BooksOfTheMoon

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values

By Robert M. Pirsig

Rating: 2 stars

I wasn’t hugely enjoying this book, even before I hit the thirty missing pages in my volume. Well, not so much missing, as mis-printed. Instead of pages 360-390(ish), I had two copies of pages 330-360. Although, to be honest, after I finished cursing, my second emotion was one of relief that I didn’t have to wade through another 30 pages of turgid philosophy, interspersed with some moderately interesting travel stuff and more interesting father/son and self-reflection.

The book is structured as a travelogue where the main character and his son travel round bits of the US, pontificating about Quality while trying to reconcile himself to the person he used to be before a nervous breakdown and court-enforced ECT. Frankly, the latter was a lot more interesting than the former. The bits about our protagonist reflecting on his previous life, which he has abstracted out into a separate persona he calls Phaedrus, along with his strained relationship with his son, make for an interesting character-driven plot. However, the large chunks of philosophy that he throws in make for the opposite. While I can sort of see what the author was trying to say about Quality (with a capital Q), I really don’t think he needed so many words to make his point.

Maybe the missing thirty pages would have made all the difference. Maybe I’d have been thunderstruck and be pontificating that this was the greatest book ever written, but somehow I doubt it. Now I’m in a quandary: I certainly have no intention of keeping this volume, but how can I donate it or give it away to someone in the full knowledge that there is a chunk missing. Am I going to have to *gulp* throw it away?? It goes against all my bibliophile instincts, but then so does giving it away, knowing it’s incomplete. Either way, its stay on my shelves will only be temporary.

Book details

ISBN: 9780099786405
Publisher: Vintage Classics
Year of publication: 1974

The Feminine Future: Early Science Fiction by Women Writers

By Mike Ashley

Rating: 3 stars

This is an interesting collection of science fiction short stories, all written by women around the dawn of the genre: the tail end of the 19th and early decades of the 20th centuries. I must confess to being completely unfamiliar with any of the authors, except Edith Nesbit, of Five Children and It fame, but it was interesting to see that women were writing in what is usually regarded as a very male-dominated genre and era right from the start. Some of these stories were published in the big magazines of the era (Amazing Stories, Astounding etc), others were published in mainstream publications and still others were published in author anthologies: the same routes to publication as we see today (plus ça change and all that). As the editor says in his introduction, these women were pioneers in the field, tackling themes that are still common in the genre today: time travel, alternative universes, cybernetics, robots and more.

The stories are as varied as you’d expect, ranging from grim stories of genocide (Via the Hewitt Ray) through whimsical stories about strange islands (Friend Island) to humorous stories of unhelpful household aids (Ely’s Automatic Housemaid). Nothing particularly jumped out at me as a wonderful story that I must keep forever, but there were no real clunkers either, although you do have to remember that these are period stories and have to be read as such. Very interesting for the historical context but also enjoyable in itself.

Book details

ISBN: 9780486790237
Publisher: Dover Publications
Year of publication: 2015

The Martian

By Andy Weir

Rating: 4 stars

Through an unlikely series of events, astronaut Mark Watney, a member of the third manned mission to Mars, is abandoned alone, but alive, when his crew evacuates. He has to figure out how to stay alive, and how to contact Earth, long enough for any hope of rescue.

The first thing that struck me about this book is how funny it was. This is a very serious situation, and some authors might have played it such, but Weir gives Watney an upbeat, optimistic voice that doesn’t let him get down, even when the odds are utterly against him. He’s an extremely likeable protagonist, and you can’t complain that he’s uber-competent because he’s a bloomin’ astronaut. If you can’t expect an astronaut to be just as competent at growing potatoes from scratch as rewiring the local oxygen reclaimer then who can you ask?

The whole book is incredibly readable. The writing is kept at a nice level and although the scientific explanations come thick and fast, they never break the flow of the book. And, peering back through to my GCSE and A-level chemistry and physics respectively, it seems that the major science is correct; at least nothing jumped out at my level of understanding as being an utter howler. That’s very impressive. The whole book is very impressive and the only reason it didn’t get 5 stars is because of the Taiyang Shen plotline, which sort of fizzled out. This confused me. Why was there only one possible booster that could do what they needed? Why couldn’t a commercial launch from a Soyuz or Arianne be used? And even if the Taiyang Shen was required, I don’t get the conviction that only booster of that design would ever be built. After spending so much money on the design of a booster, who the hell only uses it once?? Surely you want to build and use as many as you can to get maximum use from the design. And even if the Chinese wouldn’t build another, then why couldn’t the original probe be carried on a future American/Soyuz/Arianne booster. This whole plotline fizzled out for me.

But apart from that, I loved this book from beginning to end. Highly readable, very exciting and with a really likeable protagonist to get behind. Definitely worth reading just to remind yourself how good the people we send into space, and the teams backing them up here on Earth, are.

Book details

ISBN: 9781785031137
Publisher: Del Rey
Year of publication: 2012

Dragons at Crumbling Castle: And Other Stories

By Terry Pratchett

Rating: 3 stars

These are stories written by Pratchett when he was a young man, working for his local paper. The Young Pratchett wrote a children’s story for them every week, which is what makes up this collection, and is, according to the foreword, mostly unaltered from that time. They’re very definitely written by an author still finding his way and don’t have the polish of later Pratchett. We do get a couple of stories set on the Carpet, which would go on to become The Carpet People (which I’ve read, but so long ago I don’t remember anything about it and was BG [Before GoodReads]) and some fun stories (my favourite being the one about the time-travelling bus), but I didn’t really get an awful lot out of this one. I think this may be passed to my sister as bedtime story material for my nephlings.

Book details

ISBN: 9780552572804
Publisher: Corgi Childrens
Year of publication: 2014

Questionable Content, Vol. 5

By Jeph Jacques

Rating: 4 stars

And so the great Questionable Content binge comes to an end. The fifth volume of QC shows an artist who continues to mature in his storytelling as well as introducing some new characters (Cosette, although not by name, and Marigold). Sven gets an intern/conscience and Faye starts to open up some more. There are several laugh out loud moments, including the last comic in the collection, featuring Pintsize and Momo.

The themes that I know will be coming up are still being explored, including Marten and Dora’s relationship and Faye’s drinking. And here’s me thinking that webcomic writers just made stuff up on the day ;-). There are seeds being sown that will be reaped hundreds, if not thousands, of comics down the line. It’ll be a while before I get to binge on paper again since, as of the time of writing, volume 5 is the latest paper collection available (and also, I know what to expect at the end of volume 6, so I may well wait until the one after before buying more).

But for now, I was trying to persuade myself that I have many real books to read, but who am I kidding, I’m going to go online and pick up from where this leaves off.

Book details

ISBN: 9781936561315
Publisher: Topatoco
Year of publication: 2015

Questionable Content, Vol. 4

By Jeph Jacques

Rating: 4 stars

Volume 4 of the esteemed Questionable Content has an immediate difference over its predecessors: it’s a completely different format. Rather than a large square book, with two comics to a page, it’s a much smaller but thicker book, putting a single comic over each two-page spread. This undeniably makes it easier to read (with less squinting over the text), but it does mean that the books will look different on my shelves, something I detest (I’m looking at you, Laundry Files and SF Masterworks).

As for content, this volume collects comics #900-1200 and both the storytelling and art continue to mature. We see Hannelore’s mother for the first time, and while we don’t see her father, he’s definitely involved. Marten and Dora’s relationship matures, as do Dora’s insecurities. Speaking of insecurities, we also get to see a different side to Steve as he worries about his relationship with Meena. Faye’s drinking gets spotlighted as well, but it’s not all doom and gloom. There are a lot of laughs, especially where Pintsize and Wimslow are involved.

Some of the author commentary is quite interesting as well, especially where says that he wouldn’t do a joke like that again (often to do with trans issues) or where he disagrees with his characters. I’ve been binging on QC as I got the whole lot of paper collections in one go. So I’ve got one more paper collection to go, and then it’s back to just one strip a day :-/.

Book details

ISBN: 9781936561216
Publisher: TopatoCo Books
Year of publication: 2014

Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances

By Neil Gaiman

Rating: 4 stars

This is Neil Gaiman’s third collection of short stories. He addresses the controversial title in his introduction but since I don’t feel that I have the appropriate background for this, I’m not going to comment, one way or the other on that. The collection did seem skewed towards the dark and the macabre, with especially the first few stories being a bit grim, but there are enough points of light in there to not make reading it a slog for someone like me, who likes their fiction a bit fluffier.

Highlights include The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains… about a small man on a quest and the companion he takes with him; The Case of Death and Honey, Gaiman’s ‘Sherlock Holmes’ story which is a lot of fun; ‘And Weep, Like Alexander’, a story from a ‘shaggy dog’ anthology of the Tales from the White Hart mould; and The Sleeper and the Spindle, which mashes together some well-known fairy tales in a new and interesting way. There was also the unexpected pleasure of another ‘Shadow’ story (the protagonist of American Gods). Since the last one (in Fragile Things) he’s moved on from Scotland to Yorkshire, where he has another ‘unusual’ encounter. In the introduction to the story Gaiman says that he thinks there will be one more Shadow short, probably set in London, before he gets packed off back to America and another novel, which would be good.

I think A Calendar of Tales merits more discussion than just a one-liner as it’s a very interesting project in its own right: 12 flash fiction stories based on the answers to questions about the calendar that Gaiman asked on Twitter. The website is great, but I would definitely pay money to hold this in my hands, with dedicated artwork (something that’s already been done for The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains… and The Sleeper and the Spindle).

I liked this collection a lot. It’s not as good, in my mind, as Smoke and Mirrors, but it’s definitely better than Fragile Things. It’s classic Gaiman and is both a good introduction for newbies to Gaiman’s writing and for established fans. Oh, and it also continues his tradition of hiding stories in the book’s introduction.

Book details

ISBN: 9781472217721
Publisher: Headline
Year of publication: 2015

Questionable Content, Vol. 3

By Jeph Jacques

Rating: 4 stars

My Great Questionable Content Binge continues with the third collection of the slice-of-life webcomic. So Marten and Dora have become a couple, but it’s interesting to see just how early that Dora’s insecurity over the situation raised its head. I had forgotten about that, from when I was reading it online. I had to skip ahead on the webcomic to find out when they broke up, and it’s not until about #1800 or so, so there’s a good couple of more volumes of Marten/Dora coupledom to come, but if he sticks with the 300 or so comics to the collection, volume 6 will end on a downer :(. It’s also interesting to see how early the seeds of Faye’s hard-drinking and her friends’ worrying about it were sown. That’s something that will get reaped 2000 or so strip down the line. Blimey, that’s some forward planning, going on there!

The enlargement of the cast continues with Penelope (or is that Pizza Girl?) joining the Coffee of Doom crew as well as Tai and Angus making their débuts. QC has turned from a will they/won’t they romance into, effectively, a humorous soap opera, albeit a soap opera with murderous scooters, mischievous PCs and semi-feral roombas. It’s a lot of fun to read, and so much quicker on paper than on-screen (those waits between page loads cumulatively add up).

Book details

ISBN: 9781936561704
Publisher: TopataCo Books
Year of publication: 2012

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