I've read one other book by this Nobel Prize laureate and liked it much more than this one. I love books that demand a lot of the reader, but reward aI've read one other book by this Nobel Prize laureate and liked it much more than this one. I love books that demand a lot of the reader, but reward accordingly. This book seemed at first like an easy, breezy read, but quickly became tedious.
It's about an aging man trying to recover memories from his childhood. The protagonist is really the only significant character in the book; there are encounters with others, but they are fleeting and possibly not even real. There's a dreamlike quality to this novel. The narration flows through three different time periods in the protagonist's life and it's not always immediately apparent when or where you are.
In the end, there aren't any firm answers given, there are just hints. Perhaps if you read very carefully, you might be able to divine exactly what happened, but at the end of the book I felt like I didn't read much of anything at all; a lot of words, but not a lot of meaning or impact....more
Great story that has a mystery but is not a mystery. Beautifully told, maybe a little bleak, easy to read but not a shallow read. I need more fiction Great story that has a mystery but is not a mystery. Beautifully told, maybe a little bleak, easy to read but not a shallow read. I need more fiction like this in my life. ...more
A blend of memoir and nonfiction exploration of the National Park Ranger career. Did you know that Park Rangers are the most likely law enforcement ofA blend of memoir and nonfiction exploration of the National Park Ranger career. Did you know that Park Rangers are the most likely law enforcement officers to be assaulted? More than border patrol, more than FBI agents, more than beat cops. I’ve imagined a simple, peaceful life of a park ranger for myself a time or two; the point of this book is to disabuse you of the notion that being one is anything but simple or peaceful. ...more
A rollicking good time, and one of the only things that can hold my attention these days. It’s about as close to watching a tv show as you can get wheA rollicking good time, and one of the only things that can hold my attention these days. It’s about as close to watching a tv show as you can get when reading a book. Despite feeling like it treads a lot of the same ground as the first book, this had me riveted most of the time and the ending especially made me excited for the next in the series....more
I've been hot or cold on John Scalzi in the past. Sometimes he gets a bit juvenile, but usually he's fun. I found this book inconsequential and unexciI've been hot or cold on John Scalzi in the past. Sometimes he gets a bit juvenile, but usually he's fun. I found this book inconsequential and unexciting, though....more
"Varied" isn't typically the first word used to describe Cormac McCarthy's oeuvre. After all, I think you could pick any random sentence in the world "Varied" isn't typically the first word used to describe Cormac McCarthy's oeuvre. After all, I think you could pick any random sentence in the world and I could tell you if McCarthy wrote it or not, and not just because of the lack of punctuation. His writer's DNA is just that potent. But looking back on all of his published work, there's a heckuva lot of variety there.
His career started out as a Faulknerian emulation, chronicling hillbilly tragedies and grotesqueries in The Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark and Child of God. Slight stylistic and thematic twist to Suttree's existential ramblings (more Shakespeare than Faulkner), then a swift righthand turn to philosophical Westerns with Blood Meridian and The Border Trilogy. Then pulp fiction in No Country for Old Men, and finally what for a long time seemed like it would be the last thing we'd get from McCarthy: the postapocalyptic father-son tale of The Road, which somehow is simultaneously the bleakest and the most hopeful book he ever wrote. This is not to mention his plays and screenplays and the short stories that are hard to get hold of.
What's great about The Passenger is that it feels like a walking tour through his whole career. Stylistically, this feels most similar to Suttree, with long digressions, a mostly silent protagonist, and a meandering plot, but it also has scenes of carefully described action a la No Country for Old Men or The Road. It's got the philosophically bloviant minor characters of The Border Trilogy. It's set in the same South of his first three books. Heck, it's got straight-up references to Blood Meridian.
But it treads a lot of new ground as well. This may be the biggest leap McCarthy has ever taken, bigger than switching from Southern dreadfuls to Western dreadfuls or apocalypses. I never would have expected McCarthy to write a transgender character in a way that wouldn't embarrass either of us, with grace. I didn't think I'd see characters travel around not only America but also Europe. While I knew McCarthy was interested in mathematics and physics, it was hard for me to imagine how he would fit them into one of his stories; he's always so concerned with life or death circumstances, with the corporeal. But in this book, the science fits with his themes perfectly.
For me, McCarthy has always stood alone. I don't like to imagine him in the modern world, talking to other people. I imagine him cloistered in a monk's cell, lined with bookshelves of Shakespeare and Milton and Melville and whatever other arcane books, spinning out his yarns. But The Passenger had me making a lot of unexpected connections. The structure and paranoia of Pynchon. The dialogue of David Foster Wallace. The family dynamics of Salinger's Glass family, even. I didn't know I wanted McCarthy to be brought down to earth, to be able to be compared with other authors I love. But it works.
This book is definitely not for everyone. It's not going to satisfy you if you're looking for the gripping, pulpy plot of No Country For Old Men, even though it's being advertised similarly. There is the seed of a pulp fiction here, where protagonist Bobby Western, a salvage diver, discovers a sunken airplane that's just covered with mysterious circumstances, but this is no reason to read the book. It's got other things on its mind. The Passenger is basically plotless, but that doesn't mean it's storyless. There's story dripping off the pages; history and tangents and dreams are abundant here. But most of all, there's character.
I have an affinity for shaggy, overgrown and serpentine novels. When it comes to Pynchon, I prefer V. over The Crying of Lot 49. I love the sprawl of Delillo's Underworld to the focused precision of White Noise. Give me the bloated mess of Les Miserables over Dickens's tightly plotted novels any day. And while I love McCarthy's Blood Meridian, Suttree is more suited to my tastes.
So this is the perfect book for me. It feels like a gift McCarthy gave me personally, not to be overly sentimental about it. He could have left me with The Road and I would have been perfectly happy with that, but now he's given me this: a strange, difficult, bloated, wonderful novel. It's perfect for me. (And there's another one coming! December can't come soon enough.)
Merged review:
"Varied" isn't typically the first word used to describe Cormac McCarthy's oeuvre. After all, I think you could pick any random sentence in the world and I could tell you if McCarthy wrote it or not, and not just because of the lack of punctuation. His writer's DNA is just that potent. But looking back on all of his published work, there's a heckuva lot of variety there.
His career started out as a Faulknerian emulation, chronicling hillbilly tragedies and grotesqueries in The Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark and Child of God. Slight stylistic and thematic twist to Suttree's existential ramblings (more Shakespeare than Faulkner), then a swift righthand turn to philosophical Westerns with Blood Meridian and The Border Trilogy. Then pulp fiction in No Country for Old Men, and finally what for a long time seemed like it would be the last thing we'd get from McCarthy: the postapocalyptic father-son tale of The Road, which somehow is simultaneously the bleakest and the most hopeful book he ever wrote. This is not to mention his plays and screenplays and the short stories that are hard to get hold of.
What's great about The Passenger is that it feels like a walking tour through his whole career. Stylistically, this feels most similar to Suttree, with long digressions, a mostly silent protagonist, and a meandering plot, but it also has scenes of carefully described action a la No Country for Old Men or The Road. It's got the philosophically bloviant minor characters of The Border Trilogy. It's set in the same South of his first three books. Heck, it's got straight-up references to Blood Meridian.
But it treads a lot of new ground as well. This may be the biggest leap McCarthy has ever taken, bigger than switching from Southern dreadfuls to Western dreadfuls or apocalypses. I never would have expected McCarthy to write a transgender character in a way that wouldn't embarrass either of us, with grace. I didn't think I'd see characters travel around not only America but also Europe. While I knew McCarthy was interested in mathematics and physics, it was hard for me to imagine how he would fit them into one of his stories; he's always so concerned with life or death circumstances, with the corporeal. But in this book, the science fits with his themes perfectly.
For me, McCarthy has always stood alone. I don't like to imagine him in the modern world, talking to other people. I imagine him cloistered in a monk's cell, lined with bookshelves of Shakespeare and Milton and Melville and whatever other arcane books, spinning out his yarns. But The Passenger had me making a lot of unexpected connections. The structure and paranoia of Pynchon. The dialogue of David Foster Wallace. The family dynamics of Salinger's Glass family, even. I didn't know I wanted McCarthy to be brought down to earth, to be able to be compared with other authors I love. But it works.
This book is definitely not for everyone. It's not going to satisfy you if you're looking for the gripping, pulpy plot of No Country For Old Men, even though it's being advertised similarly. There is the seed of a pulp fiction here, where protagonist Bobby Western, a salvage diver, discovers a sunken airplane that's just covered with mysterious circumstances, but this is no reason to read the book. It's got other things on its mind. The Passenger is basically plotless, but that doesn't mean it's storyless. There's story dripping off the pages; history and tangents and dreams are abundant here. But most of all, there's character.
I have an affinity for shaggy, overgrown and serpentine novels. When it comes to Pynchon, I prefer V. over The Crying of Lot 49. I love the sprawl of Delillo's Underworld to the focused precision of White Noise. Give me the bloated mess of Les Miserables over Dickens's tightly plotted novels any day. And while I love McCarthy's Blood Meridian, Suttree is more suited to my tastes.
So this is the perfect book for me. It feels like a gift McCarthy gave me personally, not to be overly sentimental about it. He could have left me with The Road and I would have been perfectly happy with that, but now he's given me this: a strange, difficult, bloated, wonderful novel. It's perfect for me. (And there's another one coming! December can't come soon enough.)
Merged review:
"Varied" isn't typically the first word used to describe Cormac McCarthy's oeuvre. After all, I think you could pick any random sentence in the world and I could tell you if McCarthy wrote it or not, and not just because of the lack of punctuation. His writer's DNA is just that potent. But looking back on all of his published work, there's a heckuva lot of variety there.
His career started out as a Faulknerian emulation, chronicling hillbilly tragedies and grotesqueries in The Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark and Child of God. Slight stylistic and thematic twist to Suttree's existential ramblings (more Shakespeare than Faulkner), then a swift righthand turn to philosophical Westerns with Blood Meridian and The Border Trilogy. Then pulp fiction in No Country for Old Men, and finally what for a long time seemed like it would be the last thing we'd get from McCarthy: the postapocalyptic father-son tale of The Road, which somehow is simultaneously the bleakest and the most hopeful book he ever wrote. This is not to mention his plays and screenplays and the short stories that are hard to get hold of.
What's great about The Passenger is that it feels like a walking tour through his whole career. Stylistically, this feels most similar to Suttree, with long digressions, a mostly silent protagonist, and a meandering plot, but it also has scenes of carefully described action a la No Country for Old Men or The Road. It's got the philosophically bloviant minor characters of The Border Trilogy. It's set in the same South of his first three books. Heck, it's got straight-up references to Blood Meridian.
But it treads a lot of new ground as well. This may be the biggest leap McCarthy has ever taken, bigger than switching from Southern dreadfuls to Western dreadfuls or apocalypses. I never would have expected McCarthy to write a transgender character in a way that wouldn't embarrass either of us, with grace. I didn't think I'd see characters travel around not only America but also Europe. While I knew McCarthy was interested in mathematics and physics, it was hard for me to imagine how he would fit them into one of his stories; he's always so concerned with life or death circumstances, with the corporeal. But in this book, the science fits with his themes perfectly.
For me, McCarthy has always stood alone. I don't like to imagine him in the modern world, talking to other people. I imagine him cloistered in a monk's cell, lined with bookshelves of Shakespeare and Milton and Melville and whatever other arcane books, spinning out his yarns. But The Passenger had me making a lot of unexpected connections. The structure and paranoia of Pynchon. The dialogue of David Foster Wallace. The family dynamics of Salinger's Glass family, even. I didn't know I wanted McCarthy to be brought down to earth, to be able to be compared with other authors I love. But it works.
This book is definitely not for everyone. It's not going to satisfy you if you're looking for the gripping, pulpy plot of No Country For Old Men, even though it's being advertised similarly. There is the seed of a pulp fiction here, where protagonist Bobby Western, a salvage diver, discovers a sunken airplane that's just covered with mysterious circumstances, but this is no reason to read the book. It's got other things on its mind. The Passenger is basically plotless, but that doesn't mean it's storyless. There's story dripping off the pages; history and tangents and dreams are abundant here. But most of all, there's character.
I have an affinity for shaggy, overgrown and serpentine novels. When it comes to Pynchon, I prefer V. over The Crying of Lot 49. I love the sprawl of Delillo's Underworld to the focused precision of White Noise. Give me the bloated mess of Les Miserables over Dickens's tightly plotted novels any day. And while I love McCarthy's Blood Meridian, Suttree is more suited to my tastes.
So this is the perfect book for me. It feels like a gift McCarthy gave me personally, not to be overly sentimental about it. He could have left me with The Road and I would have been perfectly happy with that, but now he's given me this: a strange, difficult, bloated, wonderful novel. It's perfect for me. (And there's another one coming! December can't come soon enough.)...more
A page-turner, even if I did turn the pages rather slowly. It's better than the tv show, and the tv show wasn't bad (I only watched the first season.)A page-turner, even if I did turn the pages rather slowly. It's better than the tv show, and the tv show wasn't bad (I only watched the first season.) For the most part, they're very similar, but there were some differences, especially near the end. The book is actually less complex than the show, which had more characters and plotlines to follow. Here, there are two points of view: Holden and Miller. I get the sense that the scope is going to open up in the next book, but this was a such an easy, quickly paced book, it was hard not to like. I'm excited to continue....more
Sixty years ago, a small Swedish village's population disappeared overnight without a trace, other than a murdered woman's body in the town square andSixty years ago, a small Swedish village's population disappeared overnight without a trace, other than a murdered woman's body in the town square and an infant. Now, a documentary film crew has arrived to investigate the still-untouched ghost town. Some weird, creepy stuff starts happening, the crew start getting to each other, are they even really alone?... you get the picture.
The problem is, you can already guess almost everything about the story just from that description. There were several twists in this book, but no surprises. I loved the unsettling atmosphere, but the story and characters were too predictable to get excited about. But I enjoyed it as a comfortable read (if this is the type of book you're in the mood for), despite it not being particularly well written or executed....more
I swear, Europeans are always so miserable when they're on a beach vacation. Meursault from Camus's The Stranger was so unhappy at the beach he just hI swear, Europeans are always so miserable when they're on a beach vacation. Meursault from Camus's The Stranger was so unhappy at the beach he just had to kill an Arab. Alberto Moravia's Agostino, instead of relaxing and working on his base tan, obsesses over his mom's sexuality to the point of despair. And then there's this French kid Leonard who sees a friend choking to death on a swingset and can't muster up the enthusiasm to untangle the ropes for him.
A finely and simply written, if depressing, tale of teenage angst taken to the extreme. Big dollops of Camus and Salinger....more
Whatever you think about Elon Musk, it's undeniable he has become one of the most relevant and influential people in the world. He's not just an eccenWhatever you think about Elon Musk, it's undeniable he has become one of the most relevant and influential people in the world. He's not just an eccentric billionaire anymore; he's in the middle of just about every major issue going on right now. I used to admire him quite a bit. Now I'm conflicted, to say the least.
I admit I thought it very strange when I first heard that Walter Isaacson wrote this book. Elon Musk is just 52. A biography seems premature, especially because it seems we're currently at some kind of tipping point in which Musk's career will either begin to fall apart or he becomes even more consequential to this world. But Walter Isaacson is the right guy for this job, however strange it is. He's great at writing about flawed, divisive geniuses. There are many parallels between this book and Steve Jobs.
Like Jobs, Musk is a genius. Also, an asshole. But it's that dichotomy that makes both of them so interesting. Are they so effective and successful because or in spite of their flaws? Is there something about being a genius that makes you a difficult person? What should we all think or say about a person with so much power and potential, but such a mercurial relationship with the world? Along with the story of Musk's life, these are the questions Isaacson sets to explore, if not actually answer.
One of the reasons I chose to read this is to try to make sense of how Musk, an exceedingly brilliant thinker and strategist, could be making so many bizarre and self-destructive mistakes of late. The answer is simply that he is a severely damaged person. There's a good bit in here about his rough childhood, his absolutely demented father, his mental health struggles, his megalomania, his hero complex, his strained relationships with women and his children. To be honest, it's surprising that he's as healthy as he is.
And if you're wondering specifically about his follies with Twitter, there's quite a bit of that here. The book does a good job of laying out the context of each decision made with Twitter and while Musk definitely has made a lot of mistakes in its purchase and running it, things do make a little more sense than it seems when I scroll Reddit. For one, it does seem like there was a huge amount of waste. Musk does not abhor anything more than waste. He runs lean, no-nonsense companies. One of the biggest themes of the book is Musk's algorithm, which he applies to products, systems, and workforces... question every requirement; delete any piece you can (and if you don't have to add any pieces back later, you didn't delete enough.) The mass layoffs at Twitter were the first step in that algorithm: he deleted so many employees, he's having a hard time hiring back enough of them to run the company. Inhumane, perhaps, but not an insane strategy.
Musk is also an extreme risk taker and an adrenaline junkie. He thrives on drama and is exhilarated by controversy. The amount of times he placed his companies on the line for a risky bet to pay off is almost unbelievable. And somehow, they've just about always worked out. Maybe with Twitter, he's finally running out of luck.
The questions I wanted to answer with this book was this: does the good Elon Musk has contributed to the world outweigh the bad? Is he fundamentally good or evil? And there is no answer, not yet at least. The story's not over yet....more
A great continuation of the story begun in Too Like the Lightning. This is a curious series, because it's difficult to read, frustrating at times, wayA great continuation of the story begun in Too Like the Lightning. This is a curious series, because it's difficult to read, frustrating at times, way more complex than it really needs to be, but I could not put it down. I wanted to take a break after the first book and spend some time reading easier books, but this world called me back.
Too Like the Lightning was weird; this book gets even weirder. It strains the brain to retain all the different concepts, characters, philosophy, and even the plot. There are many twists within the story, but they aren't the normal twists you'd expect from sci-fi, where something out of left field happens and surprises you. The twists here are more about reinterpreting what you've already learned from the story. You'll encounter a revelation about a character's past that totally changes the way you feel about them and what they've done, and it'll flip the whole plot on its head. At the end of book one, a revelation about the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash' changes everything about how you interpret the entire story so far. That happens several times in this book as well.
Spoiler notes for myself to review when I pick up book three, to refresh my memory: (view spoiler)[
-O.S. is the arm of the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash' (allied with the Masons, Europeans, and Mitsubishis) that carried out assassinations for 200+ years in order to maintain world peace. They were exposed by Casimir Perry, which is now leading to a big ol' war.
-Sniper is named head of O.S. after Ockham Saneer is arrested. He assassinates JEDD Mason (who is brought back to life by Bridger) and then runs off, vowing to do whatever he needs to hold the Hive system together (probably by killing a bunch more people.)
-It's revealed that Casimir Perry used to be Merion Kraye, a European politician who was in love with, but forsaken by, Danae Mitsubishi. Perry holds a mean grudge and spent years working his way back into the political inner circles. His revenge was to expose O.S. and then he is killed when the European Parliament is bombed.
-Carlyle Foster spent most of their life as a gag-gene, but is revealed to be the child of Perry/Kraye and Danae.
-After everything goes down, Vivien Ancelet reveals themself as the Anonymous. Then they have to appoint a new Anonymous, which was supposed to be JEDD Mason, but as they've got their hands full, Mycroft Canner becomes the Anonymous.
-JEDD Mason is apparently a god from another universe who has been incarnated within a human body. After he was assassinated and then brought back to life, he says that he continued existing even when dead, so he's no longer afraid of using death as a tool, because it means that if every human is actually a god from another universe, then killing them does not mean ending a universe. He realizes the inevitability of war and assigns Mycroft the task of killing Sniper.
-Ando names Dominic Seneschal as head of the Mitsubishi Hive, for some reason.
-Bridger is overwhelmed with the responsibility of having the powers of a god, so he basically kills himself to give the Major his body. The Major is now a child-sized adult. Mycroft realizes that the Major has subtly evolved by Bridger incorporating his reading of Apollo's Iliad. He now has the knowledge and experience of three people, (1) the Major with his knowledge of World War 1 warfare, (2) Achilles with his knowledge of ancient Greek warfare, and (3) Apollo Mojave with his utopian knowledge and skillset. He is renamed Achilles Mojave. (hide spoiler)]...more
A bit of a disappointment. This is a short novel about a young man named Haruo with some unhealthy and obsessive tendencies. In the West, we'd probablA bit of a disappointment. This is a short novel about a young man named Haruo with some unhealthy and obsessive tendencies. In the West, we'd probably call him an incel; in Japan, there's the term "hikikomori". After some vague bad business with a young woman in his hometown, he's sent off to Tokyo to live alone, where he becomes absolutely obsessed with the Japanese crested ibis (scientific name: Nipponia nippon), a species on the edge of extinction.
Simplicity is something I appreciate about Japanese literature. I don't know what it is--if it's a translation thing, or a cultural thing, or what--but most of the Japanese fiction I've read has a wonderful straightforwardness about it. Simple sentence after simple sentence, making a pure sort of story. Even when it gets really weird, like with Haruki Murakami or Sayaka Murata or Kobo Abe, each sentence seems pared down to its basic and most important parts in service of the story.
But there's a difference between simple and plain; this book feels rather plain. When you hear me say "this is a story about an incel obsessed with birds", you can already guess this whole story. There are no surprises here. I don't think this was based on a true story or person, but it feels a lot like a long form NYT article detailing how a disturbed individual ended up doing something rash. So while there's nothing very wrong with this book, there's also nothing about it that makes it stand out....more
An eccentric and very complex read. This story takes place in the 25th century over the period of a few days. Our storyteller is Mycroft Canner, a "SeAn eccentric and very complex read. This story takes place in the 25th century over the period of a few days. Our storyteller is Mycroft Canner, a "Servicer" who is repaying society for old crimes by basically being a slave to everyone who feels like giving him a task. He's not just an ordinary Servicer, though; his services are frequently used by the most elite of the world.
The world has seen peace for a few hundred years. Society is broken up into Seven Hives. Nations are a thing of the past; at a certain age, each person is free to choose their own Hive, depending on their own values. Geography is no longer consequential, because flying cars can taken you anywhere in the world in a matter of a couple of hours.
What makes it even more interesting (for me, at least; I'm sure this is the boring part for some) is that this world is organized by principles from Enlightenment era philosophers. And they aren't just sly references by the authors. The characters in this book are constantly referencing and using the works of Kant, Rousseau, Hume, Locke, Diderot, and others to justify their actions or worldviews. These people of the future are much smarter than me.
I enjoyed this book for the most part. I think it's needlessly complex in some areas, but that's also some of the fun... it's a rich, layered world filled with weird characters and locales. There was one aspect that was just a step too far and really didn't work for me: (view spoiler)[Madame d'Arouet's Sade-inspired brothel, and especially the chapter with all of the Hive leaders gathered there, was way too over-the-top ridiculous for me. The idea that they all gather there to manipulate the world together, with Prince Ganymede lounging naked across his sister and brother-in-law, with the Anonymous and Bryar Kosala too horny to proceed with the shadowy intrigue, it was just too much. (hide spoiler)]
At the very end, I appreciated (view spoiler)[the twist that basically changed the entire book in retrospective and simplified things quite a bit: the threat of economic recession was a red herring, the Black Sakura theft was just a way to draw attention to the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash's global-scale political manipulations. And I like that, despite the complexity of the whole novel, it ends with a pretty simple, sci-fi ethics question: if you could save ten thousand lives by murdering a few people, would you be justified? If that sort of conspiracy is discovered, should it be exposed, or should you let it go on happening for the good of the world? (hide spoiler)]
One thing I didn't like about the book is that I don't think there's a single "normal" human in it. Everyone is a power player or a pawn of a power player and I really have no idea how the average person lives in this world. I don't think that anyone works anymore, but I have no idea what people do. I wish we got more of a ground level view of how everything our characters are doing affects the masses.
I'm pretty sure I'll continue on with the books, but not right away. The things that will keep me reading: (view spoiler)[(1) Who is responsible for the Black Sakura theft? Mycroft is my only guess. (2) It's revealed that JEDD Mason has some Bridger-like powers, but what are they? It seems like he's able to read minds; is that his power, or is it something else? (3) Will Martin Guildbreaker expose the conspiracy and begin a war? (4) I'm a bit mystified about the second cave filled with toys that Mycroft was collecting. It seems like Mycroft is amassing an army for Bridger to bring to life, but that idea is really silly to me. (5) I'm interested to see Mycroft and Saladin's revenge storyline play out. (hide spoiler)]...more
Kate Beaton (of Hark! A Vagrant fame) has here a big, long graphic memoir about her time working in the oil fields of Canada. It's lonely, depressing Kate Beaton (of Hark! A Vagrant fame) has here a big, long graphic memoir about her time working in the oil fields of Canada. It's lonely, depressing work, unfriendly for a woman in her early 20s, outnumbered by men 50 to 1. It's not the most uplifting or exciting narrative, but it's certainly an important story.
The majority of the book is populated by nine-panel pages, punctuated with big, pretty splash pages depicting a serene winter landscape or the hell of acres of industrial buildings and smokestacks. There's some really nice art, but most of it is not very interesting to look at. The typical nine panel page just features a couple characters' talking heads and speech bubbles.
The plot is a bit repetitive, as she moves around the provinces, from drill site to drill site. At each site, she meets a new cast of characters, most of which don't receive a lot of distinguishing characterization, so I quickly forgot who was who. Beaton's style is just not well suited to a large character roster, because there's not a lot of visual distinction going on there; it's often hard to tell who she's talking to, if it's someone I'm supposed to recognize. At one pivotal moment in the story, I was unsure who a key player was, even after flipping pages back and forth to try to figure it out.
I'm left thinking that this book was either too ambitious or not quite ambitious enough. The wit and joy of her quick, funny comics didn't translate here. This story either needed to be told more simply and succinctly, or a more elaborate visual and storytelling style needed to be developed for it....more
I've been on a reading kick of wilderness thrillers. Peter Heller scratched that itch really well. This is like Peter Heller meets Breaking Bad. It haI've been on a reading kick of wilderness thrillers. Peter Heller scratched that itch really well. This is like Peter Heller meets Breaking Bad. It has some really beautiful nature writing as well. It's more complex, in a good way, but less pageturny than Heller. It was really good and I'm excited to check out Panther Gap....more
A nice, quick read. Not bad, but far less dramatic and enticing than The River.A nice, quick read. Not bad, but far less dramatic and enticing than The River....more
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