August books
Thursday, 2 September 2010 11:37![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usuallyhats
1. A Dance to the Music of Time - Anthony Powell (I am not sure whether to count this as one book or twelve. Or, indeed, four, since I had a four volume edition. It is a bit like Trial of a Time Lord in that way.) I really loved this a lot - once I settled into it, I was completely immersed. It's not perfect by any means - I agree with The Father, who said that the third volume, covering WWII, was the best and the fourth was a little disappointing, not least because I really wasn't ready to meet a whole new set of characters in Books Do Furnish A Room - but when I got to the last page I felt rather sad to have left those characters and their world behind. It was a lovely, elegiac ending, but I wanted more! Jenkins is a rather likeable narrator (and couldn't really be otherwise: people like him because he is interested in them, and his role as the narrator relies on him being interested in other people's stories) though a little frustrating at times in his reluctance to tell his own and more particularly his family's stories. The little glimpses he gave us of Isobel, his wife, made me think I would really have liked her, given the chance. The massive cast of characters who drift in and out of Nick's life were pretty well drawn (some more than others, obviously): it didn't fall victim to interchangeable minor character syndrome, which is rather impressive given how many of them there were!
2. Doctor Who: Seeing Eye - Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman Sam's character growth was very convincing, and I loved the moment when she steps back into the TARDIS again: it works in the same way that Escape Velocity doesn't. The Doctor's adventures in bureaucracy were a lot of fun, and what happens to him later was convincingly awful. I thought the resolution of the plot was a little muddled, but other than that, it was great.
3. The Light Beyond the Forest - Rosemary Sutcliff I must admit that the medieval style didn't really work for me: I appreciated how well it was done, but didn't particularly enjoy reading it. Also, Galahad is a rather unlikeable figure: I was very pleased when we went back to Gawain, or Percival, who are much more sympathetic.
4. Treason's Harbour - Patrick O'Brian I loved how tense this one got towards the end; I wanted to know how it was all going to fall into place.
5. The Steel Remains - Richard Morgan Exciting, readable fantasy, if a little more graphic in the violence and rape department than I really prefer. It did fall into the trap of assuming a gender-essentialist-with-exceptions society, which was a shame. Two out of three of the main characters are gay, which was great! It did mean that the homophobia was more open than in standard heteronormative fantasy worlds, but it was also more challenged. I didn't quite connect with the characters as much as I wanted to, but overall I enjoyed it and would pick up the sequel if I came across it.
2. Doctor Who: Seeing Eye - Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman Sam's character growth was very convincing, and I loved the moment when she steps back into the TARDIS again: it works in the same way that Escape Velocity doesn't. The Doctor's adventures in bureaucracy were a lot of fun, and what happens to him later was convincingly awful. I thought the resolution of the plot was a little muddled, but other than that, it was great.
3. The Light Beyond the Forest - Rosemary Sutcliff I must admit that the medieval style didn't really work for me: I appreciated how well it was done, but didn't particularly enjoy reading it. Also, Galahad is a rather unlikeable figure: I was very pleased when we went back to Gawain, or Percival, who are much more sympathetic.
4. Treason's Harbour - Patrick O'Brian I loved how tense this one got towards the end; I wanted to know how it was all going to fall into place.
5. The Steel Remains - Richard Morgan Exciting, readable fantasy, if a little more graphic in the violence and rape department than I really prefer. It did fall into the trap of assuming a gender-essentialist-with-exceptions society, which was a shame. Two out of three of the main characters are gay, which was great! It did mean that the homophobia was more open than in standard heteronormative fantasy worlds, but it was also more challenged. I didn't quite connect with the characters as much as I wanted to, but overall I enjoyed it and would pick up the sequel if I came across it.
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Date: 2 Sep 2010 10:49 (UTC)Or did you mean August books? :P
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Date: 2 Sep 2010 10:50 (UTC)(Thanks! *corrects*)
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Date: 2 Sep 2010 10:52 (UTC)