Since Rusty has gone before, blazing the path in the high grass by the sheer mass of his incessant druge use, I am powerless to do all but follow.
BOOK REVIEW
(about books)*
The Jannissary Tree, by Jason Goodwin
Is a good book about the 1850s in the Ottoman Empire! It is probably very historically accurate.
THINGS I FOUND PROBLEMATIC ABOUT THIS BOOK;
The hero is a eunuch, right? But he has sex with someone. What is up with that? How does that even work?
The whole story ends with a goddamn rooftop denounement in which the villain orates his villanious plan and offers for the hero to join him, then BY SHEER NARRATIVE CO-INCEDENKY is foiled by the equalivent of a falling girder.
Seriously, this is not a good detective novel.
THINGS I LIKED ABOUT THIS BOOK;
Surprisingly enough, the few bits in which the hero was left alone to cook and ponder life in general were really enjoyable. Restful? Yes.
WHO I WOULD RECCOMEND THIS BOOK TO;
Ottoman's from the 1850s, Eunuchs, dudes who enjoy reading about eunuchs and 1850s Ottomania. Ottomanisms? Ottomantiaries?
Light, by M. John Harrison (who also has a
great blog Is one of the best science fiction books I have ever read. It is A Novel, which, you know, means it is Serious Business. But it is also a science fiction book! It is all full of beautiful words.
THINGS I LIKED ABOUT THIS BOOK;
Magical dice, wierd narrative slices, horrible evil horse's skull, masturbating about cousins, acceptance that there are mysteries we cannot understand, unacceptance that there are mysteries we cannot understand, a pervading sense of powerful narrative
THINGS THAT I LIKED LESS ABOUT THIS BOOK;
The ending was sort of really weird, seriously, what? And then he what? What?
THINGS ABOUT THE BACK-COVER OF THE BOOK;
The reason I bought the book was the back-cover, which said;
On the barren surface of an asteroid, located deep in the galaxy beneath the unbearable light of the Kefuhachi Tract, lie three objects: an abandoned spacecraft, a pair of bone dice covered with strange symbols, and a human skeleton. What they are and what they mean are the mysterious explored and unwrapped in Light, M. John Harrison's triumphant return to science fiction.
This would have been a good story, I think, except it is totally not the story the book is about.
Please think about your back covers a bit more throughly, M. John Harrison.
PEOPLE WHO WOULD LIKE THIS BOOK;
Dudes who are smart, dudes who are artistic, dudes who freak out whenever they see a horses skull, Iain M. Banks, chicks who are hot for Iain M. Banks maybe
PEOPLE WHO WOULD NOT LIKE THIS BOOK;
Rusty.
*BOOKS