This is the most recent Mental Floss book. I love these books, which like the magazine they're based on, organize random factoids, generally under some sort of theme.
"Be Amazing" takes the them of being a how-to book, explaining how to do a variety of things. But the things they explain how to do are not necessarily the kind of thing one actually would want to do, for instance how to "Be Raised By Wolves," "be Killed by Soda Water," and "Go Insane." Not that I wouldn't want to know how to be a hacker, get out of jury duty, or become a ninja, but some of this stuff isn't that interesting.
Anyways, the format is just a platform to inform the reader about a truly eclectic collection of facts. I'm now a little afraid of dying by soda water (well, a massive CO2 bubble, but same diff) or a tide of molasses, and I'm intrigued at what ninjas actually were like (they didn't wear black pyjamas, by any rate). Learning about the guy who was the archrival of the Wright Brothers, or that H.G. Wells and Martin Luther King Jr. might have been plagiarists, is really fun.
The only real problem I have with this book is its apparent lack of a copy editor. Words are missing or repeated, and "its" is often spelled "it's," and "whose" "who's." It's distracting, and annoying, and it makes the book harder to respect, but it doesn't subtract from the overall quality of the book.
Overall, I liked "Be Amazing." It was fun, there were a lot of cool facts, and aside from the spelling and grammar errors it was of pretty good quality. I would reccomend it to any knowledge junkies looking for their fix.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Dandelion Wine
"Dandelion Wine" is a book by Ray Bradbury. I wouldn't call it a novel, as it's more like a collection of vignettes. It's also not quite fantasy, but it is full of magic.
It's set during the summer of 1928 in the town of Green Town, Illinois, and is told mostly through the perspective of a 12 year old boy named Douglas Spaulding. The magic comes from the wonder that Douglas has in the world around him. A wax fortuneteller at the carnival is transformed into poor soul cruelly imprisoned by the black magic of Napoleon, an old man's memories become a vessel for travel into the past, and a new pair of shoes is able to make Douglas run faster than the wind.
I really liked a lot of the little vignettes, and Douglas and his brother Tom are both really fun characters to read about. But they didn't seem quite right to me: too virtuous, too wise, I'm not quite sure what it was. Also, the writing, full of rich details as it was, didn't grab me at first. It was wondrous while reading, but took a while each time I started up again. This might have been because I was constantly being interrupted in my reding of it by schoolwork or other things I needed to read first.
All in all, it was a good book, but not necessarily one I would read again. I'll probably read other Bradbury if I can, however.
It's set during the summer of 1928 in the town of Green Town, Illinois, and is told mostly through the perspective of a 12 year old boy named Douglas Spaulding. The magic comes from the wonder that Douglas has in the world around him. A wax fortuneteller at the carnival is transformed into poor soul cruelly imprisoned by the black magic of Napoleon, an old man's memories become a vessel for travel into the past, and a new pair of shoes is able to make Douglas run faster than the wind.
I really liked a lot of the little vignettes, and Douglas and his brother Tom are both really fun characters to read about. But they didn't seem quite right to me: too virtuous, too wise, I'm not quite sure what it was. Also, the writing, full of rich details as it was, didn't grab me at first. It was wondrous while reading, but took a while each time I started up again. This might have been because I was constantly being interrupted in my reding of it by schoolwork or other things I needed to read first.
All in all, it was a good book, but not necessarily one I would read again. I'll probably read other Bradbury if I can, however.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Who Killed Amanda Palmer
This is a strange book. A collaboration between writer Neil Gaiman, singer Amanda Palmer, and various photographers (most especially Kyle Cassidy), this is a collection of stories, and pictures, all depicting the death of Amanda Palmer. There is also a tie-in CD of the same name, and Palmer's lyrics for her songs are also interspersed with the rest.
I loved Neil Gaiman's stories. He comes up with some rather strange ideas, like a time travel story where an older Amanda travels back in time to kill her younger self, or a modern day folk tale where Amanda is sent to get drugs for her evil stepmother and is rewarded for her kindness to junkies and drug dealers with the ability to have jewels come out of her mouth. Some of Gaiman's stories are really helped with the pictures that accompany with them, such as the picture that appears on the cover, of Amanda's body on a couch covered in leaves which is accompanied with a fake catalog entry as if it was an art installation. There are also some nice pics that are unaccompanied by a story, such as Amanda dead surrounded by wallabies.
However, too many of the pics are too similar, just Amanda lying face down in some location or other, and the locations are too similar for the differences to matter.
Also, I didn't really like Amanda's lyrics. I'm not that big a fan of her music anyways, and reading the lyrics misses something. It was like really bad poetry that's also completely nonsensical.
All in all, Neil Gaiman's stuff is OK, and the photography is nice, but all in all, it wasn't quite worth it. I don't regret reading it, but I don't think I'll read it again, except maybe some of the Gaiman stuff.
I loved Neil Gaiman's stories. He comes up with some rather strange ideas, like a time travel story where an older Amanda travels back in time to kill her younger self, or a modern day folk tale where Amanda is sent to get drugs for her evil stepmother and is rewarded for her kindness to junkies and drug dealers with the ability to have jewels come out of her mouth. Some of Gaiman's stories are really helped with the pictures that accompany with them, such as the picture that appears on the cover, of Amanda's body on a couch covered in leaves which is accompanied with a fake catalog entry as if it was an art installation. There are also some nice pics that are unaccompanied by a story, such as Amanda dead surrounded by wallabies.
However, too many of the pics are too similar, just Amanda lying face down in some location or other, and the locations are too similar for the differences to matter.
Also, I didn't really like Amanda's lyrics. I'm not that big a fan of her music anyways, and reading the lyrics misses something. It was like really bad poetry that's also completely nonsensical.
All in all, Neil Gaiman's stuff is OK, and the photography is nice, but all in all, it wasn't quite worth it. I don't regret reading it, but I don't think I'll read it again, except maybe some of the Gaiman stuff.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
And Another Thing...
"And Another Thing..." is the sixth Hitchhiker's Guide book, and the first one not to be written by Douglas Adams, given that Adams has died. Instead, it is by the Irish writer Eoin Colfer, which unfortunately means that most of the people I've mentioned it to to declare they don't want to read it, because it "isn't Adams." But I decided to try it out, and was not disappointed.
"And Another Thing..." starts off where the last book, "Mostly Harmless," left off, with the obliteration of the planet Earth in all possible universes. However, our main characters are saved through a series of ass pulls, first being saved by ex-President of the Universe Zaphod Beeblebrox in the improbabilty drive-powered ship The Heart of Gold, then by the immortal alien Wowbanger the Infinitely Prolonged in the dark-energy powered Viking longship he stole from the god Thor. Already you're beginning to sense that Colfer is able to capture at least some of the insanity of Adams in his writing.
However, Colfer seems to have based a lot of what is featured in "And Another Thing" based on characters and incidents that Adams had mentioned in passing in his books. The two most notable examples of this are Wowbanger and Thor, both minor incidents in previous books and both major important characters here. Colfer does a pretty good job of it, and Adams did it as well (most notably in the character of Fenchurch, who appeared first in the first book only to become a main character in the fourth), but it does make it seem that Colfer isn't really creating all that much original of his own.
However, nothing further could be the truth. The book is littered with notes from the Hitchhiker's Guide itself, which more often than not are just as random and off-the-wall as Adams' mentions from the guide. The most notable touch of Colfer's comes in the leader of the planet Nano, a colony of super-rich humans who managed to escape Earth before it was eradicated, who's an Irishman who behaves exactly like the most stereotypical Irish person imaginable ("fecks" and "begorrahs" included), in order to distract people from his manipulations. I'm sure Colfer was digging at the British and American readers of the book who probably believe some of those stereotypes.
Colfer is able to develop all of the human characters he inherited from Adams (Arthur Dent, Trillian, and Random) into very unique characters. Ford Prefect and Zaphod Beeblebrox don't change all that much, but both are as fun to read as they always were. The new characters of Wowbanger and Thor are both interesting and somewhat complicated, Wowbanger being snarky and jaded because of his involutary immortality while still sympathetic, and Thor being big, powerful, and strong, while gripped with a very pronounced insecurity. The Vogons are back as the big bad, specifically Prostetnic Jeltz, who was fun in his utter evil horribleness. His son Mown, who's secretly sympathetic to the humans, is slightly too hard to believe: Vogons have been set up as evil, ugly, and totally unsympathetic, and it's a little hard to buy a sympathetic, even good, Vogon.
the plot is interesting, mostly getting all of the characters to the planet Nano and then seeing what happens. Thor and Wowbanger are set up as rivals (basically Wowbanger thinks only a god would be able to actually kill him, and so stole Thor's ship to provoke him), while still being both sympathetic: the reader wants both to succeed in their struggles against each other. I liked how this book drew upon Adams' material while forging its own path. I can see this growing into a series of its own, one that could even possibly be as cool as the original. The ending is a little bit of a confusing downer, so I didn't like that all that much, but aside from that it was a pretty fun book, and I would suggest all Adams fans check the book out if they can. You won't be disappointed
"And Another Thing..." starts off where the last book, "Mostly Harmless," left off, with the obliteration of the planet Earth in all possible universes. However, our main characters are saved through a series of ass pulls, first being saved by ex-President of the Universe Zaphod Beeblebrox in the improbabilty drive-powered ship The Heart of Gold, then by the immortal alien Wowbanger the Infinitely Prolonged in the dark-energy powered Viking longship he stole from the god Thor. Already you're beginning to sense that Colfer is able to capture at least some of the insanity of Adams in his writing.
However, Colfer seems to have based a lot of what is featured in "And Another Thing" based on characters and incidents that Adams had mentioned in passing in his books. The two most notable examples of this are Wowbanger and Thor, both minor incidents in previous books and both major important characters here. Colfer does a pretty good job of it, and Adams did it as well (most notably in the character of Fenchurch, who appeared first in the first book only to become a main character in the fourth), but it does make it seem that Colfer isn't really creating all that much original of his own.
However, nothing further could be the truth. The book is littered with notes from the Hitchhiker's Guide itself, which more often than not are just as random and off-the-wall as Adams' mentions from the guide. The most notable touch of Colfer's comes in the leader of the planet Nano, a colony of super-rich humans who managed to escape Earth before it was eradicated, who's an Irishman who behaves exactly like the most stereotypical Irish person imaginable ("fecks" and "begorrahs" included), in order to distract people from his manipulations. I'm sure Colfer was digging at the British and American readers of the book who probably believe some of those stereotypes.
Colfer is able to develop all of the human characters he inherited from Adams (Arthur Dent, Trillian, and Random) into very unique characters. Ford Prefect and Zaphod Beeblebrox don't change all that much, but both are as fun to read as they always were. The new characters of Wowbanger and Thor are both interesting and somewhat complicated, Wowbanger being snarky and jaded because of his involutary immortality while still sympathetic, and Thor being big, powerful, and strong, while gripped with a very pronounced insecurity. The Vogons are back as the big bad, specifically Prostetnic Jeltz, who was fun in his utter evil horribleness. His son Mown, who's secretly sympathetic to the humans, is slightly too hard to believe: Vogons have been set up as evil, ugly, and totally unsympathetic, and it's a little hard to buy a sympathetic, even good, Vogon.
the plot is interesting, mostly getting all of the characters to the planet Nano and then seeing what happens. Thor and Wowbanger are set up as rivals (basically Wowbanger thinks only a god would be able to actually kill him, and so stole Thor's ship to provoke him), while still being both sympathetic: the reader wants both to succeed in their struggles against each other. I liked how this book drew upon Adams' material while forging its own path. I can see this growing into a series of its own, one that could even possibly be as cool as the original. The ending is a little bit of a confusing downer, so I didn't like that all that much, but aside from that it was a pretty fun book, and I would suggest all Adams fans check the book out if they can. You won't be disappointed
Friday, November 20, 2009
Moonlight and Vines
Canadian author Charles De Lint is most well known for his Newford stories, all set within the fictional city of Newford. "Moonlight And Vines" is the third collection of short stories set in Newford, and it demonstrates quite well all of the neat things one can do if all of the stories have a common setting.
This is largely because Newford is an expansive and diverse locations. Stories in "Moonlight and Vines" are set in the artsy bohemian area of Gracie Street, Newford's gay district, the slums known as the Tombs, and the blue-collar neighborhood of Crowsea. De Lint's talents lie in his ability to tie all of these places together: all seem like part of the same city, despite being significantly different. Each story that takes place in a different area immerses the reader in a place that has history, culture, and its own dynamic, unique characters.
The characters as well as quite diverse. they include temps, journalists, strippers, the homeless, fortunetellers, and De Lint's apparent favorite class of people, artists. There are all kinds of artists: musicians, painters, sculptors, writers, and even a comic book creator. It's this presence of an art scene that really makes Newford seem dynamic and interesting.
De Lint is a fantasy writer, and so almost all of the stories have a fantastical element. A lot of the stories deal with what happens after death, but they vary from a story about a fiddler who doesn't want to move on after his death to a countrysinger having a final chat with the dead aunt who inspired her, to a gritty crime story of two people murdered by the mob who have to take revenge against their killers. Quite a lot of stories also involve human interaction with supernatural beings, be they the mysterious "animal people" who seem to be Native American animal spirits, to faerie folk who appear in the most unique guises, to a very odd take on the Greek Fates. But what is most important in De Lint's stories is not the external magic of spells and faeries, but the internal magic of the characters discovering the beauty and magic of the mundane world around them, or the kindness of those around them. This makes almost all of the stories inspirational and uplifting, leaving the reader with a good feeling after finishing a story.
I really loved this book, and it really made me want to read more De Lint, to immerse myself more into his intricate and interesting world. If Newford was a real city, I would move there in a second. Characters like the artist Jilly, folklorist Christy, and fortunetellers Cassie and Bone seem like such interesting, diverse, and real people that I really intensely want to meet and just hang out with them. I think that's probably the best rule of thumb for whether a book had succeeded or not: whether you would want to be around its characters. All of the stories are interesting and unique, and I highly reccomend this book.
This is largely because Newford is an expansive and diverse locations. Stories in "Moonlight and Vines" are set in the artsy bohemian area of Gracie Street, Newford's gay district, the slums known as the Tombs, and the blue-collar neighborhood of Crowsea. De Lint's talents lie in his ability to tie all of these places together: all seem like part of the same city, despite being significantly different. Each story that takes place in a different area immerses the reader in a place that has history, culture, and its own dynamic, unique characters.
The characters as well as quite diverse. they include temps, journalists, strippers, the homeless, fortunetellers, and De Lint's apparent favorite class of people, artists. There are all kinds of artists: musicians, painters, sculptors, writers, and even a comic book creator. It's this presence of an art scene that really makes Newford seem dynamic and interesting.
De Lint is a fantasy writer, and so almost all of the stories have a fantastical element. A lot of the stories deal with what happens after death, but they vary from a story about a fiddler who doesn't want to move on after his death to a countrysinger having a final chat with the dead aunt who inspired her, to a gritty crime story of two people murdered by the mob who have to take revenge against their killers. Quite a lot of stories also involve human interaction with supernatural beings, be they the mysterious "animal people" who seem to be Native American animal spirits, to faerie folk who appear in the most unique guises, to a very odd take on the Greek Fates. But what is most important in De Lint's stories is not the external magic of spells and faeries, but the internal magic of the characters discovering the beauty and magic of the mundane world around them, or the kindness of those around them. This makes almost all of the stories inspirational and uplifting, leaving the reader with a good feeling after finishing a story.
I really loved this book, and it really made me want to read more De Lint, to immerse myself more into his intricate and interesting world. If Newford was a real city, I would move there in a second. Characters like the artist Jilly, folklorist Christy, and fortunetellers Cassie and Bone seem like such interesting, diverse, and real people that I really intensely want to meet and just hang out with them. I think that's probably the best rule of thumb for whether a book had succeeded or not: whether you would want to be around its characters. All of the stories are interesting and unique, and I highly reccomend this book.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Sense And Sensibility and Sea Monsters
This book is the second in the Quirk Classics line, the first being "Pride and Predjudice and Zombies." The point behind these books is to rework classic books that have fallen out of copywright to include subject matter the original author probably didn't intend. I can't judge the effect of PPZ (having not read it yet) but SSSM doesn't quite mesh. I think that this may be because "zombies" are a well-established horror trope: we kind of know what to expect from reading a zombie story, and applying it to a Jane Austen romance is intriguing because of it. Whereas "sea monsters" is much more broad and vague, leading to Ben H. Winters (the co-author with Austen) to have our characters just be attacked by giant hostile versions of a variety of sea life, which just seems silly and not scary. Also, Pride and Predjudice is probably Austen's most well-known novel, and more people would know the basic plot than Sense and Sensibility.
The plot consists of the three Dashwood sisters and their mother who are cheated of their inheritance and are forced to live in the remote Barton Cottage in Devonshire. the main alteration in this story is that the cottage is in fact on one of a desolate aeries of islands, full of ferocious giant octopi, a fearful two-headed sea serpent, and strange half-seen figures chanting in a terrifying language. There they attempt to find suitors in order to be married.
Some of the new stuff works. Colonel Brandon, who in the original novel was a slightly older and slightly more boring of two suitors for the middle sister Marianne, is given another reason why Marianne initially prefers his competitor the dashing treasure hunter Willoughby: Brandon had been cursed with a face covered in tentacles by a sea witch, and is therefore physically repulsive. a brief interlude with pirates is interesting, as is the way the characters deal with them, although it's much too brief. And near the end of the book there is an introduction of Lovecraftian-style horrors that was really cool, although the payoff is waaaaay too little and waaay too late in the story (practically the end of the book, actually).
However, there is too much whimsy in the book for it to really work. Willoughby the treasure hunter has an oragutan valet named Monsieur Pierre. Why? Presumably because Winters thought oragutans inherently funny. They aren't, especially since Monsieur Pierre does absolutely nothing in the book except be an oragutan and stand around in the background. There are also way too many scenes of some servant fending off some terrible sea beast in the background while the main characters talk about who they love and who they're wanting to marry in the foreground, completely unconcerned. I get what Winters was trying to do, lampoon the Regency-era aristocracy for their detachment from real life, but it just comes off as the main characters being assholes. Really, in some places the Austen plot gets in the way of the Winters story: in my least favorite scene two of the girls discuss their relationship to one of the men in the story WHILE FIGHTING OFF A GIANT SEA SERPENT. It just doesn't work.
However, one final thing that I quite liked was the Reader's Discussion Guide at the back, a parody of the sort of questions one finds in cheap copies of classic texts that supposedly aid in the understanding of the same. Some of the questions they ask are really quite funny in my opinion.
All in all, SSSM is an interesting try with some good sequences, but all in all it doesn't quite work. The jury's still out on PPZ, but I hope for the best.
The plot consists of the three Dashwood sisters and their mother who are cheated of their inheritance and are forced to live in the remote Barton Cottage in Devonshire. the main alteration in this story is that the cottage is in fact on one of a desolate aeries of islands, full of ferocious giant octopi, a fearful two-headed sea serpent, and strange half-seen figures chanting in a terrifying language. There they attempt to find suitors in order to be married.
Some of the new stuff works. Colonel Brandon, who in the original novel was a slightly older and slightly more boring of two suitors for the middle sister Marianne, is given another reason why Marianne initially prefers his competitor the dashing treasure hunter Willoughby: Brandon had been cursed with a face covered in tentacles by a sea witch, and is therefore physically repulsive. a brief interlude with pirates is interesting, as is the way the characters deal with them, although it's much too brief. And near the end of the book there is an introduction of Lovecraftian-style horrors that was really cool, although the payoff is waaaaay too little and waaay too late in the story (practically the end of the book, actually).
However, there is too much whimsy in the book for it to really work. Willoughby the treasure hunter has an oragutan valet named Monsieur Pierre. Why? Presumably because Winters thought oragutans inherently funny. They aren't, especially since Monsieur Pierre does absolutely nothing in the book except be an oragutan and stand around in the background. There are also way too many scenes of some servant fending off some terrible sea beast in the background while the main characters talk about who they love and who they're wanting to marry in the foreground, completely unconcerned. I get what Winters was trying to do, lampoon the Regency-era aristocracy for their detachment from real life, but it just comes off as the main characters being assholes. Really, in some places the Austen plot gets in the way of the Winters story: in my least favorite scene two of the girls discuss their relationship to one of the men in the story WHILE FIGHTING OFF A GIANT SEA SERPENT. It just doesn't work.
However, one final thing that I quite liked was the Reader's Discussion Guide at the back, a parody of the sort of questions one finds in cheap copies of classic texts that supposedly aid in the understanding of the same. Some of the questions they ask are really quite funny in my opinion.
All in all, SSSM is an interesting try with some good sequences, but all in all it doesn't quite work. The jury's still out on PPZ, but I hope for the best.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Sloth
"Sloth" is a graphic novel by acclaimed comics writer and artist Gilbert Hernandez, most famous for working on the legendary series 'love and Rockets." "Sloth" is a slightly less ambitious story, dealing with changing perspectives, teen friendships, and the meaning of love.
the story starts out with the hero, a teenager named Miguel Serra, waking up after a year-long coma he apparently willed himself into. He has trouble moving quickly, for whatever reason, and so acquires the nickname "Sloth." Sloth is coincidentally the name of his garage band with his girlfriend Lita and best friend Romeo. Together they go to the local lemon grove one night to see about the stories that a mysterious goatman haunts it. And then the story changes completely, with characters being assigned new roles and new relationships being developed.
"Sloth" is a very odd story. It takes its time, and parts of it are very dream-like. It's very character-focused, which is interesting, as the roles of all of the characters change halfway through. There's a lot of unexplained stuff that happens in the story. If you're willing to tolerate all of that, it's really quite good. the art is also good, very clear while also allowing cartooniness to sneak in at appropriate moments. I especially like how who wears a specific beanie cap changes as who tells the story changes. All in all, a solid piece of work.
the story starts out with the hero, a teenager named Miguel Serra, waking up after a year-long coma he apparently willed himself into. He has trouble moving quickly, for whatever reason, and so acquires the nickname "Sloth." Sloth is coincidentally the name of his garage band with his girlfriend Lita and best friend Romeo. Together they go to the local lemon grove one night to see about the stories that a mysterious goatman haunts it. And then the story changes completely, with characters being assigned new roles and new relationships being developed.
"Sloth" is a very odd story. It takes its time, and parts of it are very dream-like. It's very character-focused, which is interesting, as the roles of all of the characters change halfway through. There's a lot of unexplained stuff that happens in the story. If you're willing to tolerate all of that, it's really quite good. the art is also good, very clear while also allowing cartooniness to sneak in at appropriate moments. I especially like how who wears a specific beanie cap changes as who tells the story changes. All in all, a solid piece of work.
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