NerdBliss

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a story deeply implanted in our cultural psyche. To me, it makes reading the original story all the more complicated. It is hard to separate my preconceived notions from the story as it was written. A couple years ago, my best friend Kate and I both read the story in a semi-successful effort to be our own book club and catch up on some classics. I enjoyed the story, but Kate had the passionate opinion, so back in February 2010, she wrote a review for my old blog. I’m going to publish it here because I like it.

One interesting note is the description of Hyde in the story is an underdeveloped and deformed in body, along with being the evil monster we are familiar with. In the movies, Hyde is built more like Frankenstein’s monster than hunchbacked Igor. The Hollywood version would easily bend threaded rods. Robert Lewis Stevenson explains how Dr. Jekyll developed his good traits, so his darker tendencies manifest as a small and weak man. Less impressive for horror films, of course, it also seems to illustrate how evil was viewed in his time and ours.

Now for some thoughts from Kate, who you can find on Twitter @Katerbell81:

People assume I’m smart and I never correct them. Thus, I felt connected to Dr. J in his self-imposed virtuous exile. People assume he’s nice and he has never corrected them. He simply doesn’t want to be good anymore. Really, who can blame him? Nice people has massive amounts of expectations placed upon them. They must not just be nice but nice ALL the time and to EVERYone. Nice people never turn to the ever present annoying person and say, “Do you like games? I’ve got a great new game. It’s called hide and go f— yourself. You start.” So Dr. J is simply finding a way to express his dual nature and we get an amazing view on the human condition. Mr. H is malnourished and (unlike his movie star likeness) short, diminished, and ill-fit. I enjoy this view as it greatly demonstrates the restraint Dr J has maintained. The book is not a favorite and I probably won’t revisit it. The story lacks rhythm and flow for me. We are simply told Dr. J has desires and impulses, but they are never fleshed out. The implied is they are sexual in nature but without description or detail I am left wondering. Is Dr. J into some odd S&M fantasy? under-aged girls? or horror upon horror for a prominent man of the era is he simply gay? All we the readers are sure of is the separation of good and evil allows for Mr H to displace Dr J as the man in charge, thus eventually resulting in death. Personally I find Dr J to be weak in the story. He wants to allow his inner desires to be fulfilled but creates not an alter ego that he can exercise control over but an entire different being so as to avoid culpability. Smacks of wussy behavior and leaves me doubting his inherit goodness from the start. Reading this paragraph I notice several contradictions, I have decided to allow them to stand as is. I am my own Hyde.

No Comments | In: books | tags: book, classic lit, Kate, science fiction. | #

I have spent a lot of time thinking about Ender’s Game since I finished it, yet in some ways I am at a loss to articulate exactly why I enjoyed the book. Clearly, I did as I am currently reading the fourth book in the series, but more on that a little later as this post is about Ender’s Game alone. I want to write something about this very important science fiction novel, so I am endeavoring so set down some thoughts. I’ve even gone so far as to read some negative reviews on Amazon in an attempt to solidify my opinions.

I can count at least three reasons Ender and the universe he lives in have occupied such a prominent place in my mind beyond continuing the series. First, I started reading Ender after Chris downloaded and started reading it. Sharing a Kindle account, we can read the same book at the same time. I love that. Having someone to talk to about a book while reading it is a new experience and delightful. Secondly, Ender’s Game is so filled with the themes and devices of science fiction literature. Comparing and contrasting with other science fiction universes is inevitable and never ending fun.

Third – most important – is how I can’t get over how revolutionary Card’s vision of the future was at the time the book was published in 1985. Earth hasn’t been attacked by aliens, but the ubiquity of portable devices with internet access is dead on. Card has characters on the “net” discussing and influencing world events on a global scale. I remember computers in 1985 and it is hard to imagine those machines being used in such an operation. As I ended up pointed out in response to one of those negative Amazon reviews, that portion of the book seems like no big deal because we live in a world where such a thing is believable and commonplace.

The other major criticism some readers have seems to be the center of it’s plot: Earth is under treat from alien forces and is training super-intelligent children to command humanity’s defense forces. Ender is one of those children. He is taken from his family at the tender age of six for Battle School. These children are organized into armies to fight mock battles in a zero gravity chamber. Adult supervision is minimal. These kids do not act like kids or even view themselves as children. Had I not read others criticism of how the children behave and talk, I would have not thought it unusual. Gifted children don’t talk like children, after all, nor view themselves as less than adults, however they do lack emotional control as high IQ does not advance them in other areas. These children are frighteningly smart and their whole world is built around a military structure. I found them quite believable.

My only criticism of the novel is how it ended. First published as a novella, Ender’s Game was expanded to novel length and to allow for a connection to the next three books. I somewhat regret reading the forward to my Kindle additions of both Ender’s Game and, the second book, Speaker for the Dead, as hearing the back story impacted by view of both books including seeing the end as a little “tacked on” as Card revealed the idea for Speaker didn’t originally feature Ender at all. As I do highly recommend the book and not wish to spoil it for others, I will only say I consider the end to be a “bridge” between the original and Speaker to be separate from Ender’s Game itself, but a necessary inclusion to allow the story to continue in the same universe and including Ender himself. I do agree Ender’s universe fits the story, but I would have divided things up a little different had it been my choice to make. Explaining where I would have made a change is a spoiler of the highest order, so I will not share here. Of course, I have talked about my preference for “companion books” over “series” and this preference informs my opinion in this case. While I see it as a flaw in the single novel, when taken together as a series, it is less of a problem.

The biggest strength in the book is, beside the prediction of internet impacting culture, the way Card asks philosophical questions about how the human race should conduct itself without drawing a conclusion for the reader. Wrapping the whole discussion up in a story about a boy who spends years fighting mock battles on a space station is impressive and, I have no doubt, influenced many readers who saw themselves in Ender. It bring to my mind a quote most dear to my heart, Issac Asimov quoted at the end of episode 200 of Stargate: SG1: “Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinded critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction, its essence, has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all.” Ender’s Game lives up to those high ideals of science fiction.

No Comments | In: books | tags: book, books, Chris, Issac Asimov, Orson Scott Card, review, science fiction. | #

Originally published July 31, 2009 on my old blog. I have made revisions and updates before republishing here. And, as always, Nerdbliss reviews aim to be spoiler-free.

Funny does not even begin to explain the mind-bending word trip which is reading a Douglas Adams’ novel. Like so many fans, I’ve read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy dozens of times since I discovered it. All five of the the books in the famous trilogy are delightful. I own at least one copy of each. Whenever I find a copy at a book sale, I pick up an extra. I’ve got five copies of So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). I just know I’ll have occasion to share. As I am now a Kindle devotee and keen for an excuse to buy the digital copies, I would happily send out those spare copies to a reader upon request as they were meant to be long term loans to those in need of a wee bit of Douglas in the first place. Douglas would have loved eReaders, I feel, as he was a forward thinking tech-loving frood.

At the last book sale I went to (as of publication date listed at the top of the post, naturally), I hit the Douglas mother load – a hard back copy of the lesser known The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
(Which I’ve just discovered is not yet offered in a Kindle edition. Do go click where it says “tell the publisher I’d like to read this on Kindle, would you?). Don’t you just love the title? It’s mystical and down to earth. It’s dramatic in it’s very silliness. I’d wanted to read it for ages.

When I got home, I realized Tea-Time was the second Dirk Gently novel, so I ordered Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency from PaperBackSwap. So far, I’ve only read the first book.

Writing a synopsis of the book is impossible. Or at least improbable.

Not so much plot driven, the book is full of surreal ideas. There is a murder and a ghost and a time traveling professor and a robot from another dimension who arrives in a upper floor bathroom on a horse.

My favorite thing in the book is a tiny running bit about a sofa. Yes, a sofa. It belongs to the main character Richard, a college classmate of the man who calls himself Dirk Gently. Before the book begins, the sofa is delivered to Richard’s apartment. The delivery men get it halfway up the stairwell where it has remained lodged ever since. It will not go back down or up, defying the very laws of physics.

Richard is a software designer so he wrote a program to help solve the sofa issue. On his 1980s Mac (Douglas was a Mac lover, but I’d like to think he might have grown out of it had he stayed with us longer), the sofa revolves over and over in the hallway coming to the conclusion again and again that it’s impossible to free the sofa without removing a wall. Richard watches the sofa turn when he ought to be working. When the police suspect Richard of killing his boss, the inspectors climb back and forth over the sofa to search the apartment. I adore the absurdity of it all.

I’m looking forward to reading The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, then rereading both. See, I know a secret about Douglas Adams – the books get funnier the more you read them. (Since writing this review, I have read both, twice, but I dare not review Tea-Time without a refresher. Darn, I’ll have to read them again.)

No Comments | In: books | tags: book, Douglas Adams, review, science fiction. | #

Post first published August 20, 2009 on my old blog. I have made some updates and modifications before publishing it here. Also, it is my policy to write spoiler-free reviews.

Khaled Hosseini’s acclaimed novel The Kite Runner is the story of a boy coming of age in Afghanistan. Amir is twelve in 1975 when the book begins. Soon everything in his country changes. The Russians came and the monarchy fell. He narrates his personal journey from son of a wealthy and well loved business man to a refugee smuggled across the boarder for a price.

I count “coming of age” tales as my favorite type of book beyond consideration for genre. The transformation a child makes into the beginning of adulthood is universal. Different cultures have various ages where a boy or girl becomes a man or woman. But, for most, who we becomes crystallized years before. I love reading about diverse people going through those frightening and exciting times.

The backdrop of Afghanistan’s tumultuous history in recent decades is fascinating. I admit my knowledge of those events is an outline only in part because I wasn’t born until five years after the beginning of the tale. The story stands even if you didn’t know the history.

In fact, the story line would hold against another backdrop. Two boys, Amir and Hassan, the servant’s son, a year apart and raised together. Each having lost his mother, they are nursed by the same wet nurse. Yet, the divide is clear Amir is privileged and Hassan is a servant. I could imagine a similar dynamic in another time and place. Regency England, perhaps, or some fantastical land. Again, universal themes always make for good reading.

Hassan prepares Amir’s breakfast and cleans his clothes before Amir leaves for school. Hassan doesn’t go to school or learn to read, but Amir spends hours reading stories aloud to him. Since the boy’s fathers were raised together in the same way, under the same roofs, it is nothing unexpected.

Amir’s father treats the two boys the same in many ways, remembering Hassan’s birthday and buying both kites for the yearly tournament – the highlight of the winter. The kite tournament seems brutal through western eyes, boys rolling their kite string in broken glass and glue with the goal of cutting the other boys kite strings. I thought of how protective today’s American parents are and how children barely have the freedom to go outside to fly kites, let alone to weaponize them.

Like every childhood, Amir’s has complications. Like every family, secrets cannot stay buried forever. Watching the story unravel from Amir’s viewpoint is intimate. The book is at the same time beautiful and poignant, going far beyond the simple story of two young boys, far into where the circumstances of childhood fuel the events of adulthood.

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It’s Friday as I start my response and will likely be Saturday when I publish it in addition to being the Monday of my workweek, yet I have an answer to share for Booking Through Thursday, so here is the question:

Series or Stand-alone?

My ideal preference is for related books based in – to borrow a science fiction term – the same universe yet with each book a self contained story. I like meeting old friends again or peaking behind corners I wasn’t privy to in another book, but I prefer not to need additional reading to complete the story.

I can name several sets of books I love which fit the standard of “companion” books.

Madeleine L’Engle, my favorite author since I first read A Wrinkle in Time, had interconnections in nearly all of her novels. In most editions of her young adult works, you’ll find a family tree linking her characters. When I first saw it in the copies of the Time Quartet, I poured over it. I spent the next several years acquiring each related title and read them all into dog-eared familiarity.

At the other end of my taste in books, Rachel Gibson often writes romances for supporting cast in previous books or slips in a situation where an old friend can make a cameo without making it a series.
She wrote a bunch of stories featuring the fictional Seattle Chinooks Hockey Team in one way or another and books set in a rural Idaho town and a Texas town. The closest she comes to a true series is her quartet of friends each of whom are writers in a different genera and have completely different approaches to romance. Even those are stand-alone stories even though it’s obvious each woman will eventually get a book of her own. Being romance, they can be read out of order because the formula of girl meets boy, conflict keeps them apart, conflict is resolved, happily ever after ensues is a given. All that is revealed in reading out of order is the name attached to the inevitable spouse.

If truly choosing between a series or a stand-alone book without the option of companion books, I would have to go for stand-alone books. I often feel, especially with modern writers, a story is split into “trilogies” or more simply for financial reasons. If it’s not a literary device, I would rather a writer tell me the story in one volume. Even Tolkien wanted Lord of the Rings to be one book, so I do suspect the vast majority of decisions to serialize comes from the publisher rather than the writer.

It is not just my inner cynic, however, preferring one book over many. The list of books which I count not just as favorites, but as life impacting includes so many titles without sequels or companions. Many of them leave little room for addition except in the reader’s imagination. I can’t fathom a book to go with A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Girl With Pearl Earring, or The Red Tent. Or A Handmaid’s Tale. Or Nightfall. Or To Live Again. I could go on for days listing titles.

I go back to the original when I want visit with my friends who live in that world. I know them intimately, yet each time I see the book a new way. I believe there is a C.S. Lewis quote regarding the necessity of reading a book more than once to really understand it, but I haven’t been able to find it. Even if he didn’t say it, I do. Certainly, a book well loved is different each time it is read if for no other reason than the personal growth in the reader which occurs between readings.

It seems in my own reading, the more books about a character, the less depth the subsequent readings provides. One book is like a single painting or photograph. A series is like a movie. When you look at a single stationary object of art over a period of time, the meaning comes not from seeing things you haven’t seen before, but from seeing the same things in a different way. Of course, the experience exists in any artistic form, but is seems to me the more brevity in the work, the more room for seeing this way. Short stories or poems work better than novels, I think, and single books better than series.

With all that being said, sometimes a series is necessary to the story or format of the stories. Detective tales lend themselves to series as do closely related police procedural novels – and yes there is a real difference between those two types of books – because each crime faced is a new story no matter who is solving it. I can’t imagine The Chronicles of Narnia being one book instead of seven. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy could have been one book, but it could not have been a single book telling all the stories of the five books in the trilogy.

The bottom line becomes simple: The story itself ought dictate whiter the format is a single book, companion books, or a series.

3 Comments | In: books | tags: book, booking through thursday, L'Engle, meme, science fiction, ya fiction. | #

This week’s musing asks… What is the last book that you learned something from? What book was it, and what did it teach you?

It is entirely likely friends and readers are sick to death of hearing about my sewing adventures. I sympathize. I can’t wait to be less focused on sewing for a bit, but I trudge on.

The success I’ve had in modifying a pattern and completing a muslin mockup of my dress for our Klingon wedding performance in April is in large part thanks to How to Use, Adapt, and Design Sewing Patterns: From store-bought patterns to drafting your own: a complete guide to fashion sewing with confidence by Lee Hollanhan. The copy Chris got me for Christmas is destined to be dog-eared.

I’ve mentioned it in a couple posts, but I cannot say enough good things about it.

One thing I’ve found in learning crafts in general and sewing specifically is most instructions assume a certain level of familiarity with the basic skills and terminology. This book starts at the beginning of it’s subject matter assuming no knowledge and even includes a section in the back with basic sewing techniques.

Now, I didn’t go into this a total novice, but I being primarily self taught, I would not have known to iron my pattern pieces (who would think you could iron paper?) or how serrated scissors are the best option for silky fabrics. Clear illustrations and color photography show things I’d always thought I’d need an experienced sewer to teach me in person. Like laying out patterns on stripped or patterned fabric. Now, I haven’t tried it yet, but I feel like I could do it referencing the pictures in the book.

Hands down, the most useful part of the book for my needs is the chart with all the body parts to be measured for comparison to the pattern measurements complete with explanation and diagrams. I wouldn’t have known where to start without those seventeen points of reference. Add the section showing how to modify store bought patterns made my project possible. Now, I will say, the part on modifying pattern pieces was only the start of what I ended up having to do. Both the shape of the dress and my body shape differ substantially from the examples, but apply the principles I learned in the book, some common sense and geometry got me where I needed to go.

No Comments | In: books | tags: book, musing monday, pattern modification, patterns, sewing. | #

I bought Uptown Local and Other Interventions by Diane Duane for two reasons. First, Diane Duane wrote my favorite Star Trek novel. No surprise, it’s Spock’s World, but I don’t just love it because I love Spock. Telling the grand tale of Vulcan from it’s formation as a planet to Kirk’s time (as we think of it in the Federation terms) and interwoven with a complicated plot involving inter-planetary politics and, of course, involving the crew of the Enterprise is an impressive feat of writing. I’m not ashamed to say, multiple points in the book move me to tears.


So when John Scalzi put out a call to his blog readers to buy digital copies of her books from Ebooks Direct while she was dealing with the fallout from fraudulent activity on her bank account. Banks don’t care if you need money to eat and stuff while they sort out the details and I was more than happy to trade a little cash for ebooks. Did I mention, I love my Kindle?

I got Uptown Local and a book by Diane’s husband Peter Morwood which I haven’t read yet.

First, I should say, I love short stories. A well written short story, especially in fantasy and science fiction, the world building and story telling in a small number of words creates a distilled flavor that packs a punch most full length novel can’t match. Almost all the fantasy I’ve read has been in the form of short stories. Maybe that’s because so many fantasy novels are super long and intimidate me. Short stories give me everything I need – dragons and magic and a connection to mythology – without reading for weeks.

One difficult thing about reviewing short story collections is not spoiling the stories. I loved this collection. Some of the stories are set in the universe of Diane’s Young Wizard young adult novels. I want to pick those up based on the strength of these stories. Modern settings for magical stories dominate the collection. The couple revolving around food were very cool and connected to each other but not interdependent. The characters and settings are well developed, again, hard to do in smaller word counts. Establish mythology is played played with and even a famous (dead) writer is called into action to save his hometown.

What happened with Diane’s bank account was terrible and I wouldn’t wish such frustration on anyone, but I’m glad I tried one of her non-Trek books. I won’t be waiting for such an event to pick up some more.

2 Comments | In: books | tags: book, science fiction, star trek, ya fiction. | #

I read on GeekMom this month is the 50th anniversary of the publication for my favorite book ever, A Wrinkle in Time. Along with releasing a special edition to commemorate the occasion (with new content. *Squee*), there is a fifty blog, fifty day celebration. I’m looking forward to reading all those posts. While I am obviously not one of the fifty bloggers picked for the official celebration, I wrote about Wrinkle years ago (July 13, 2007, to be exact and for the record) and had planned to republish here eventually. No time like the present:

I was in fourth grade when I read Madeleine L’Engle’s famous children’s book. I read my mother’s yellowing paperback copy; an edition from the 1970′s with the same cover as the photo. It was first published in 1962, when my mom was eight years old. I am sure my mother read it shortly after.

A Wrinkle in Time is on it’s face a science fiction story for children. On a deeper level it is a book about the nature of good and evil; love and hate. Although it has often been railed against or banned by Christian groups, it is as much a Christian children’s book as C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books.

Otherworldly beings guide the journey into space to rescue the scientist father of awkward teen Meg and her baby brother Charles Wallace with the help of their friend Calvin.

The passage that creates so much controversy is a discussion of famous humans in history that have been fighters of the evil that is threatening our Earth. The fighters listed are Jesus, da Vinci, Shakespeare, Einstein, Bach, and Gandhi.

The book’s detractors consider it inappropriate to place Jesus in such a list. I disagree; it is an apt list of those on the side of all that is good, true, light. My faith in Jesus as the Christ, the son of God, is not in conflict with the idea that his life as a man illuminated our planet with some revolutionary ideas.

There are a couple of reasons this book has always struck a cord with me more than any other has. I have read it at least once a year since I first discovered it. Plus, I have read many other of L’Engle’s books of all genres. Hers were some of the first “grown up” or adult books I ever read.

First is Meg. She is smart, but does poorly socially. Her loneliness is painful, but her family loves and understands her. I have always related to her struggles.

I also felt a strong connection the the spiritual statement the book makes. Wither the book influenced me or simply reflected my innate spiritual beliefs, I will never know. I suspect it is a little of both.

No Comments | In: books | tags: book, childhood, L'Engle, science fiction, ya fiction. | #