|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 12, 2021 10:47:31 GMT -5
Has anyone here read Leonard Chang's Allen Choice Trilogy (starting with Over the Shoulder) or Henry Chang's Jack Yu books (starting with Chinatown Beat)? Both got a mention in the back matter of The Good Asian #5 as inspirations for the title character and the book (along with the Charlie Chan stuff, Hammett, Chandler and Walter Mosely), but I am completely unfamiliar with them. A quick check of my public library catalog turned up nothing form either series in their catalog, so the easy cheap way to sample them isn't there, and I was wondering if people here had read them and their reactions to get some input as to whether it is worth tracking these down (either through ILL or searching used bookstores or Amazon). -M This is literally the first I've heard of either. But then they're fairly new and I haven't gotten around to The Good Asian #5 yet. |
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 12, 2021 12:34:12 GMT -5
 Funnybooks: The Improbable Glories of the Best American Comic Books by Michael BarrierOh this is a hard book to review. There is no question that a history of Dell Comics has been a long time coming. And that's mostly what we get here from Barrier. Now he definitely makes choices about what parts of the history to emphasize. And his choice is to largely focus on what you could argue are the "Big Three" creators for Dell; Carl Barks, Walt Kelly and John Stanley. This makes some sense. Those three creators, their work and the books they worked on are generally viewed as the peak works for Dell and among the best comic books of all time. Barks, of course, is the creator of Uncle Scrooge and was "the good duck artist" on Donald Duck and his family. Kelly created Pogo in the comic books (before he made the jump to comic strips) and worked on Our Gang and a number of really lovely fairy tale comic books. Stanley was the driving force behind Little Lulu. Barrier doesn't solely focus on these three. We do get a decent look on the corporate set-up of Western/Dell and a reasonable amount of info on the various editors for the company/ies, but really a very minimal amount about the myriad other creators working for the companies. The major problem comes with the realization (and it comes early in the book) that Barrier just really doesn't like comic books very much. He's placed Western/Dell on a pedestal, along with the three above-mentioned creators, and everything else is childish dreck. He somewhat begrudgingly acknowledges that Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman had some talent. But that's where it ends. And, honestly, a lot of Barrier's critical claims are so ridiculous as to be off-putting and colored my view of his history. For example, he's adamant that Oskar Lebeck was not just the best comics editor ever (or at least at the time) but possibly the only good one. Which ignores Kurtzman, who at least got mentioned and Shelly Mayer, who was completely ignored without mention. Quite early in the work he talks about the Pogo comic strip as being (and I'm paraphrasing) a great children's strip that could be enjoyed by adults. This flies in the face of not just the strip itself, but of the intended audience for daily comic strips at the time. I've read the Pogo comic strip. I love the Pogo comic strip and loved it as a child. But a huge amount of that strip completely went over my head as a kid. And it wasn't just that I was reading 1950s strips in the 1970s. There is simply no way that Simple J. Malarkey, for example, was aimed at "children." For all that it's a book worth reading. As a history it's definitely worthwhile. As criticism it's definitely questionable...but most criticism is. But I do love the title. Oh how the word Funnybooks gets under some people's skin. |
|
|
|
Post by EdoBosnar on Nov 13, 2021 6:29:59 GMT -5
The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal. I tend not to read short fiction in isolation, waiting for a collection or anthology. But I had a spare few minutes and was intrigued by this 2014 Hugo winner for best novelette. I'd never heard of the author, but the story description was very interesting. This is a super fun read. It's a bit alt-history, a bit pulp and I've seen it described as "punch-card punk" which is both a fun and apt description. Essentially a catastrophic event in the fifties causes man to come together and head toward the stars. The space travel is very Bradburyian, but the science is closer to real. Elma, the titular hero, is a 63 year old woman who was one of the astronauts who took man to Mars. And she longs to go back into space. Saying much more will reveal way too much of the plot. Needless to say this is a lovely story on a number of levels and I HIGHLY recommend it, especially since you can read it in a very short time...and for free. The Lady Astronaut of Mars. Just read this, and ... wow. This is such a wonderfully well-written story. There's only two things I sort of disagree about: the first is that, regardless of how it was classified for its Hugo award, I don't agree that it's a novelette, rather it's just a straight-up short story (if you copy-paste the text from that link that Slam provided - where it's still available - into, say, Word and set a standard 12-point font with no formatting, it comes out to about a dozen pages. That's just not a novelette to me); that minor point aside, I also wouldn't characterize it as 'fun' - not to give too much away, but there are a few parts that pack a real emotional punch. But yes, like I said, it's an excellent story that certainly deserves the Hugo and any other award, and definitely worth reading. I most emphatically second Slam's high recommendation.
|
|
|
|
Post by EdoBosnar on Nov 13, 2021 8:11:00 GMT -5
" Puowaina," short story by Alan Brennert. This was posted online a few weeks ago by the Hawaii Review of Books - before Halloween, because it's sort of a ghost story. It's set in Honolulu right just after the end of the First World War. The main character is a ten year-old girl named Nani, whose mother is native Hawaiian while her father is Irish-American. It's at about this point in her life that Nani starts having dreams, and even waking visions of things that haven't happened yet. Her mother realizes she has a talent that the Hawaiians call the 'twice knowing' and she gets really concerned about her daughter and what she's seeing, while her father, an engineer who works at the local power plant, thinks this is all native mumbo-jumbo. Nani, of course, would rather just be normal, as her new ability makes her life a bit hellish. As in his comic book stories, Brennert packs a novel's worth of story and ideas into relatively few pages. |
|
|
|
Post by Mister Spaceman on Nov 13, 2021 9:34:15 GMT -5
The Lady Astronaut of Mars by Mary Robinette Kowal. I tend not to read short fiction in isolation, waiting for a collection or anthology. But I had a spare few minutes and was intrigued by this 2014 Hugo winner for best novelette. I'd never heard of the author, but the story description was very interesting. This is a super fun read. It's a bit alt-history, a bit pulp and I've seen it described as "punch-card punk" which is both a fun and apt description. Essentially a catastrophic event in the fifties causes man to come together and head toward the stars. The space travel is very Bradburyian, but the science is closer to real. Elma, the titular hero, is a 63 year old woman who was one of the astronauts who took man to Mars. And she longs to go back into space. Saying much more will reveal way too much of the plot. Needless to say this is a lovely story on a number of levels and I HIGHLY recommend it, especially since you can read it in a very short time...and for free. The Lady Astronaut of Mars. Just read this, and ... wow. This is such a wonderfully well-written story. There's only two things I sort of disagree about: the first is that, regardless of how it was classified for its Hugo award, I don't agree that it's a novelette, rather it's just a straight-up short story (if you copy-paste the text from that link that Slam provided - where it's still available - into, say, Word and set a standard 12-point font with no formatting, it comes out to about a dozen pages. That's just not a novelette to me); that minor point aside, I also wouldn't characterize it as 'fun' - not to give too much away, but there are a few parts that pack a real emotional punch. But yes, like I said, it's an excellent story that certainly deserves the Hugo and any other award, and definitely worth reading. I most emphatically second Slam's high recommendation.
Just read it myself and agree that it's a good short story (no clue why it would be classified as a novelette). Very Bradybury-esque in many ways (which makes naming the Space Center after him a bit too on-the-nose for my taste) but still it's own creature. A touching meditation on age, death, and living with life's difficult decisions. |
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 13, 2021 9:49:46 GMT -5
Just read this, and ... wow. This is such a wonderfully well-written story. There's only two things I sort of disagree about: the first is that, regardless of how it was classified for its Hugo award, I don't agree that it's a novelette, rather it's just a straight-up short story (if you copy-paste the text from that link that Slam provided - where it's still available - into, say, Word and set a standard 12-point font with no formatting, it comes out to about a dozen pages. That's just not a novelette to me); that minor point aside, I also wouldn't characterize it as 'fun' - not to give too much away, but there are a few parts that pack a real emotional punch. But yes, like I said, it's an excellent story that certainly deserves the Hugo and any other award, and definitely worth reading. I most emphatically second Slam's high recommendation.
Just read it myself and agree that it's a good short story (no clue why it would be classified as a novelette). Very Bradybury-esque in many ways (which makes naming the Space Center after him a bit too on-the-nose for my taste) but still it's own creature. A touching mediation on age, death, and living with life's difficult decisions. The Hugo’s define novelettes as anything between 7,500 and 17,500 words. I suspect this was at the low end of that scale. |
|
|
|
Post by EdoBosnar on Nov 14, 2021 6:16:43 GMT -5
Also just read two stories by Harry Turtledove: " Herbig Haro" is set about 1,200 years from now, at a time in which humans have flown out to the stars and even became top dogs in our corner of the galaxy for a time, but are in a state of decline. The story involves a scout, Erasmus Chang, working for a private salvage company who travels to an mostly unexplored sector of space to find out what happened to several missing scouts sent there before him. He encounters another race of space-faring conquerors and most of the story is a game of wits between Chang and them. What makes this story interesting, though (and the reason I sought it out to read it), is an idea that the physics behind anti-gravity and faster-than-light technology are actually really simple and that most space-faring races figured it out in what would be the equivalent of Earth's Early Modern period, i.e., the 17th or 18th century. However, these discoveries don't generally lead to other technological advancements, so the first race of aliens who came to Earth in the mid-21st century to conquer it only had the equivalent of breech-loading rifles and cannons as weapons, and got annihilated when they marched out of their ship with their guns - such as they were - blazing. (The title, by the way, is a reference to the Herbig-Haro phenomenon, which comes into play when Chang is trying to flee back to space controlled by humans.) " The Road Not Taken" is sort of a prequel to the preceding story. It recounts that first encounter between the invading aliens, called the Roxolani, and humanity. The narrative shifts between the point of view of the Roxolani as they over-confidently approach Earth and people on Earth monitoring their approach with a great deal of initial trepidation. I liked this second story a lot better - Turtledove's style has a bit of a humorous tone throughout, even though what he's describing is the first act in what will be centuries of horror for Earth's galactic neighborhood for centuries to come. Both of these stories are available online - just google the titles plus Turtledove's name. The links to the stories will be the first or second search results (I didn't post links because they immediately open up a download dialogue box.) And now I've cleaned out a bunch of files from the 'books' folder of my tablet - some of which have been sitting there for years.
|
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Nov 14, 2021 21:04:46 GMT -5
Gone for Soldiers
by Jeffrey Shaara
I'd been eyeing this on the shelf at the library for a while, and was in the mood for some history, so I decided to give it a shot.... the Mexican War is not something a know alot about, other then in the context of the Civil War.
The book is not really about the war itself, but rather focuses on young Captain Robert E. Lee, and his relationship with his commander Winfield Scott. No mention of the other parts of the war are made, this is just Scott's march to Mexico City.
Of course the feelings are Shaara's, but they seem logical and pretty realistic. There's a few too many cameos of future civil war generals for my taste... if they were going to add Longstreet, Grant and others, would would have liked more details.. as it was, they only got a chapter or two of their own, and some (like PT Beuregard and Joe Johnston) were just side lights in Lee's (which were the vast majority).
It just kinda left me sad again for what might have been.. if Lee had only agreed to Scott's offer to take command of the Union... The Civil War could have been SO much shorter.
|
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2021 6:37:34 GMT -5
After several mentions and recommendations in this thread, I decided to give the Hap and Leonard books a try since our local library had the first book in the series, and just finished that one. Savage Season-A Hap and Leonard novel by Joe R. Lansdale  I liked it. I don't think I liked it as much as others in this thread have though. I'm still not sure I like the characters, but this did feel like an "origin" story of sorts and those are often the least interesting story told with the characters, so I am going to read at least one more in the series and see where it goes from there. It was a gritty crime story with a noir bent that was a good read, it just feels like it could have been a standalone story and nothing more needs to be told of these characters, so I am not exactly compelled to seek out more of their tale, but I enjoyed the experience of reading this book enough to try at least one more to see if I like it as much. We'll see. -M |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2021 9:54:39 GMT -5
Also with Savage Season, I reached my goal for the 2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge (87, but that includes fiction, non-fiction, GN/TPB, art books and gamebooks-I set the number with all those in mind).
-M
|
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Nov 15, 2021 10:21:39 GMT -5
After several mentions and recommendations in this thread, I decided to give the Hap and Leonard books a try since our local library had the first book in the series, and just finished that one. Savage Season-A Hap and Leonard novel by Joe R. Lansdale I liked it. I don't think I liked it as much as others in this thread have though. I'm still not sure I like the characters, but this did feel like an "origin" story of sorts and those are often the least interesting story told with the characters, so I am going to read at least one more in the series and see where it goes from there. It was a gritty crime story with a noir bent that was a good read, it just feels like it could have been a standalone story and nothing more needs to be told of these characters, so I am not exactly compelled to seek out more of their tale, but I enjoyed the experience of reading this book enough to try at least one more to see if I like it as much. We'll see. -M I'm pretty sure it was written as a stand-alone because it was four years before Mucho Mojo would appear. I personally love Hap & Leonard. Easily two of my favorite characters in literature. |
|
|
|
Post by Calamas on Nov 15, 2021 12:11:30 GMT -5
After several mentions and recommendations in this thread, I decided to give the Hap and Leonard books a try since our local library had the first book in the series, and just finished that one. Savage Season-A Hap and Leonard novel by Joe R. Lansdale I liked it. I don't think I liked it as much as others in this thread have though. I'm still not sure I like the characters, but this did feel like an "origin" story of sorts and those are often the least interesting story told with the characters, so I am going to read at least one more in the series and see where it goes from there. It was a gritty crime story with a noir bent that was a good read, it just feels like it could have been a standalone story and nothing more needs to be told of these characters, so I am not exactly compelled to seek out more of their tale, but I enjoyed the experience of reading this book enough to try at least one more to see if I like it as much. We'll see. -M I'm pretty sure it was written as a stand-alone because it was four years before Mucho Mojo would appear. I personally love Hap & Leonard. Easily two of my favorite characters in literature. Yes, it was. Savage Season and Cold in July were Lansdale’s salute to the Gold Medal crime novels of the 50s. Mucho Mojo, the second Hap & Leonard novel, without other main characters to service, is more focused on the boys and is much different in tone. It was my favorite Lansdale until Paradise Sky. |
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Nov 15, 2021 18:02:58 GMT -5
Also with Savage Season, I reached my goal for the 2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge (87, but that includes fiction, non-fiction, GN/TPB, art books and gamebooks-I set the number with all those in mind). -M Congrats! My Goodreads goal changes by 5 every year.. after hitting twice in a row I was up to 100 this year, and it's not happening. I do (mostly) leave off comics though... I mostly only count ones that I REALLY want to review, or sometimes I'll do a review of the whole series under the last volume. |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 15, 2021 18:25:08 GMT -5
Also with Savage Season, I reached my goal for the 2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge (87, but that includes fiction, non-fiction, GN/TPB, art books and gamebooks-I set the number with all those in mind). -M Congrats! My Goodreads goal changes by 5 every year.. after hitting twice in a row I was up to 100 this year, and it's not happening. I do (mostly) leave off comics though... I mostly only count ones that I REALLY want to review, or sometimes I'll do a review of the whole series under the last volume. I only count comics I read in collected edition, as I use Goodreads to track some of that. The first year I did the Good Reads Challenge, I keep updating the goal as I passed it because I set the goal based on prose only but was tracking tpb and OGN there too, until I settled on the number 87 (as in class of which I am) as the goal number, but surpassed it last year by a bunch. So I started with 87 again this year, and it took until mid-November to hit it, so I will surpass it again, but probably not by as much. I have however, surpassed the number of prose books I read this year than last year, but last year that number included a few Wheel of Time volumes, as opposed to this year where I have only read one of those, so the pages of prose fiction read might be less this year as the books were slighter. But as long as I am enjoying most of what I read (there are duds every so often no matter what), I am not overly concerned with the totals except as a tool to track what I am reading. -M |
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Nov 15, 2021 18:31:33 GMT -5
heh, yeah, same here.. I LOVE good reads for tracking and finding stuff, as well as a great place to note when you guys (or anyone) mention a book I want to check out.
I find I'm actually quite consistent in the number of PAGES I read, so the book total is more a factor of what I pick. I was kinda hoping to make the nice round 100 this year, but moving my Mother-in-Law and selling her old place took up too much free time.
|
|
