Wolf to Man Wednesday
Sep. 5th, 2016 02:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evelyn_bArchived from Livejournal
What I've Finished Reading
The Fifth Elephant. You know, I would have been perfectly happy with a big pile of dumb jokes about trousers and Chekov. I don't need the abrupt sideswerves into bottomless quarry lakes of emotion. And I kind of expected this to be a break from that kind of thing (for no particular reason, except the genre shift to Comedy Transylvania). I should have known better! Anyway, it's not like I mind. I don't love all of the Comedy Transylvania stuff quite as much as I love the polis, but The Fifth Elephant grew on me pretty quickly once it started to grow on me.
And now [SPOILER:Sybil and Sam are going to have a baby, which is both adorable and alarming. ]
Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth. I had a good time with these books, right up until about the last ten pages of Foundation and Earth, where I just wasn't on board any more. In general they suffer a little by comparison with the original Foundation books just because we're stuck with the same set of characters for two whole novels. Asimov's broad-brush characterization works just fine in a novella-length snapshot of made-up history, but starts to lose some of its appeal once we're spending every day with the same three people.
I wasn't particularly happy about [A MAJOR SPOILER in white text:lonely immortal space mastermind Daneel Olivaw], and the argument for the final decision re: Galaxia was kind of weak even by handwavey sci-fi standards. Plus, it was never really clear why Trevize was so convinced that Earth held the key to everything, unless you assume that he's already read the galley proofs for this book about himself. Or that the [SPOILER: immortal space mastermind] planted the idea in his head, which I find kind of boring. I'm not really into the thing where Asimov tries to hitch the robot books up to the Foundation history, though it was still nice to see some of the old Spacer worlds again (well, sad, but that's time for you). On the whole I enjoyed them, but they probably won't be perennial favorites and I might just mentally erase some of the continuity to please myself. But I'm still in the mood for Asimov, so I might also push on and read Prelude and Forward the Foundation, too.
What I'm Reading Now
Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett. This is a Shakespeare homage (with a dash of Fisher King) and a complete delight. I haven't been terribly interested in the magic side of Pratchett up to now, except as a joke and situation generator, but the three witches are such great characters. They're perfectly balanced -- that is, equally funny and distinct from one another -- in a way that reminds me a little of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Plus, the young by-the-book witch Magrat reminds me a lot of Amy Santiago. She wants to do things the right way, with a coven and sigils and proper bonds of sisterhood and all that, and can't understand why the older witches aren't more interested in being nurturing spiritual mother figures and using the right consecrated knife. Magrat isn't happy when she has to help them do an emergency demon summoning in an old wash-house, with a bunch of rusty household implements and a scrubbing board for a Shield of Protection. But it works, doesn't it? Meanwhile, the new king is having a rough time of it, being haunted by the old king and his own guilt about stabbing the old king in the back. How can he make it right? By hiring one of those playwrights to do up a play about how much better he is than the old king, of course! What could go wrong? I am pretty sure that something is going to go wrong.
What I Plan to Read Next
It's back on the 99 Novels train with The Old Man and the Sea, a book I probably read in school at some point but have no memory of. And Night Watch, probably.
What I've Finished Reading
There were a lot of things he could say. "Son of a bitch!" would have been a good one. Or he could say "Welcome to civilization!" He could have said "Laugh this one off!" He might have said "Fetch!"
But he didn't, because if he had said any of those things, then he'd know that what he had just done was murder.
The Fifth Elephant. You know, I would have been perfectly happy with a big pile of dumb jokes about trousers and Chekov. I don't need the abrupt sideswerves into bottomless quarry lakes of emotion. And I kind of expected this to be a break from that kind of thing (for no particular reason, except the genre shift to Comedy Transylvania). I should have known better! Anyway, it's not like I mind. I don't love all of the Comedy Transylvania stuff quite as much as I love the polis, but The Fifth Elephant grew on me pretty quickly once it started to grow on me.
And now [SPOILER:Sybil and Sam are going to have a baby, which is both adorable and alarming. ]
Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth. I had a good time with these books, right up until about the last ten pages of Foundation and Earth, where I just wasn't on board any more. In general they suffer a little by comparison with the original Foundation books just because we're stuck with the same set of characters for two whole novels. Asimov's broad-brush characterization works just fine in a novella-length snapshot of made-up history, but starts to lose some of its appeal once we're spending every day with the same three people.
I wasn't particularly happy about [A MAJOR SPOILER in white text:lonely immortal space mastermind Daneel Olivaw], and the argument for the final decision re: Galaxia was kind of weak even by handwavey sci-fi standards. Plus, it was never really clear why Trevize was so convinced that Earth held the key to everything, unless you assume that he's already read the galley proofs for this book about himself. Or that the [SPOILER: immortal space mastermind] planted the idea in his head, which I find kind of boring. I'm not really into the thing where Asimov tries to hitch the robot books up to the Foundation history, though it was still nice to see some of the old Spacer worlds again (well, sad, but that's time for you). On the whole I enjoyed them, but they probably won't be perennial favorites and I might just mentally erase some of the continuity to please myself. But I'm still in the mood for Asimov, so I might also push on and read Prelude and Forward the Foundation, too.
What I'm Reading Now
Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett. This is a Shakespeare homage (with a dash of Fisher King) and a complete delight. I haven't been terribly interested in the magic side of Pratchett up to now, except as a joke and situation generator, but the three witches are such great characters. They're perfectly balanced -- that is, equally funny and distinct from one another -- in a way that reminds me a little of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Plus, the young by-the-book witch Magrat reminds me a lot of Amy Santiago. She wants to do things the right way, with a coven and sigils and proper bonds of sisterhood and all that, and can't understand why the older witches aren't more interested in being nurturing spiritual mother figures and using the right consecrated knife. Magrat isn't happy when she has to help them do an emergency demon summoning in an old wash-house, with a bunch of rusty household implements and a scrubbing board for a Shield of Protection. But it works, doesn't it? Meanwhile, the new king is having a rough time of it, being haunted by the old king and his own guilt about stabbing the old king in the back. How can he make it right? By hiring one of those playwrights to do up a play about how much better he is than the old king, of course! What could go wrong? I am pretty sure that something is going to go wrong.
What I Plan to Read Next
It's back on the 99 Novels train with The Old Man and the Sea, a book I probably read in school at some point but have no memory of. And Night Watch, probably.
