Legends of the Fallen Sky

Legends of the Fallen Sky is a poetry, short story, and art collection by Marge Simon and Malcolm Deeley.  I include art in that list because the drawings by Simon were the root of all of the writing in the book, according to the introduction by Deeley.

The world that unfolds in Legends of the Fallen Sky is mystical, magical, and quite poignantly presented.  I am a real fan of works by both Simon and Deeley, and found this collection especially delightful.  I enjoyed going through it section by section, savoring the verse, the prose, and the art at leisure.  I think that is the best way to partake of this particular feast, because there are riches available in it that invite a luxurious enjoyment.

You can get your copy from Sam's Dot Publishing.

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American Empire: Blood and Iron

I picked up Harry Turtledove's American Empire:  Blood and Iron without having read any of the rest of his Southern Victory series.  When I first got started, I thought, "Oh man, what have I gotten into, starting mid-series?"  I expected it to be difficult to catch up with what was going on and how different this alternate history might be from the reality we live in, but as it turned out, after a couple of chapters, it was all very easy and natural to keep reading.

Turtledove's writing is captivating and the story interesting.  I'm most sure I want to get sucked into the whole series, but I can certainly understand how some people would do so.  It's fun reading, and the action moves along at a nice pace.

Alternate history stories can be lots of fun, when done well.  And Turtledove certainly does it well.  If you're looking for a very involved, well-developed alternate history to lose yourself in, you could do worse than this one.



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Black Maria

Kevin Young's Black Maria is a wonderful Beat-inspired, film noir-influenced poetry collection.  I enjoyed the pacing of the tale as much as the meter of the verse.  It is a collection I'm very glad I purchased and read.

While Black Maria is more in the genre of the hard-boiled detective than sci-fi, I thought it worth giving the collection a shout-out here (even though this is more my blog for reviews of sci-fi or speculative works).  Kevin Young is an outstanding poet, and Black Maria is an excellent read.  So, even a little out of the normal genres covered here, I thought it worth the mention.

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Personifid Project

I've had the Personifid Project on my shelf for years, and kept pushing it further and further down on my TBR list.  It finally pushed its way to the top recently, and I am glad it did.  I enjoyed the read.

You can read my fuller review at the Christian Fiction Shop.  Enjoy!

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The Hunger Games

It's hard not to like The Hunger Games.  It is a page-turner of a tale, loaded with action.  Katniss is a pretty likable main character, and even the minor characters carry their weight in the book.  If you are a character-driven reader or a plot-driven reader, it's hard to complain about The Hunger Games.

The same goes, of course, if you are a reader more interested in social critique.  The Hunger Games shares something in common with weightier books such as Infinite Jest, where the notion of entertaining ourselves to death comes under fire.  In The Hunger Games, the idea of a few wealthy individuals getting their thrills out of the hardships of the world's downtrodden is foregrounded.  If it isn't a message built to make those of us in a consumer-driven society think, I don't know what is.  (There's some irony, of course, in the typical entertainment-industry hype that's come to surround the book and film itself.)

I suppose if I had to point out a weakness in The Hunger Games, it would be the writing. While the story is gripping and the prose moves it along at a good pace, there were several spots in the book that I felt the writing not smooth.  And while I can see why both first person and present tense were the chosen modes of storytelling here, I did think that these techniques were not particularly well executed (especially the present tense).  Other complaints I would make about the writing might have more to do with stylistic choices, as I'm not a big fan of dropping conjunctions in order to make for fast-paced prose.  I'd rather see that done with real economy of language than with lazy shortcuts.

All in all, though, The Hunger Games is a fun read that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

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Poetry Collections by Erin Donahoe

I'm spending most of this month getting caught up reviewing books and movies I read/saw in May, and so I don't want to overlook Erin Donahoe's poetry collections Beast and Through the Woods.

Donahoe is especially adept at recasting fairy tales into modern poems.  I really enjoyed both collections (available from Sam's Dot).  They are short, and can be read in one short sitting, or stretched out poem by poem over several reads.  I read Beast in a single sitting in a waiting room, and Through the Woods more slowly, and found either way works perfectly.

If you like to see old fairy tales re-imagined for today's readers, or like seeing them mined for meaning that makes sense to contemporary thought, then you'll absolutely love Erin Donahoe's poetry.

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Men in Black 3

I should have posted about this movie last month when I first saw it, but I got a little behind on these things.

I really enjoyed the movie.  Agent K was really well matched in his younger and older versions, and it made for a pretty fun film.  I wouldn't say I am exactly a Men in Black fan, but this third installment was pretty entertaining.

If you missed it at the cinema and are looking for a good DVD to entertain you for an evening, you could certainly do worse than this one.

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The Cyberiad

I can't remember who first recommended The Cyberiad to me, but I ordered it a year and a half ago, and didn't get around to reading it nearly as quickly as I thought I would.  I did finally get to it last month, and finished it last week.  It is a really good read.  Very smart, and a little challenging at times.  It's a novel any sic-fi fan should pick up and take the time to read.

The collection of stories are all set in a world that is mostly robotic.  Though humans do still exist, they rarely make an appearance in these stories.  The tales all center around the work of two constructors, Trurl and Kapaucius.  It is their adventures in various parts of the galaxy that make up The Cyberiad.

Lem's tales are clever, and in them he manages to poke fun at all sorts of thoughts, customs, and habits that make up our every day lives.  He takes a tongue in cheek look at the development of our philosophy and where it has gotten us.

The stories are fun and the language games amusing.  It amazes me that the book was written over 40 years ago.  It is still very readable and relevant today.  It doesn't have the "dated" feel that much early sic-fi can have.

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Some Interviews of Interest

I've recently posted a couple of interviews that should be of interest to readers here.  You can check them out at Hub Pages.

The first is an interview with Patrick Todoroff, author of Running Black.

The second is an interview with speculative poet and fiction writer (amongst the many other roles he plays), David C. Kopaska-Merkel.  You'll find a video there of Kopaska-Merkel reading some of his own poetry, accompanied by art from Dreams and Nightmares, the speculative poetry magazine he edits.

I'll have more of these coming up in the future, so keep an eye out.

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Catching Up

Since I got back to Singapore from Shanghai, I've been able to do a bit of catching up on my reading.  While I've read several books (I'll review some of those lately), I think what I've enjoyed most has been catching up on the magazine subscriptions that have come in while I was away (3 months' worth of 'em).  And, best of all, I've still got several to go, so I've got things to look forward to.

I just finished the most recent (April-June 2012) issue of Star*Line today, the official magazine of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and found lots of good things there (including reviews of a couple of books I intend to buy). "How Things Change," by James Door, had me laughing out loud.  I really enjoyed that piece.

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The Devil You Know

I finished reading Mike Carey's The Devil You Know today. The book gets something of a mixed review from me. There were parts I found very clever and entertaining, sometimes catching myself just on the verge of laughing out loud as I read. But somehow, the book didn't hit me just right overall. It wasn't as "un-put-down-able" as some books, partly because there seemed to be a few parts where I saw what was coming a little too easily.

 I do like the premise of the tale, though, where the world of the future is one in which the dead and undead have come to mix in with the everyday lives of the living. Seeing how the people of that possible future world cope with the changes — and their moral implications — was actually pretty engaging. There's a lot of wry humor and a jaded tone overall, but underlying it there is a thoughtful consideration for whatever beings make up the vast race of humanity. I thought that was pretty well-done in the book, and it is probably the aspect of The Devil You Know that I liked best.

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The Graveyard Book

I finally got to spend a bit of time on some reading suitable to be reviewed at this blog, and I sure hit on a good one! I finished Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book in 2 days. I finished it that quickly because I just couldn't put it down. It was a very entertaining read.

The story was a typical well-paced Gaiman tale, with his usual dash of wry, clever humor. I found the character Bod particularly endearing. I really liked the trouble he kept stumbling into, and loved the resolution of his story, and how it formed him at last into a man instead of a boy. The heartbreaks he suffered along the way and lessons that he learned in the process all make for good read. It's a story I think is very good for sharing with older kids (preteens and teens), and is also an excellent read for adults.

I'm glad I finally got to this one. In between some reads I "need" to do, it was a real pleasure to get to squeeze out some time for something I wanted to do.


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Bolt

I saw the animated film Bolt for the first time recently. It was pretty cute, but what I really liked was the idea of how we often blur that line between reality and fantasy. The little dog in the film buys into the notion that he is the character he plays on the screen. He doesn't know there is another "real world" outside of the fictionalized world he lives in. It's a lot like the movie Truman, or even The Matrix.

There are so many levels at which to consider the nature of reality vs. illusion. It's kind of fun to see it treated in a kids' film like Bolt.


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Cat Country

I recently finished reading Lao She's Cat Country, one of the earliest works of sic-fi in Chinese. It is a fun read, and really gets you into what was going on in China in the 1930s. The tale is about a traveler to Mars and his interaction with the Cat People there. That's not to say that China was traveling to Mars in the 30s (nor meeting races evolved from cats), but the Cat People society is supposed to be a reflection of the problems in China at the time.

It's a good read. There's a reason Lao She is such a renowned name in modern Chinese fiction, and Cat Country is just a small part it. It happens to be a part I really like.


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a Poem by K. A. Hays

I love this poem, "Just as, After a Point, Job Cried Out," by K. A. Hays, and the animation that goes with it at the MotionPoems version.

JUST AS, AFTER A POINT, JOB CRIED OUT a poem by K.A. Hays from Motionpoems on Vimeo.

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Idylls of the King

I have to admit that when I recently read Tennyson's Idylls of the King, it was bad timing. I am a little burnt out on Arthur at the moment. Or to be more accurate, I am a little burnt out on anything to do with Empire, thanks to some unpleasant encounters with a few neoColonialists over the past year or so. The Arthur story, then, probably wasn't the best thing for me to be reading, but I'd had it on my reading agenda for two years, and felt I ought to get to it.

That said, how can you not like Tennyson's poetry? (At least the blank verse.) There are moments where it just transports you to another time and place. I loved the grandeur of what he's done, though there were some aspects of his take on Arthur that wore on me as I read, particularly how unflawed the king was.

Still, he's Tennyson. The verse is beautiful, and that alone made the read worthwhile.



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Harry Potter's iPhone

I came across this funny post recently. That's an bunch of apps I wouldn't mind having!



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Genesis

Frederick Turner's Genesis is something we just don't see enough of these days: a well-thought-out and well-written epic poem.

Genesis is a tale of the beginnings of life on Mars. It is written in verse, and is about 300 pages long. The poetry, however, is not difficult, and it makes for the perfect form for this particular narrative (which might surprise a lot of readers who think poetry is hard to understand).

The story is complex, the ideas are rich, and the unfolding of the story is managed well. I got my copy secondhand from Amazon, and before I'd even finished reading it, I ordered Turner's other epic poem, The New World, for my Kindle.

If you can get your hands on a copy of Genesis, it's definitely worth the read.

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The Last Dragonslayer

I am a big Jasper Fforde fan, and have enjoyed all of his books. When I saw, in Dec. 2010, that he'd written a book for kids called The Last Dragonslayer, I immediately picked it up. With a series of events that happened on the personal front, I was left without much reading time, and ended up not getting to read the book until about a year after I'd purchased it. I am very glad I finally found the time to do read it, despite being later than I'd like.

Something about it had a feel that was a bit like another of my favorite authors, Diana Wynne Jones. I was glad to see that Fforde's use of magic The Last Dragonslayer had a flavor that was much like that found in DWJ's books. But the humor was firmly Fforde's (Ffordian?), and the humor is always a big part of what I love about his work.

The Last Dragonslayer is a wonderful quest story, raising questions of fate, magic, and the world in which we live. I highly recommend it for readers of all ages.


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On Metallic Wings

What a fantastic poetry collection!

I actually picked up my copy of On Metallic Wings in 2010, and put it on my Reading Agenda for 2011. It took me until the year was almost over before I finally got to Angel Favazza's little gem, and what a treasure it was.

On Metallic Wings explores many of my favorite themes, including technology and how it fits into our future. The blurb on the back cover compares it to 1984, and that's a good starting point for thinking about whether or not you might like to read this volume.

I really enjoyed not only the themes and ideas examined in the book, but also the variety of forms Favazza employs. I'll be keeping an eye out for more of her work, and hoping to see much more of it in years to come.



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