(books) #4 & 5 a gimmick and an old fav
Jan. 19th, 2005 06:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omnia_mutantur#4 the curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon.
, a firstperson narrative being written an autistic boy whose father has told him that his mother has died when in fact that's not quite how it played out. i don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it yet, so i'll be deliberately vague about plot points. it's an easy, easy read, mostly because the style of writing is kept simple so as to be true to the premise, and i think a differently inclined person might have been charmed. there were a couple particularly brilliant moment, my personal favorite being Christopher's favorite dream, of a world where everyone has died from a virus transmitted by perceiving and comprehending facial expressions (sort of), so only people who don't look at other people's faces and don't understand facial expressions have survived.
#5 Trader by Charles de Lint
and all the accompanying 'urban fantasy' trappings, the patchword quilt of every available folklore and cliche, the reoccuring characters, the one of each discipline approach he has to populating his novels with artists, and a style where even the menance has an almost fuzzy nature. he's capable of creepier works, but i'm going to keep reading him like candy, though he's prolific enough that it's sometimes hard to keep track of which novel has which plot. he's no piers anthony or mercedes lackey in terms of tripe but anyone who writes that much in any one setting tends to short circuit my already poor ability to match plot to title.
i went to the library this weekend, to check out all (or some) of the books i wouldn't actually buy. light laughed when i told him that when i was little, my mother used to take me to the library with a laundry basket full of all my books, and for a little bit, i missed those days when i had no life outside the written word. not that i'd go back to my childhood for love or money, i just had all this glorious time to read then.
these reviews will probably waver back and forth between a simple list for myself, and a spaced for me to actually talk about what i've read. neither of these books really hit any nerves and i know i shouldn't even bother wasting the time to finish reading the one i'm working on now, but i picked it up and so now i'll pay for doing so. of late, food writing can always lead me astray.
, a firstperson narrative being written an autistic boy whose father has told him that his mother has died when in fact that's not quite how it played out. i don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it yet, so i'll be deliberately vague about plot points. it's an easy, easy read, mostly because the style of writing is kept simple so as to be true to the premise, and i think a differently inclined person might have been charmed. there were a couple particularly brilliant moment, my personal favorite being Christopher's favorite dream, of a world where everyone has died from a virus transmitted by perceiving and comprehending facial expressions (sort of), so only people who don't look at other people's faces and don't understand facial expressions have survived.
#5 Trader by Charles de Lint
and all the accompanying 'urban fantasy' trappings, the patchword quilt of every available folklore and cliche, the reoccuring characters, the one of each discipline approach he has to populating his novels with artists, and a style where even the menance has an almost fuzzy nature. he's capable of creepier works, but i'm going to keep reading him like candy, though he's prolific enough that it's sometimes hard to keep track of which novel has which plot. he's no piers anthony or mercedes lackey in terms of tripe but anyone who writes that much in any one setting tends to short circuit my already poor ability to match plot to title.
i went to the library this weekend, to check out all (or some) of the books i wouldn't actually buy. light laughed when i told him that when i was little, my mother used to take me to the library with a laundry basket full of all my books, and for a little bit, i missed those days when i had no life outside the written word. not that i'd go back to my childhood for love or money, i just had all this glorious time to read then.
these reviews will probably waver back and forth between a simple list for myself, and a spaced for me to actually talk about what i've read. neither of these books really hit any nerves and i know i shouldn't even bother wasting the time to finish reading the one i'm working on now, but i picked it up and so now i'll pay for doing so. of late, food writing can always lead me astray.
