You See Her Last, by Lemony Snicket

11. Wheels of Rage, by Kurt Saxon

12. Life Ater Life, by Kate Atkinson

13. The Cuckoo’s Calling, by Robert Galbraith

14. Beautiful Lego, by Mike Doyle

Best Book of the Month: Humans of New York is a photography book and is easily the most compelling, fascinating, funny, and heartbreaking thing I read last month.  Easily.  Stanton’s photography and ability to find such a variety of individuals and really get across something about them in a picture and occasionally with just a line or two of text of description is just perfect.  The stories contained in the images are outstanding and makes you wonder what else is going on in their lives.  There is a mystique about New York City, but really, I think it is just because the city is large enough and densely populated with enough ethnic groups that Stanton was able to find such a cross section of people.  I’m sure most other major cities could have something similar, but as much as I love where I live, I don’t think that Humans of Minneapolis would have quite the same scope or impact.  Maybe, but I doubt it.  

Worth Noting: The Dark Man is not a new Stephen King novel, rather it is a poem he wrote some forty years ago, but now illustrated by Glenn Chadbourne.  Completists will want to read this volume anyway, and many readers will be interested to get a first glimpse into a character that later became Randall Flagg (from The Stand, if the name is only ringing a vague bell). But it is Chadbourne’s art that makes this slim volume special.  The art makes the work yet more haunting and dirty than King did with those few words. 

Disappointment of the Month: Wheels of Rage. Having finally caught up on Sons of Anarchy and having read Under and Alone, I want to read more about motorcycle clubs / gangs. It’s a fascinating subculture, though a nasty one (and as such, one I would stay as far away from as possible).  Wheels of Rage is a fictionalized account of stories told to the author which ended up leading to the arrest of gang members.  So, even though it isn’t investigative reporting or a well researched account or the story of an undercover operative, it seemed like it could be a solid glimpse into what was going on in the 70’s.  Unfortunately, the writing is atrocious. It is unclear from the book as to whether Saxon was riding along with the Iron Cross club, if he invented a character that did so, or exactly what the perspective was – but it was such an over the top reveling in being a part of something “fun” that even without the horrible writing, the book was off-putting.  Add in the writing and I’d recommend ever picking up a copy of this book (even though you can find it feely distributed online, don’t).

The Tournament of Books X

Over the last year, I’ve been part of a book club called Books and Bars.  It is likely to be exactly what you think it is: a book club hosted at a bar (and often at a very good craft beer bar, but that’s getting off topic into another facet of my geekdom).  During the discussion of The Orphan Master’s Son last year, there was some talk about something called The Tournament of Books.  I had never heard of such a thing, which seems a tragedy since I like tournaments and I like books.  What can possibly be wrong with this?  Part of what the people in the know found so fascinating was that besides the official commentary of the books during each judging round, there was serious and intelligent discussion going on in the comments section of each round, often as good or better than the initial judging.  For Books and Bars, great discussion points came out of the Tournament of Books. 

I decided I wanted to know more. 

A month ago, this year’s Tournament of Books was announced.  The Tournament of Books is put on by The Morning News, “an online magazine of essays, art, humor, and culture published weekdays since 1999”, plus links to headlines of interesting news bits. 

The way this works is that 17 books are seeded into a bracket setting (2 books have a “play in” round).  Each match up has a judge and the judge will lay down some commentary on each book before choosing a winner to advance.  Each round has a different judge.  There are a couple of other little quirks like a “zombie round” where a lucky loser gets to play back in if it was one of the most popular books voted on before the tournament began, and then in the finals, the full panel will select the winner. 

Or, it’s a great big reading list of hopefully interesting books and is a spark for great conversation both within the tournament and outside of it.  This will be my first year participating in it in any capacity. 

Below is the list of books in the tournament.

"At Night We Walk in Circles" by Daniel Alarcón
"The Luminaries" by Eleanor Catton
"The Tuner of Silences" by Mia Couto
"The Signature of All Things" by Elizabeth Gilbert
"How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia" by Mohsin Hamid
"The Dinner" by Herman Koch
"The Lowland" by Jhumpa Lahiri
"Long Division" by Kiese Laymon
"The Good Lord Bird" by James McBride
"Hill William" by Scott McClanahan
"The Son" by Philipp Meyer
"A Tale for the Time Being" by Ruth Ozeki
"Eleanor & Park" by Rainbow Rowell
"The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt
"The People in the Trees" by Hanya Yanagihara

Pre-Tournament Playoff Round
"Life After Life" by Kate Atkinson
"Woke Up Lonely" by Fiona Maazel

 

At this point, I have read The Lowland and Life After Life, and I attempted The Booker Prize winning The Luminaries and decided after only a few pages that I didn’t have the patience to attempt this monster tome, award winning or not.  I’ll chip away at this listing as I can before the tournament starts and brackets are released sometime in late February or early March, which probably means I’ll read one to two more books (How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia is next up from the library).  I may write a little bit about The Lowland and Life After Life in the coming weeks. 

Favorite Reads of 2013

I wouldn’t necessarily read too much into this post existing.  I still fight with conflicting motivation to write, and to specifically write about books and stories and people telling grand lies for money.  But, I am still reading voraciously and last year I read 126 books and I wanted to acknowledge, somehow, the best of what I read.  Or, more accurately, what I enjoyed the most out of what I read.  There won’t be a Hugo nomination post, because I’m not a supporting member of Worldcon this time around and I don’t plan to be this year or next.  There likely won’t be a post where I list out my top nine books read in 2013 or my top nine books published in 2013, though I did always enjoy writing up those entries in years gone by.

Happily, though, I use Goodreads and so I don’t have go through my list of all the books I read during the year and decide which ones I liked best.  I can just click on what I read that I rated 5 stars, pull out the comic books and voila!  We have list!   

This is in no particular order, so unless I get extra ambitious, don’t expect ranking. 

I will say, though, that if I absolutely had do a ranking, the top of the list would include those books with stars below.  Think of it as a bonus mark of distinction.

The First American: Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, by H. W. Brands

Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

The Inexplicables, by Cherie Priest

*The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach

Defending Jacob, by William Landay

The Orphan Master’s Son, by Adam Johnson

Red Country, by Joe Abercrombie

Apocalyptic Planet: Field Guide to Ever-Ending Earth, by Craig Childs

Legion, by Brandon Sanderson

My Share of the Task, by Stanley McChrystal

*The Round House, by Louise Erdrich

The Human Division, by John Scalzi

*N0S4A2, by Joe Hill

*Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, by Michael Moss

Doctor Sleep, by Stephen King

The Shining Girls, by Lauren Beukes

The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories: Volume Three, by Joseph Gordon Levitt (editor)