Reading – Page 9 – The Warbler Books

Karl Ove Knausgaard – My Struggle: Book One

September 30, 2015 No Comments

A few months back, it seemed the literati were unable to focus on anything but this Norwegian author who, supposedly, had written something truly spectacular. I’d heard these whispers—read them, to be precise—all over the book-loving web, but didn’t pay much attention to them. Finally, my dad handed me a copy of the New York Times Magazine containing an article—no, a story—written by Karl Ove Knausgaard, the aforementioned Norwegian. That story, My Saga (part I, part II ) provides the perfect entry into Knausgaard’s world. I highly recommend reading it, regardless of whether or not you decide to embark on the larger Knausgaard journey. Karl Ove Knausgaard’s writing is unlike anything I’ve read before. He has a remarkable ability to express profound notions with simple language. He writes sentences that slam their way into your psyche. Even in My Saga, there were moments when I had to reread a sentence or twoa

Updraft – Fran Wilde

September 15, 2015 No Comments

Well, this book was absolutely wonderful. It also happens to be the first “galley” I received from Tor/Forge (which is unbelievable, and feels like the greatest achievement of this website) through NetGalley. So, thanks NetGalley and Tor! If Fran Wilde’s debut novel is any indication of what’s to come from her, she’s going to have a prominent space on the bookshelves in my home. Updraft is fantastic. The setting is rich, interesting, and mysterious, and is as much a character as the (well-written) characters in Updraft, the unfolding mystery of which plays a pivotal role in the story, though much is left to the imagination,. Updraft takes place in a city the sky, built of impossibly large towers, grown of living bone. The humans living there have long forgotten — or perhaps never even knew — the world beneath the clouds. Their society is governed by a complex set of

Ancillary Justice – Ann Leckie

September 9, 2015 2 Comments

There are occasions when a book grips you by the skull and demands that you ingest it whole, unhinging your mind’s jaw, if need be, and shoving the whole thing in there without pausing for breath. Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice is kind of like that. Let’s go over its reception. It won the Hugo and Nebula for best novel, the Arthur C. Clarke award, the BSFA Award for Best Novel, the Locus Award for Best First Novel, and the Kitschies Golden Tentacle for Best Debut Novel. The more I heard about it, the more intriguing I found it, but never got around to reading it, even when a friend came over and left it on my dinner table about eight months ago. I finally picked it up for my e-reader in July, long after giving the paper copy back and relocating to California, and that’s when it sank its hooks

The Monstrous – Ellen Datlow

August 25, 2015 No Comments

I have to admit to some trepidation when I first received this collection of short stories in the mail from Tachyon. Granted, I asked for this book, but I was still wary of the genre. You see, I had read almost no horror fiction prior to this collection. I respond very viscerally to frightening visual media, regardless of if it’s gory, psychologically thrilling, or suspenseful. I assumed that reading horror would prove an analogous experience. I am so glad I read this anthology. Ellen Datlow has an remarkable CV. A sci-fi, fantasy, and short fiction editor of 30+ years, she is considered one of the best (if not the best) horror editors in the business. Among other awards, she’s won Hugos, Stokers, Locuses, Horror Guild awards, and a lifetime achievement award from the Horror Writers association. She’s pretty serious about horror fiction. The Monstrous was an excellent introduction to Horror,

Shades of Milk and Honey – Mary Robinette Kowal

August 16, 2015 No Comments

As a fan of the Writing Excuses podcast, I felt it was incumbent upon me to branch out beyond Brandon Sanderson, and the Shadows Beneath anthology provided ample opportunity to read the writings of the rest of the crew: Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler. Kowal’s story in that anthology, A Fire in the Heavens, is wonderful, fascinating, and original. Really, you’ve got to read it. A tremendous story. Anyway, between that, her work on Writing Excuses, and The Lady Astronaut of Mars (another short of hers I fell in love with), I knew I had to read her series, the Glamourist Histories. That series has a straightforward elevator pitch: Jane Austen with magic. So when she tweeted that Shades of Milk and Honey, the first book in the Glamourist Histories, was available for Kindle for $1.99, I jumped into it right away. I had never read any regency

The Battle for Oz – Jeyna Grace

August 4, 2015 No Comments

Imagine, if you will, a linear accelerator for fiction. Say someone took The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, put them in the machine, and slammed ‘em together. Sifting through the results, you’d find The Battle For Oz, Jeyna Grace’s exciting adventure published by Inkshares. The novella is a quick read, and is helped along by swift pacing and simple description that relies on a (perhaps faded) recollection of worlds you remember from your childhood. There’s a certain shock factor to the brutality and gore that appears now and again in the story, reminding you that this is not a children’s fairy tale, replete with fairies though it may be. That vicious Queen of Hearts, down but not entirely out after her altercation with Alice, sets her sights on a new conquest: Oz. She breeds horrifying monsters and uses them to take over the Emerald City, enforcing with a

The Sword of Shannara – Terry Brooks

July 27, 2015 No Comments

The book of many tropes lumbered adverbially through its mire of repeating words, and languished in its easy use of one female character whose strength was in her utter obedience. As the Lord of the Rings fanfic slogged on, an adjectival thought bubbled descriptively to the surface, where its oily film reflected murky rainbows upon the backs of my eyelids, and with its final, shuddering death-throes, fizzled and threw its final cliché, weakly, at the already covered wall of my mind. A harsh opening, to be sure, but man was this an uninteresting listen. The reader was skilled, but there was very little substance to the story. There’s some mildly intriguing world building — long after the bombs, presumably, radiation created elves, gnomes, trolls, and magic — but it falls flat in the face of a seemingly endless cavalcade of tropes and cliches. A mysterious wizard shows up, and informs

The Iron Dragon’s Daughter – Michael Swanwick

July 14, 2015 No Comments

When he left his job, my old manager bequeathed to each of his subordinates a token by which to remember him. Though we’d only known each other for a few weeks, we managed to connect over various extracurricular interests, including (but certainly not limited to) video games and genre fiction. To my delight, not only was he steeped in fantasy and sci-fi, but he was practically a guru of the stuff. His gift to me was Michael Swanwick’s The Iron Dragon’s Daughter, along with a card declaiming it as his all-time favorite sci-fi/fantasy book. In the card, he wrote that his hope was that I’d fall in love with it the same way he had. I didn’t exactly fall in love with it, but it is definitely a read I won’t soon forget. Michael Swanwick has a way with words that completely transports you into his world. His writing hints

Dawn of the Algorithm – Yann Rousselot

June 25, 2015 No Comments

After reviewing Gary Whitta’s Abomination for Inkshares, I stayed in touch with them, hoping that they’d send some more awesome work my way. Inkshares’ own Angela Melamud fired back almost immediately, asking if I’d be interested in reviewing a book of poetry. I clicked the link to the book’s page, read a little about the book, and watched the short promotional video thereupon. Spliced clips from Akira — one of my all-time favorite films — with the poet reading his own Akira-inspired piece over them. Even though I felt (and still feel) unprepared to review a book of poetry, I accepted Angela’s offer, and started reading Yann Rousselot’s Dawn of the Algorithm that evening. That was four months ago. I finished the last poem today, standing in an overpacked train car, in a tunnel under the bay, as it hurtled along the tracks on its way to San Francisco. I am an

Buddha’s Brain – Rick Hanson & Richard Mendius

June 7, 2015 No Comments

After reading Altered Perceptions and writing that somewhat personal review, delving into my own thoughts and issues with mental wellness, the topic of mental health and depression began to rise with increasing frequency in my everyday life. A few days after I wrote that review, my girlfriend (a strong advocate for therapy and medication in general,) came home from work, afire with excitement and a new book recommendation for me. Buddha’s Brain: The practical neuroscience of happiness, love & wisdom, by Rick Hanson and Richard Mendius, is that book. It’s a tall order — happiness. It’s easy (and perhaps something of a cop out) to say that it’s relative and fleeting, or that it’s immutable and just beyond our grasp, or even that it’s simple and inside us all along. These grandiose statements, inspiring, comforting, or disheartening as they may be, aren’t very interesting to me. The question of consciousness

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