The Ocean at the End of the Lane

          

            Okay, so the rundown is as follows: This is my book of 2013. The year isn't over, but I'm feeling pretty good about this one. The good parts are that it's an amazing book, though a little depressing (especially in my current state), a fantasy that mixes fairy tale with childhood memory in a way that's both familiar and entirely unique. The descriptions are fantastic, the dark bits are frightening, and it goes everywhere it can in the relatively short page length it does. 

                The bad parts are that it can sometimes be too on the nose, and when it telegraphs the bad things that happen to its heroes later, it does so in a little of an overwrought fashion. But neither of these are particularly strong reasons. Read the book already. It deserves it and so do you. 

Leviathan Wakes

                

         Okay, so the rundown is as follows: Leviathan Wakes is a space opera somewhere between Consider Phlebas and a Cronenberg flick, the story of a group of desperate and damned people who have to figure out what's going on and why before the human race brings itself to extinction by playing with toys it doesn't really understand.  It has some incredibly gruesome imagery, some of the tightest writing in a space opera since the late Iain M. Banks left the field. The plot weaves its way between sci-fi noir and gritty starfaring, finally letting the two collide and showing just how out of place each genre is in the other's story. Jim Holden and Detective Miller are two very strong protagonists, and watching them bounce off one another is wonderful.
            The bad is that there is no unified story here, but two stories that manage to fit together. There's also a very lopsided way of going about the whole antagonist thing, at one point having them be a faceless group of high-powered ship breakers and in the last act having them be incredibly un-threatening, to the point that the reveal in the third section of the book is decidedly underwhelming, even with the stakes being raised in each successive chapter. 
              But in total, this is a book well worth reading and buying. James S.A. Corey is a pair of authors to watch, and you should give them your undivided attention.

Damned

         

     Okay, so the rundown is as follows: Whatever mojo Chuck Palahniuk had, it's gone now. Long gone. Damned is an ugly book, but not an entertainingly ugly book in the same way Choke or my personal favorite, Invisible Monsters was. The social pariahs encountered within these pages aren't half as interesting as the ones in Rant, and the cynicism is more choreographed than natural. In short, this reads like a book written by someone poorly imitating Chuck Palahniuk, and the last person in the world you should ever want to be a poor imitation of is Chuck Palahniuk. The descriptions are gross but seem kind of superfluous, the characters are one-dimensional except for Madison, who serves to alternately call every woman who isn't her "Slutty McVanderslut" and needlessly regurgitate the author's views. The plot is entirely beside the point, and the ranting interludes where Palahniuk rages against modern culture just seem like a list of things the author doesn't like.

            On the off-chance that I missed the point of the book, it does do a pretty good job of moderning up The Divine Comedy, and there are some genuinely funny moments (like being chauffeured to Hell in a town car, or a demon asking "Are you familiar with the William Morris Agency?") here and there. But sifting through these is an exercise in torture itself, and even an ending where it turns out that most of the book is the angry rant of a dead teenager who was simply put in a bad circumstance can't really save this from being a complete miss. If you feel like reading Palahniuk, find his earlier novels when he still had something to say. It's pretty much all downhill from here.

Popular Hits of the Showa Era

 

      
      Okay, the rundown is as follows: This is a wonderful satire of two groups of disaffected people who somehow find their way in the world through karaoke and murdering each other. While this is well-written, it's more about the relationships between the two groups, whose dwindling members are experiencing life and bringing each other closer by slowly picking off the other side. The murders are a very small part of it. The characters are overly-cartoonish and sociopathic, but if you can get beyond that, then there's a rich, very twisted comedy hiding between these covers, and one I suggest people read.

           On the other hand, the characters are all cartoonish sociopaths with no real moral compass, the novel doesn't give us anyone to root for on either side, and the whole thing seems a little too over-the-top for its own good. It's like a roadrunner cartoon disguised as social satire. When the devastating consequences of the actions taken in the book finally come to a head in the final chapters, it comes as something of a shock-- no one's really been chastised for their behavior before now, they've merely existed in a cartoon, and to suddenly have psychological and physical consequences reached at that point kind of seems needlessly cruel. Even for characters as unsympathetic as this.

            But in the end, I enjoyed it. As nasty and twisted as it was, it's an interesting way of looking at the social issues in an urban environment, and a good satire of those "life-affirming" books where the heroes are brought closer together by some kind of event. Also, I didn't quite see the ending coming, and that's always a plus as far as I'm concerned. More as always, this time with spoilers, below.

Go, Mutants!

           Okay, so, the rundown is as follows: This is a book that is at times funny, and at times very clever. It's a good look at being a teenager and at the same time being a monster, and while the metaphor for puberty and understanding one's body is a little heavy-handed, I can't say it's exactly un-clever, either. The book's a teen comedy that turns very weird, and I can't say I don't get behind that, especially with the kind of stuff I read, and my love of retro-future and B-movies. It's clear that Larry Doyle has a clear interest in a lot of the culture, and he loves both his audience and the world he's created. Add to this some very good narrative voice and some incredible imagery, and you have a book well worth the read. 

              The problem is, this is a book for a very specific audience, and when it misses, it misses pretty badly. The tone gets really in-jokey at times, bringing famous monsters and concepts in with nary a thought, and while most of them actually work, occasionally they wind up being more "Really? You put that in there?" Apart from the self-conscious referencing, I felt there were a few gags that needed to have a payoff but...didn't (The one involving The Brain Who Wouldn't Die as a reference in particular). Overall, though, this is a great book, one I'd suggest reading as soon as you can get it out of the library.

More, as always, below.

In The Miso Soup

             Okay, the rundown is as follows. This is a good, atmospheric book that explores a large number of themes in a very strange way. It's at once a meditation on violence, a discussion of buddhism and redemption, a possible metaphor for cultural invasion of Japan from the West, and even a minor commentary on the culture surrounding the sex industry. That it juggles so many concepts in under two hundred pages is a feat in and of itself, but the fact that it does it with enough style and atmosphere to keep me interested makes it a great novel in my terms, and one that makes me wish it got into more people's hands. The descriptions are excellent, and the mounting dread leading into the single cathartic moment in the book is handled very, very well.

           However, the downside is that this is a novel more concerned with its underpinnings than the actual plot. Divided into three acts, one for each day during the New Year's celebration in Tokyo, the first act leads up to a catharsis in the second that starts to meander by the third. While the book's unnerving atmosphere continues, and in fact takes the book stranger places in the second and third sections, the lack of a definite ending and the partial abandonment of the plot halfway through could be jarring for some. It's best to think of the book not as a thriller, but as a kind of bizarre meditative piece involving violence, discussion of food, some Buddhism, and sex. That said, if you're looking for a thriller, this isn't the book for you. It's more American Psycho than Psycho, delving into the philosophical and psychological rather than aiming for flat-out horror.  

More, as always, below.

The Extra

                 

                 Okay, the rundown is as follows: This is a book that moves. It's not a slow book, or a book that gives much time to settle down and take a breather, it just shouts "go" and runs off without you, hoping you catch up. It's a book written like an action movie, and it delivers on that premise. If anything's too illogical or silly, all one has to do is go "It's just a show, I should really just relax." and enjoy the ride as is. The characters are colorful, the dialogue is good, but where the book really shines are the cinematic action sequences that run throughout, from running down a skyscraper in the opening sentences to the tense fight through the corridors of an office building at the end. 

                  The problems set in when the whole world feels way too safe. Safety is a good thing sometimes (see last' week's review), but the issue I have with the book is that I never thought the characters were in any danger. It's the kind of action that you never feel hits the point where the heroes are ever out of options, in fact, they handle themselves amazingly well. The book's biggest sin is that it feels cozy and predictable, and by feeling cozy and predictable, it does itself a disservice. You should never completely feel the heroes are out of danger, just that whatever it is, they will eventually overcome it. Also, I am worried as this is supposedly the first book of a trilogy, yet it came out three years ago and is pretty much wrapped up in a single volume. There are also some character arcs I question, but more, as always (with spoilers) below.