Techie, software developer, hobbyist photographer, sci-fi/fantasy and comics fan in the Los Angeles area. He/him.
Mostly reading science fiction these days, mixing in some fantasy and some non-fiction (mostly tech and science), occasionally other stuff. As far as books go, anyway. (I read more random articles than I probably should.)
Reviews are cross-posted on my website and I have a blog dedicated to Les Misérables.
Fediverse Main: @kelson@notes.kvibber.com (GoToSocial) Websites: KVibber.com and Hyperborea.org
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The Metagalactic Grand Prix—part gladiatorial contest, part beauty pageant, part concert extravaganza, and part continuation …
So far it's just as chaotic as the first one!
I've mellowed on the subject of typos since this came out, but it was still an interesting read. The best road trip stories are not just a list of events and locations, they're about how the travelers change over the course of the journey. Deck starts out so hyperbolic and grandiose that he comes off as pretentious, but quickly discovers the issue is more nuanced -- and more socially fraught -- than he'd expected.
Retail workers vs. corporate policy, trying to avoid stepping in racial stereotypes, indie shopowners who might be more interested in fixing a misspelling but not have the resources to get it fixed.
It's also a bit more complex than the "two friends on a road trip." He has three different companions, one on each leg of the trip, each of whom brings a new perspective, and they get into the prescriptive vs. descriptive approaches to grammar. …
I've mellowed on the subject of typos since this came out, but it was still an interesting read. The best road trip stories are not just a list of events and locations, they're about how the travelers change over the course of the journey. Deck starts out so hyperbolic and grandiose that he comes off as pretentious, but quickly discovers the issue is more nuanced -- and more socially fraught -- than he'd expected.
Retail workers vs. corporate policy, trying to avoid stepping in racial stereotypes, indie shopowners who might be more interested in fixing a misspelling but not have the resources to get it fixed.
It's also a bit more complex than the "two friends on a road trip." He has three different companions, one on each leg of the trip, each of whom brings a new perspective, and they get into the prescriptive vs. descriptive approaches to grammar.
And in the end, the legal consequences of doing the occasional "stealth" correction without asking first, as the National Park Service pressed charges for "vandalism" of a sign at the Grand Canyon.
An odd but appealing mix of whimsy and horror, turning portal fantasy tropes on their heads. Baba Yaga, the ultimate witch of Russian folklore, is the quest-giver. Summer's home life is shaped by her mother's severe anxiety. A wolf isn't a threat, but a staunch ally (and a were-creature who turns into a migratory house at night -- you thought Baba Yaga's house was the only one that walked around?). A lich refuses to move on until he finishes his to-read list. Geese are fierce warriors (OK, that part's realistic, except these geese carry spears too), which is fortunate, because 11-year-old Summer herself isn't going to be able to take down the mysterious Queen-In-Chains causing the rot that's slowly destroying Orcus all by herself...or is she?
It's a bit less cohesive than some of Vernon/Kingfisher's more recent YA/older kids' novels, partly because it was originally a serial and partly …
An odd but appealing mix of whimsy and horror, turning portal fantasy tropes on their heads. Baba Yaga, the ultimate witch of Russian folklore, is the quest-giver. Summer's home life is shaped by her mother's severe anxiety. A wolf isn't a threat, but a staunch ally (and a were-creature who turns into a migratory house at night -- you thought Baba Yaga's house was the only one that walked around?). A lich refuses to move on until he finishes his to-read list. Geese are fierce warriors (OK, that part's realistic, except these geese carry spears too), which is fortunate, because 11-year-old Summer herself isn't going to be able to take down the mysterious Queen-In-Chains causing the rot that's slowly destroying Orcus all by herself...or is she?
It's a bit less cohesive than some of Vernon/Kingfisher's more recent YA/older kids' novels, partly because it was originally a serial and partly because it's a very kitchen-sink kind of fantasy world where anything goes, from an officious but kind-hearted goofy birds to creepy spider-horses
When young adventurer Laios and his company are attacked and soundly thrashed by a dragon deep in a dungeon, the …
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the timeless and beloved A Wizard of Earthsea—“…reads like the …
TIL an interesting bit of context: Le Guin wrote The Left Hand of Darkness between A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan.
When a world of peaceful aliens is conquered by bloodthirsty yumens, their existence is irrevocably …
The novella makes an odd counterpoint to Little Fuzzy: In this case the humans recognized the natives' sapience right away -- barely -- but decide to enslave them and clear-cut their world anyway.
It bounces between several viewpoints: one of the natives who has escaped from slavery, a sympathetic human scientist...and the villain, a gung-ho military type who thinks he's the best of humanity, but shows himself to be among the worst.
It's a tragedy, a train wreck, a slow-moving avalanche, and yet every time there's a chance to pause and maybe resolve the situation, Davidson chooses to escalate things instead.
While it's directly a response to America's actions in the Vietnam War, the themes of colonial exploitation, dehumanization, psyops, asymmetrical warfare and environmental degradation are still very topical.
It's not nuanced. It won't make you think about new ideas like The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed …
The novella makes an odd counterpoint to Little Fuzzy: In this case the humans recognized the natives' sapience right away -- barely -- but decide to enslave them and clear-cut their world anyway.
It bounces between several viewpoints: one of the natives who has escaped from slavery, a sympathetic human scientist...and the villain, a gung-ho military type who thinks he's the best of humanity, but shows himself to be among the worst.
It's a tragedy, a train wreck, a slow-moving avalanche, and yet every time there's a chance to pause and maybe resolve the situation, Davidson chooses to escalate things instead.
While it's directly a response to America's actions in the Vietnam War, the themes of colonial exploitation, dehumanization, psyops, asymmetrical warfare and environmental degradation are still very topical.
It's not nuanced. It won't make you think about new ideas like The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, or The Lathe of Heaven. (The Athsheans' dream state is interesting, but not explored deeply and not the point of the story.) But it will make you angrier at the people who are still doing the exploiting.
Cross-posted from my website, where I go into a bit more detail on the Terrans' dehumanization of the Athsheans, and current events.
The Last Unicorn is a fantasy novel by American author Peter S. Beagle and published …
Content warning One spoiler, but not if you remember the movie
The world Beagle creates is in an in-between state, one where legends and magic are fading and the world is becoming the mundane one we know. Unicorns themselves are timeless, preserving a bit of that magic and fairy-tale reality wherever they live, or wherever they go...but with them almost gone, and the last traveling on her quest, we see the world shifting between one in which butterflies sing everything from Shakespeare to advertising jingles to a more ordinary one and back again. And then there are a few characters who understand the structure of stories, and what it means for the spells, prophecies, and other challenges they encounter.
The characters are well-drawn, too. The unicorn herself has such a different perspective on life and time, and it's hard to fault her trustingness (it isn't quite naivete) during the early part of the journey. The incompetent magician Schmendrick manages to shift by turns between pitiful and insufferable. Molly Grue, a character I don't remember at all, is in some ways the most relatable: She's an ordinary human, no magic, no expectations on her, but she sees things as they are, sees what needs to be done, and does it. And after the unicorn is transformed into a human woman, and they find themselves in King Haggard's castle, it's heartbreaking to watch Amalthea lose her true self bit by bit. Haggard himself is an odd villain, one whose success has broken him, causing him to sink into despair long before his castle will sink into the sea.
But in a sense neither Haggard nor the Bull is the real villain: it's despair itself, and the desire to capture and hoard wonder. Because holding wonder captive destroys it.
Cross-posted from my website, where I also add some background on how I ended up finally reading the book.
An “essential and riveting” (Jonathan Haidt) analysis of the radical shift in the dynamics of …
I've been thinking I should pick this up and compare it to Stories Are Weapons
And then read something upbeat for a palette cleanser.
The Last Unicorn is a fantasy novel by American author Peter S. Beagle and published in 1968, by Viking Press …
A sharp and timely exploration of the dark art of manipulation through weaponized storytelling, from …
I figured my time would be better spent finishing this tonight than watching the debate.
A sharp and timely exploration of the dark art of manipulation through weaponized storytelling, from the best-selling author of Four …
I didn't plan on finishing this the same day Stories are Weapons arrived, but it seems appropriate that I did.
Nature abhors a straight line. The natural world is a place of curves and softened …
They manage about as well as you might expect -- which is to say, not very well at all.
It's an interesting mashup of tropes. The teenage detectives are used to traveling around, busting "supernatural" frauds, though they have more serious issues. (The stoner who loves dogs also has severe anxiety, for instance, which is why he avoids people and self-medicates.) And they're just aging out of the demographic when one of them convinces the rest to take on one more case before the band breaks up.
Naturally it's a creepy old haunted house on a cliff above a small, dying coastal New England town that's slowly being eaten away by the sea. And the families disputing ownership of the house both have old claims, and they all seem just a bit off somehow...
You know from the start that they're not all coming back from that last case before …
They manage about as well as you might expect -- which is to say, not very well at all.
It's an interesting mashup of tropes. The teenage detectives are used to traveling around, busting "supernatural" frauds, though they have more serious issues. (The stoner who loves dogs also has severe anxiety, for instance, which is why he avoids people and self-medicates.) And they're just aging out of the demographic when one of them convinces the rest to take on one more case before the band breaks up.
Naturally it's a creepy old haunted house on a cliff above a small, dying coastal New England town that's slowly being eaten away by the sea. And the families disputing ownership of the house both have old claims, and they all seem just a bit off somehow...
You know from the start that they're not all coming back from that last case before retirement as everything falls apart (or falls into place, depending on perspective). It's not a question of if so much as how...and how badly.
