Books: 32-35
Book list
32. Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body by Armand Marie Leroi
An interesting overview not limited to just the gross oddities of the human body (gross in this sense meaning immediately obvious, glaringly noticeable), serving as illustrations of some of the guiding principles behind the biology of body construction as demonstrated by some of the ways it can change, go wrong, or otherwise create alterations that are unexpected, and as an introduction to a discussion of diversity, development, and adaptation.
The book is divided up into sections, covering some of the more famous classes of anomalies, such as dwarfism, cyclopedia, albinism, extreme hair growth, hermaphroditity, mermaids, cretins, and many other topics. The mutations he discusses range from the common to the sideshow, fatal to mundane. Leroi doesn't shy away from admitting there's an aspect of voyeuristic interest in this, but he takes the study deeper- discussing the social history of many of these disorders (one may be detached, fascinated, or horrified by discussions of children born with serious congenital deformities, but the stories of how many of these families found themselves driven out of some towns or exhibited as curiosities in others is a different matter altogether. I wanted a time travel machine and a large, spiked mace when I hit the passages about families dying in poverty, only to have medical students come to bid and argue over the ownership of the bodies of their children), and providing a context into how these have shaped our understanding of what it is to be human and how we define that.
The book is also an interesting read from the topic of developmental biology. The author firmly grounds it all in modern science, discussing genetics, embryology, nutrition, and many of the other factors that influence development and how we define the line between normal and abnormal.
In the end, Leroi's focus is on the concept that we are all mutants- all of us are the product of millions of years of variation, experimentation, and alterations brought about by any of a number of factors.
As a side note- would anyone be interested in a trip up to PA to see the Mütter Museum?
33. Dead Tossed Waves (Forest of Hands and Teeth, Book 2) by Carrie Ryan
( First Book: The Forest of Hands and Teeth)
The second book in the series, set in a post-post-apocalyptic zombie infested world, is a good deal stronger than the first, having lost none of the interesting world building in the first novel, and displays a richer sense of characterization and more tightly integrated multi-level plots. This book picks up a generation after the last book, with Gabry, the daughter of Forest's main character, Mary. Now living in a seaside town, Gabry and her mother guard the shoreline by the lighthouse, while Gabry harbors a crush on Catcher, a young man of the town. One night, a bunch of the teens slip over the fence to explore the amusement park in the ruins of the city, and things go terribly, horribly wrong. There's some new explorations in the world- the controlling government that is supposed to keep the remains of humanity together, the cults that have sprung up around the 'mudo', the strangers who travel in the forest of hands and teeth, the hidden histories that wait to be unraveled, and the exceptions to every rule.
That said, there are still some weak points. The book did a good job of keeping the tension built up, but there was something slightly formulaic about it (how a novel set in a world where a series of fences and an increasingly despotic government is all that prevents the dead from overrunning the remnants of human civilization can get formulaic is an interesting commentary on the zombie genre, I suspect), such that by the end of the book, if something good happened (particularly if the main character had a moment of introspection and insight, followed by strengthening her resolve), I knew it was going to be only a page or two before the next kick in the gut. I wasn't quite yelling "This is why we can't have nice things!' by the end of the book, but I was, nonetheless, a little irritated.
Also, I have a little trouble picturing romantic scenes with people having heartfelt conversations while nearby a chainlink fence is all that keeps at bay a horde of moaning, flesh-eating undead. To be fair, I can't really criticize it that much, since part of the point of the books is that people can normalize to anything, and as I've never lived in a world multiple generations past the inevitable Zombie Apocalypse, I can't say what might or might not be standard for that setting. To be honest, I also just tend to find the idea of romantic-and-disclosing conversations less likely that the dead walking the earth, but we all have our biases.
I'm still looking forward to the next one.
34. An Earthly Knight by Janet Elizabeth McNaughton
A story based on Tam Lin, set in southern Scotland a generation or so past the Norman invasion, with elements of several other well known ballads mixed in.
Eh. Meh.
Back when I was actively involved in maintaining my website, rather than just paying the bills for it and letting it molder from benign neglect, I read as much of the Tam Lin fiction I could find online. Fanfics and original fics and the like. This was longer than most of those, but not really all that different. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't all that good, either. There were interesting bits, a number of storylines running at once, and there were clumsy shoehorning in of lines that didn't quite work. Despite the historical setting, the characters felt distinctly modern, so it never quite gelled for me.
My major complaint is that the author couldn't quite decide if this was supposed to be a kid's book. It felt that way to me for most of the reading, so when Janet and Tam Lin done did the sexing, I was frankly a bit surprised, as I'd assumed this book was going to take the route of skipping the pregnancy storyline. The rest of the book needed to be a good deal more mature or that scene panned away instead.
Anyway, I read it. I didn't hate it, but it didn't do anything for me either.
35. Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games) by Suzanne Collins
(First Book: The Hunger Games)
WHY ARE YOU NOT READING THIS SERIES IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY?
This was good. This was beyond good. This was a book that I stayed up late to read on several nights, and that I had to keep putting down because the author did something so horrible and right that I had to get up and go do something else before I could stand to turn the page to see what happened next. I found myself saying things like "No no no don't you dare don'tyoudare don'tyoudare DO THAT".
Spoilers: she totally fucking did.
It is amazing to be in the hands of an author who writes very well, has no mercy, and is determined to show you the truth of the world she's created and how it reflects on our own.
The horrible twists never felt forced- she builds all of them up from an intricate and complicated world setting, with history and atmosphere that make it all convincing and achingly believable. Horribly believable.
Katniss and Peeta have survived the hunger games, but there's no easy life awaiting them afterwards- their district is still poor, corrupt, and the folks in the capital are unforgiving of the popularity of the 'couple' that showed them up by surviving against the odds and against directives. Things are falling apart in Panem, but with little information and the threat of punishment from all sides, Katniss doesn't have a lot of options on where to turn and what to do. Now she has to find a way of balancing between her personal interest and the public attention, what she knows and what she suspects, and the choices that each person involved in her life must make.
One of the things I love most about this series is Katniss herself- she's tough in very believable and sometimes damaging ways. She's not just the plucky love-crossed female hero, but a great deal more. I love how truly suspicious she is, how her hard experience has made her wary, blind in some directions, foolishly and foolheartedly brave in others. She isn't waiting for anyone to save her, to love her, to see her as special- she's young but she's lived a hard life, and survival has made her wary, looking for angles, guarded, hesitant, and fully capable of weighing her options and re-evaluating her situation. She's also fiercely loyal, moral, and brave under all of that.
I was warned that this book, second in the series, would end on a wrenching cliffhanger. Yeah, she totally fucking did.
Can it be August now? I want Mockingjay.
32. Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body by Armand Marie Leroi
An interesting overview not limited to just the gross oddities of the human body (gross in this sense meaning immediately obvious, glaringly noticeable), serving as illustrations of some of the guiding principles behind the biology of body construction as demonstrated by some of the ways it can change, go wrong, or otherwise create alterations that are unexpected, and as an introduction to a discussion of diversity, development, and adaptation.
The book is divided up into sections, covering some of the more famous classes of anomalies, such as dwarfism, cyclopedia, albinism, extreme hair growth, hermaphroditity, mermaids, cretins, and many other topics. The mutations he discusses range from the common to the sideshow, fatal to mundane. Leroi doesn't shy away from admitting there's an aspect of voyeuristic interest in this, but he takes the study deeper- discussing the social history of many of these disorders (one may be detached, fascinated, or horrified by discussions of children born with serious congenital deformities, but the stories of how many of these families found themselves driven out of some towns or exhibited as curiosities in others is a different matter altogether. I wanted a time travel machine and a large, spiked mace when I hit the passages about families dying in poverty, only to have medical students come to bid and argue over the ownership of the bodies of their children), and providing a context into how these have shaped our understanding of what it is to be human and how we define that.
The book is also an interesting read from the topic of developmental biology. The author firmly grounds it all in modern science, discussing genetics, embryology, nutrition, and many of the other factors that influence development and how we define the line between normal and abnormal.
In the end, Leroi's focus is on the concept that we are all mutants- all of us are the product of millions of years of variation, experimentation, and alterations brought about by any of a number of factors.
As a side note- would anyone be interested in a trip up to PA to see the Mütter Museum?
33. Dead Tossed Waves (Forest of Hands and Teeth, Book 2) by Carrie Ryan
( First Book: The Forest of Hands and Teeth)
The second book in the series, set in a post-post-apocalyptic zombie infested world, is a good deal stronger than the first, having lost none of the interesting world building in the first novel, and displays a richer sense of characterization and more tightly integrated multi-level plots. This book picks up a generation after the last book, with Gabry, the daughter of Forest's main character, Mary. Now living in a seaside town, Gabry and her mother guard the shoreline by the lighthouse, while Gabry harbors a crush on Catcher, a young man of the town. One night, a bunch of the teens slip over the fence to explore the amusement park in the ruins of the city, and things go terribly, horribly wrong. There's some new explorations in the world- the controlling government that is supposed to keep the remains of humanity together, the cults that have sprung up around the 'mudo', the strangers who travel in the forest of hands and teeth, the hidden histories that wait to be unraveled, and the exceptions to every rule.
That said, there are still some weak points. The book did a good job of keeping the tension built up, but there was something slightly formulaic about it (how a novel set in a world where a series of fences and an increasingly despotic government is all that prevents the dead from overrunning the remnants of human civilization can get formulaic is an interesting commentary on the zombie genre, I suspect), such that by the end of the book, if something good happened (particularly if the main character had a moment of introspection and insight, followed by strengthening her resolve), I knew it was going to be only a page or two before the next kick in the gut. I wasn't quite yelling "This is why we can't have nice things!' by the end of the book, but I was, nonetheless, a little irritated.
Also, I have a little trouble picturing romantic scenes with people having heartfelt conversations while nearby a chainlink fence is all that keeps at bay a horde of moaning, flesh-eating undead. To be fair, I can't really criticize it that much, since part of the point of the books is that people can normalize to anything, and as I've never lived in a world multiple generations past the inevitable Zombie Apocalypse, I can't say what might or might not be standard for that setting. To be honest, I also just tend to find the idea of romantic-and-disclosing conversations less likely that the dead walking the earth, but we all have our biases.
I'm still looking forward to the next one.
34. An Earthly Knight by Janet Elizabeth McNaughton
A story based on Tam Lin, set in southern Scotland a generation or so past the Norman invasion, with elements of several other well known ballads mixed in.
Eh. Meh.
Back when I was actively involved in maintaining my website, rather than just paying the bills for it and letting it molder from benign neglect, I read as much of the Tam Lin fiction I could find online. Fanfics and original fics and the like. This was longer than most of those, but not really all that different. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't all that good, either. There were interesting bits, a number of storylines running at once, and there were clumsy shoehorning in of lines that didn't quite work. Despite the historical setting, the characters felt distinctly modern, so it never quite gelled for me.
My major complaint is that the author couldn't quite decide if this was supposed to be a kid's book. It felt that way to me for most of the reading, so when Janet and Tam Lin done did the sexing, I was frankly a bit surprised, as I'd assumed this book was going to take the route of skipping the pregnancy storyline. The rest of the book needed to be a good deal more mature or that scene panned away instead.
Anyway, I read it. I didn't hate it, but it didn't do anything for me either.
35. Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games) by Suzanne Collins
(First Book: The Hunger Games)
WHY ARE YOU NOT READING THIS SERIES IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY?
This was good. This was beyond good. This was a book that I stayed up late to read on several nights, and that I had to keep putting down because the author did something so horrible and right that I had to get up and go do something else before I could stand to turn the page to see what happened next. I found myself saying things like "No no no don't you dare don'tyoudare don'tyoudare DO THAT".
Spoilers: she totally fucking did.
It is amazing to be in the hands of an author who writes very well, has no mercy, and is determined to show you the truth of the world she's created and how it reflects on our own.
The horrible twists never felt forced- she builds all of them up from an intricate and complicated world setting, with history and atmosphere that make it all convincing and achingly believable. Horribly believable.
Katniss and Peeta have survived the hunger games, but there's no easy life awaiting them afterwards- their district is still poor, corrupt, and the folks in the capital are unforgiving of the popularity of the 'couple' that showed them up by surviving against the odds and against directives. Things are falling apart in Panem, but with little information and the threat of punishment from all sides, Katniss doesn't have a lot of options on where to turn and what to do. Now she has to find a way of balancing between her personal interest and the public attention, what she knows and what she suspects, and the choices that each person involved in her life must make.
One of the things I love most about this series is Katniss herself- she's tough in very believable and sometimes damaging ways. She's not just the plucky love-crossed female hero, but a great deal more. I love how truly suspicious she is, how her hard experience has made her wary, blind in some directions, foolishly and foolheartedly brave in others. She isn't waiting for anyone to save her, to love her, to see her as special- she's young but she's lived a hard life, and survival has made her wary, looking for angles, guarded, hesitant, and fully capable of weighing her options and re-evaluating her situation. She's also fiercely loyal, moral, and brave under all of that.
I was warned that this book, second in the series, would end on a wrenching cliffhanger. Yeah, she totally fucking did.
Can it be August now? I want Mockingjay.