780 books, but big ones

So this is my third annual wrap-up of my reading. Not as many this year as last year or the year before, bringing my average down. But Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire books are enormous (typically 1000-1200 or so pages), and there were five of the hefty buggers. And as I predicted in last year's wrap-up, I had to do a lot of reading of academic papers for my thesis, which meant less reading time for other things, and also fewer academic books. Also, don't forget that I'm getting older, so there aren't as many years left (on average) for me to read.

The bright note is that I have a new Favourite Author Ever, and have gotten back into Fantasy fiction in a big way. Most of the stuff I've read over the previous couple of years had been either uninspiring rubbish, or the literary equivalent of junk food. But I've finally found some actual good fantasy. And thus: I am happy.

The Blade Itself

Well, I ran out of A Song Of Ice And Fire books, and was jonesing for some of that awesome gritty dark new fantasy, and had heard good things about Joe Abercombie. I had been given his "Best Served Cold", but that book seemed to indicate that it followed on from the First Law trilogy, so I headed off to The Book Depository and had them send me the series posthaste.

In short, it's good. It's not quite ASoIaF good, but it's getting there. So far, it seems to be suffering from empty-world syndrome (which I discussed when talking about Pern when reviewing Legends). George R. R. Martin's world is just so relentlessly full - full of people, history, places - that it feels like a completely real world. By comparison, so far, Abercrombie's world isn't very big. There aren't really many places or people. The history is rather shallow. So it feels rather pale in comparison. But in my opinion it's a bit unfair to compare any modern Fantasy with Martin.

Having said that, the (few) characters are as good as Martin's. It's a shades-of-grey-ey world, where the characters you're following are generally either killers, torturers, or completely self-absorbed prats, but are drawn carefully by the author so that they become flawed people that you give a damn about. Even Martin would have had a hard time making a torturer in the Inquisition into a character you can empathize with, and whose lot in life you hope will improve.

It's an enjoyable read, and I'm onto the second book already. Definitely worth reading in between installments of ASoIaF.

Generation X

More interesting than Life of Pi, but still a bit painful to read, Generation X (by Douglas Coupland) is a novel about a group of friends who are trying a bit too hard to be cool. The novel itself tries a bit too hard to be cool, though that is probably by design rather than by accident. It's a brutally spot-on portrait of the slightly older part of my generation (about ten years older - I'm in that younger end of Generation X that sometimes gets left out of definitions of Gen X, but are way too old to be put into Gen Y), caught up in a cultural whirlwind, and unable (by choice or nature, depending on the character) to participate fully in the consumerist lifestyle that is expected of them.

Coupland is always very dryly witty, and has an amazing eye for people and how they interact with their culture. I've always enjoyed his work, and I'm surprised it's taken me this long to get around to reading Generation X. It is after all, the book that defined my generation.

Definitely worth reading, especially if you're my age, or a bit older.

The Life of Pi

The Life of Pi (by Yann Martel) was a bit of an odd one. I'm not sure I liked it. I've heard nothing but rave reviews for it, and it was the Man Booker Prize winner for 2002, but either I missed the point, or the point it was making was a bit simple and twee. A bit more reading about it showed that I hadn't missed much, point-wise; it just seems that the themes of the book had a lot more resonance for other people then for me. I think any story that sets itself up in the first chapter by saying "I have a story that will make you believe in God" is always going to annoy me a bit.

It's quite readable, though the language is not as entrancing as The White Tiger anything by Anais Nin.

A Spy in the House of Love

OK, time to deal with the backlog of books I've read and haven't posted about.

I need to read more Anaïs Nin (the first book I reviewed here on this blog was the Delta of Venus). Her writing is haunting and poetic, about the breaking of taboos, and the pursuit of freedom, especially sexual freedom, regardless of the costs.

This is another beautifully written, brooding, atmospheric novel, about Sabrina, an actress who seeks to enjoy the liberated sexuality that men around her seem to have, and how she deals with the pleasures and suffering that result. Well worth a read.