Dodger - Terry Pratchett

I was disappointed because I was expecting Discworld, and this isn't Discworld, it is the fictional story of Charles Dickens' inspiration for Oliver Twist, mainly for the character of the Artful Dodger. Also, it is a YA novel, so it's a bit shorter than you might expect, except that it is printed in a slightly larger font, on slightly thicker paper, so the book is about the same size as Snuff.

Once I readjusted my expectations, I quite enjoyed this. Dodger is a great character, and I did appreciate this being set in the real world rather than in Ankh-Morpork. The fantasy setting of the Discworld lets Pratchett point out a lot of things that are wrong with our society, but Dodger doesn't need the fantasy setting, because it has a historical setting, and I think the book is more powerful for having that historical setting. Especially in a novel targeted at young adults, it is great to have a book which references some of the cultural history - the story of Sweeney Todd, the origins of the London Peelers, the different layers of society, and some pretty significant research into the state of London's poor.

Overall a great book, and now I want to go read Oliver Twist with a fresh perspective.

Snuff - Terry Pratchett

The latest Discworld book, starring Sam Vimes. Usually one of my favorite Discworld characters, but somehow I didn't love him quite as much in this book as I usually do. Possibly because this story was a bit bleak, and I wasn't always sure he was going to survive...and I was sometimes worried that something horrible was going to happen to Sybil or young Sam. Possibly I will enjoy this more when I re-read it one of these days, but I was definitely a bit anxious - especially because the villains in the Sam Vimes books are truly bad and don't tend to stay captured. Also, Vimes has become a rather powerful character, so in order for things to actually threaten him, they need to be extremely dangerous.

On the other hand, there were many things I absolutely loved about this story - Willikins is a fabulous character and gets into the action a bit more than usual. The goblins are just wonderful. Vimes figuring out how to deal with the Summoning Dark is pretty fascinating too. Possibly my favorite aspect of the Vimes books nowadays is the fact that young Sam & Elli are the same age, and Pratchett has taken to publishing some of the books Vimes reads to young Sam - and so I've been reading them to Elli. We're currently reading "The World of Poo" and Elli seems to find it every bit as entertaining as young Sam, although thank goodness she isn't even a little bit interested in starting her own poo collection...mostly just in giggling every time the word poo comes up. Then there's Sam's relationship with Sybil, which is just wonderful. Every love story should end up this way, in a marriage where there is a huge amount of mutual respect. And the fact that they both go about changing the world in their own totally different, yet very complementary ways.

The Long Earth - Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter

I'm always nervous about collaborations between a beloved author and one I've never heard of before, but as usual I should just trust Terry Pratchett to know what he's doing. Also, I appear to be living under a log to never have heard of Stephen Baxter and now intend to go hunt down his other novels.

The idea behind The Long Earth is that there are a possibly infinite number of alternate versions of Earth, each only as far as a thought away. Up until very recently only a very few people were able to step between them, but now the schematics for a "Stepper", a device which allows one to step between worlds, has been published on the internet, and suddenly everyone is Stepping. Except for the few who can't. Also, iron does not move between worlds for reasons no one understands.

Joshua Valienté is a "natural stepper", and unlike those who need a device in order to Step, he doesn't get nauseous as he steps from one world to another. This makes him an ideal companion for Lobsang, either a sentient computer or a Tibetan motorcycle repairman reincarnated inside a computer, who plans to travel as far across the long earth as possible. There are a few other characters who stay closer to home, allowing us to see what happens to society when people can step pretty much anywhere they please. What happens to crime when theft is unbelievably easy, but there is enough space and resources for everyone? What happens when your gold supply becomes effectively infinite? Why farm when there is enough space for everyone to enjoy a hunter gatherer lifestyle?

The social implications of The Long Earth are fascinating, but by far the most interesting bit as far as I was concerned involved the alternate versions of Earth. The landscape changes slowly as Joshua and Lobsang travel farther from Datum Earth, and this does appear to be the only version of Earth which produced humans, but there are other sentient beings out there which are likely the basis for our legends of trolls & elves. But it is the landscape itself that I find the most fascinating, the unfolding of different possibilities.

Overall this felt like an introduction to the concept of the Long Earth, setting the stage for an infinite number of possible stories and I'm very interested in seeing where Pratchett & Baxter take this. Step Day is a singularity with huge potential, and it wouldn't surprise me if other authors wanted to come play in this particular sandbox.

Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

I saw a preview for the movie, and then when I saw the book sitting on my friend's desk I couldn't resist borrowing it. It is a fascinating book, largely because of the style in which it is written. It consists of 6 short stories, each split in half. You get the first half of each story in chronological order, followed the the second half of each story in reverse order, so that the 6th story which happens at the furthest point in the future is uninterrupted. The most fascinating thing about it, for me, was that in each story following the first, the main character discovers the previous story in some form or another.

Several people I spoke with found the 6th story very frustrating to read because of the language it is written in - set in the far future, English has changed rather a lot from what we use today. It definitely slowed me down, but I really enjoyed the social implications of the language - you can infer a lot about the history of a society based on its language, and Mitchell did a beautiful job of creating the language.

For me, the most frustrating thing was not really understanding what the whole thing was about until the very last page when finally things came together in a way that was incredibly satisfying. I think that in order to enjoy this fully, I need to sit down and read it over again - it would definitely go faster the second time, but I'm not sure I loved the characters enough to be willing to do this. Certainly not right away. Although I'm definitely tempted to go see the movie, which is apparently much easier to follow if you've already read the book.

The Crimson Petal and the White - Michel Faber

This came highly recommended by a friend, and I was a little shocked when it arrived at the library by exactly how big it was. 800 pages! But it is a fairly large print, and not particularly dense prose, so I finished it faster than I was expecting.

This is mainly the story of an extraordinarily intellectually intelligent prostitute named Sugar. She is beautiful, very unique looking, and very good at figuring out what people want. She is a great character. You can't help but want her to succeed, even when you see her working so very hard at something that you are sure isn't going to make her happy.

The narrative starts very oddly, with the narrator talking to you as if you are actually physically present in 1870s London, following people around, hoping to make connections that will eventually lead you to the upper crust of London society. I really enjoyed this, and it was very similar to what everyone in that society is trying to do - work their way as far up the social ladder as they possibly could. I also especially loved Caroline, the first prostitute you meet in the story. Her life is fairly horrible, she has lost everything that you would figure makes life worth living, and yet she is a fundamentally happy person, able to enjoy the little things that are left to her, and caring deeply about the people in her life.

Sugar is a more complicated character. She is not at all happy with her lot in life, and grasps at the opportunity to change things when William Rackham comes along. He is initially infatuated with Sugar, and she works very hard to make herself utterly indispensable to him so that he will not lose interest. It is fascinating that although Sugar doesn't love William, in fact she doesn't like him in the slightest, she is so invested in making him love her that she winds up acting and feeling very much like someone desperately in love.

William's wife Agnes is another fascinating character. Initially she seems utterly crazy and it would be very easy to write her in such a way that the reader would simply despise her, and yet you wind up really caring about her and wanting things to work out somehow so that she will be alright. The situation with her daughter Sophie just left me shaking my head in disbelief at the entire 19th century and their attitude towards women.

Overall I think I really enjoyed this book, but it has some really horrible moments that left me feeling pretty depressed. On the other hand, if you want a very graphic example about how much the situation of women has improved over the past 200 years, this is a very good book to read.

Delta Wedding - Eudora Welty

This wound up on my reading list because of an intriguing post over on Evening All Afternoon

"I've been writing a lot lately about feminist musicologistSusan McClary and her ideas about the need for an alternative narrative practice. McClary goes in search of a mode of storytelling that does not dwell in a land of perpetual desire, of constant striving for a climax or resolution which, once achieved, spells the end of the story (the so-called "phallic" or "heroic" narrative arc), but that instead stresses pleasure over desire, that glories in what McClary calls a "voluptuous 'being-in-time' quality" - an examination of what we have and who we are, rather than what I want and who I would rather be."

which made me really curious to see what a novel without resolution would be like.

Delta Wedding is a week in the life of a large family in the Mississippi delta. One of the daughters is getting married and outlying family are coming for the wedding. There is very little plot. One of the characters, Laura McRaven, is 9 years old, has recently lost her mother, and is back for the wedding and quite possibly to stay permanently rather than living in a far away town with only her father. Another character, George, is dealing with the fact that his wife Robbie has just run away and it isn't entirely clear why, or whether she is going to come back. Then there's Dabney, the bride, who is marrying 'beneath' her, and it becomes obvious that she doesn't actually know Troy all that well, and that they don't actually spend much time together. The day after the wedding where several different groups head into town to run errands not realizing that it is Sunday and all the stores will be closed. So many little things which in an ordinary book would drive the typical big problem, increasing miscommunication, eventually leading to huge misunderstandings, and finally some sort of resolution.

Instead life goes on. Things which could lead to huge misunderstandings instead get resolved, often with very little effort because the people involved really do love one another and are very used to living together. Issues get sorted out, problems get solved at least temporarily, and life goes on. Laura gets invited to stay on the plantation with her aunt & uncle, and of course says yes (it is what she's expected to say after all), but then thinks to herself that she probably won't stay. But of course she is only nine, and her aunt will almost certainly convince her father to let her stay, and she will probably be quite happy there...and you can sort of see how she is going to wind up belonging in two places at once.

It is pretty fascinating. There are so many people and so much activity that there is very little privacy. Everyone is quite aware of what everyone else is doing, and yet it is easy to wander off on your own, and everyone definitely has their own private thoughts. It is a comfortable place where there are lots of adults to share the responsibilities for taking care of all the children, and yet there are so many different children that it won't be particularly easy to see when someone is having a problem but not being really noisy about it. There will be a lot of benign neglect along with any number of assumptions about what particular children want to be doing...which won't coincide with what they actually want. Especially with Laura. And yet the fact that she will have a place there, will belong to this family is likely going to be really good for her, even though she won't have the undivided attention that she might get living in town with her father.

I'm not really sure what I thought of this. It is beautifully written and was enjoyable to read once I got over trying to anticipate where the story was going (it wasn't going anywhere, it was just hanging out and enjoying the scenery). I read it up at the cottage, and was a little bit depressed from time to time...which might be because of the book, or the fact I wasn't sleeping all that well. I'm not sure I would read it again, and yet I am finding myself thinking quite a bit about it.

Child of Fire - Harry Connolly

This was the subject of a Big Idea piece a while back, and the concept intrigued me. Also, the windbreaker. And it really didn't disappoint. This story is quick, fun, and different.

There were a few things which threw me off initially and almost made me put the book down without reading it. First of all, on the cover it says "A Twenty Palaces Novel" which made me think that it wasn't necessarily the first book in the series. Then, when you start reading, the main character makes many references to previous events - which is totally normal when you need to fill people in on the back story - but in such a way that it made me feel like there was definitely a previous book, and that I would probably be happier if I read that one first. It turns out this was the first novel published, but there is in fact a prequel...which I haven't read, but other people on the internet seem to think is worth reading. If my library had a copy, I would definitely get my hands on it, unfortunately this is the only book of Harry Connolly's they happen to have...and I enjoyed it enough that I'm seriously considering buying the whole series.

Ray Lilly has just gotten out of jail. He's been a car thief, he's killed his best friend, and now he's working for someone who hates him but who has for some reason agreed not to kill him (for the time being at least) and who has been instrumental in getting him out of jail, and he's flat broke. It turns out that he's actually a really good guy when you give him a chance. He really does want to save the world, and that makes him really quite lovable. He's definitely someone you want to have on your side.

The magic in this story is really interesting and fairly different from what I've seen other places. It isn't really well explained in the first book, largely because we're seeing the world through Ray's eyes, and while he would like to understand the magic a whole lot better, he doesn't actually know all that much about it. Yet. I'm really curious to find out what he's going to do next.