Archive for Favorite Books

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

{ September 25, 2006 @ 1:20 pm } · { Favorite Books }
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This has to be one of my favorite sci fi books.  Douglas Adams writes more or less how I think.  It’s amazing.  I have to say that the new movie that came out a few years ago is pretty good, although it took quite a few liberties with the plot.  But the gist of it was pretty spot on.  Except I never visualized Zaphod to look anything like human.  That was a bit disconcerting, actually.  I’ve gotta say, though, the creation of the new earth was absolutely amazing.  It gave me goosebumps.  It was very powerful visually, more so than the text of the book spoke to.

The five volume Trilogy (yes, that’s purposeful) is absolutely amazing.  Although it’s been several years since I’ve read Hitchhiker’s, I can still remember the puzzlement about the beginning of the book and about the improbability drive as well.  I keep recommending all these books, but I really need to go back and re-read them because its been so many years since I’ve picked them up.  But trust me.  This trilogy is excellent.

The Original Anne Rice

{ September 18, 2006 @ 11:56 am } · { Favorite Books, Recommendations }
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As interesting as it is that Anne Rice has re-accepted the Catholic Church and has since written a fictional biography of the youth of Christ (which I haven’t read.  Could somebody tell me if its worth the effort?), I find that her original popular works, the Vampire Chronicles and The Mayfair Witch Chronicles in particular, are worthy of note here.

I personally adored Interview With the Vampire.  Yes, Louis is a wishy-washy whiner, but the fabric of history she weaves is absolutely fascinating.  And, of course, who couldn’t fall in love with Lestat?  Oh, I haven’t written that name in a VERY long time.  It makes me so nostalgic for those books.  I loved them when I was in HS.  I believe I began with a hard-cover copy of Interview I picked up at a garage sale for 50 cents.  And from there I got my hands on all the other Chronicles in paperback from Borders, I believe.  I remember distinctly buying the large-format paperback from Barnes and Noble for Memnoch the Devil.

Interestingly, the Mayfair Witch Chronicles overlap the Vampire Chronicles in one very interesting way.  The man who researches the Witches also makes an appearance in Tale of the Body Thief.  That is by far the most bizarre of the Vampire Chronicles I’ve read.  After The Vampire Armand, it was getting a little redundant.  I may go back and read Violin, however.

Her style is very rich in detail and texture.  Each scene is rendered as though you were sitting in the room with these extraordinary creatures.  My only beef might be that she uses the word ‘preternatural’ an awful lot.  But, aside from that, the books are marvelous and definitely worth a look-see if you have the time.

The Princess Bride

{ September 13, 2006 @ 8:43 pm } · { Favorite Books, Recommendations }
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How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways…

Everybody is familiar with the movie with Carey Elwes, Andre the Giant, and Mandy Patinkin.  And I’m not really sure how many times I’ve heard the line “Hello, my name is Inigo Mantoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die.”

But, you may be surprised to know that the book is just as good, if not better, than the movie.  There are some substantial differences, despite the fact that William Goldman wrote both the book and movie script.  For example:  the Pit of Despair doesn’t exist in the book.  Instead it’s called the Zoo of Death.  And some of the plot holes of the movie are explained in the book.  Like how Inigo knows ‘the man in black’ is Westley.

The book came into being in the 70’s when Goldman’s two daughters gave him conflicting ideas for his next project.  One said she wanted a story about a princess, the other a bride.  In Goldman’s genius he combined them and even threw in a reference to the Vietnam War.  ;)

The movie took years to come into being, mostly because all the studios that wanted to film it went bankrupt before filming could begin.  Fickle industry, Hollywood.  But, an interesting tidbit about the book was that even for the novel, Goldman envisioned Andre the Giant as Fezzik.  And don’t worry.  Inigo’s famous line DOES come directly from the book.  You can’t get any better than that as a line for revenge.

Agent Pendergast

{ September 12, 2006 @ 9:14 pm } · { Favorite Books }
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While not technically young adult or Sci Fic/Fantasy, the Agent Penderagst series by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child makes for some fabulous reading.

The reason I’m adding it here is because each of the books has something of a supernatural flavor to it.  There is something other-worldly about Agent Pendergast.  He is neither supernatural, nor mortal.  And the mystery and suspense these two men infuse into their books is just…amazing.  I’d love to be able to weave plots as complex as these.  The DaVinci Code is a picture book in comparison.  (And yes, the slant pun was intentional.)

Along with Agent Pendergast, there has grown another cast of recurring characters who revolve around Agent Pendergast.  These include D’Agosta, a New York cop with an intellect that, in its own way, rivals Pendergast’s.  There’s also Bill Smithback, a reporter for the New York Times that is both a help and hinderance to Pendergast in certain situations.

Those are the two I can think of off the top of my head.  There are others.  Like some of the staff at the Museum of Natural History in New York.

Even though most of these characters originate from New York, the books to not stay there.  They range all over, from the lonely corn fields of Nebraska to a secluded castle in Italy.  They are truly wonderful books, and if you like suspense and can handle some pretty intense visual descriptions of dead bodies, then definitely give these books a read.  Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.  The first in the series is Relic.  You should probably read this first, as it introduces Agent Pendergast and several key players in later books.

Seventh Son

{ September 6, 2006 @ 1:17 pm } · { Favorite Books }
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Well, I recently finished Angie Sage’s second book in her Septimus Heap series, Flyte, and I have to say it was very good.  The way in which she resolved some of the issues raised in the book was very creative.

I suppose this series could be considered a Harry Potter spinoff, but she’s altered the landscape dramatically, placing Septimus and his friends on another world, quite different from our own.  And really, if you want to argue the point, no character or plot is completely original anymore.  After all, J.K. Rowling has used the VERY cliche ’struggle of good against evil’ to great effect in her books.  And I love all six of them dearly and await the seventh with bated breath. (Even if I was a bit dissappointed by some of the canon relationships set down in HBP. But that’s neither here nor there.)

The very complexity of the magic in Septimus’s world, I think, is what draws me to it.  It is not simply ’swish and flick’ or ‘alakazam’ type stuff.  There is an art to it, almost akin to alchemy, but very much apart from the mathematical specificity of that genre.  The Young Wizards series, by Diane Duane makes use of the mathematical approach to magic very thoughtfully, though.

Considering that many seem to refer to Fantasy books only as ‘dragon books’ or ‘wizard books’ it is amazing how much variety there is within each of those sweeping categories.  Certainly all the books I’ve mentioned here have wizards under the age of 18 as main characters.  But the tone, style, and substance of those books is vastly different.  Even between the Harry Potter and Young Wizards series, both of which take place in the modern world and both of which have elements of secrecy surrounding the wizarding community, there are so many differences it is a shame the Young Wizards have been shoved underneath Harry Potter.

But, who can argue with a woman who’s richer than the Queen?  I certainly don’t want to tangle with her lawyers.

A New Wrinkle

{ August 31, 2006 @ 8:02 pm } · { Favorite Books }
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I wanted to begin this blog with a recommendation.  But when I read some of the comments left on Amazon about the book I was going to recommend, Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, another idea came to me. 

I loved this book when I was a kid.  I absolutely adored Meg Murray, Charles Wallace, and Calvin O’Keefe.  But what I loved most about the book was that it made me think.  It stretched my brain muscles in a way that no other book had before.  The completely believable science behind the tesseract made the trio’s journey to find Meg’s and Charles Wallace’s father seem like it could have happened yesterday.  The brilliant flash of understanding that the reader experiences along with Meg when Mrs. Whatsit explains how the tesseract works is truly magical.

Having said this, I wanted to comment on the fact that there are some out there that don’t understand the magic behind the words Ms. L’Engle weaves.  Or perhaps it IS the magic she weaves that they are frightened of.  Either way, to dismiss this book as mere garbage is doing the entire Science Fiction genre a disservice.  Perhaps, after all is said and done, the type of people who don’t enjoy stories like this should stick to non-fiction.  Either that or do some of those brain exercises on the Nintendo DS.

Having read the book multiple times, I must say I never realized the religious allegory in the story.  Perhaps because it wasn’t as blatant as that in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, I simply missed the cues.  Or perhaps we’re digging too deeply into stories that are meant to be stories.  I always find it a bit depressing when a good story, that’s excellent in its own right, is dissected into its component parts to infer some underlying reason for its existence.  Detailing those mysteries seems to cheapen the experience of reading the book to begin with.

Maybe that’s why I’m not an English major anymore…