Sunday Salon : Talking About Books

I've missed talking about books. I've missed you, my dear Book bloggers. It's good to be back.

Yesterday I was writing about Flashforward, a book I wasn't quite done reading yet. I finished it this morning, and I have a few things to add about it, and science fiction writing in general.

Firstly, I need to say that there is some very, very good writing in science fiction. There always has been. If you're interested in the best science fiction has to offer, than start with the Hugo (this year's winner was Neil Gaiman for The Graveyard Book) and the Nebula (this year's winner was Ursula K LeGuin for Powers) awards reading lists. From there, check the Locus (link is on the sidebar) best novels of the year. I think I felt a little guilty last night when I couldn't come up with more writers who are excellent right away! Gosh, there are so many - Lois McMaster Bujold, Elizabeth Hand, Paul Park, Naomi Novik, Mary Gentle, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Orson Scott Card. There are classics that I think should more widely read just for the ideas and the future examined, as well as characters and plot. Urusula K. LeGuin, Larry Niven, Neal Stephenson. So many. So when I say Flashforward is an average read, I feel guilty on two fronts; one, Robert J Sawyer is Canadian and I desperately want most of our books to be really good! and two, I feel like I'm perpetuating the stereotype that science fiction is about tomorrow and science ideas first, and good writing second. It's not. The best science fiction transcends the genre and becomes a very good book about people in the future. And how cool is that, to be able to imagine what we could be and to, tomorrow?
Flashforward - Canadian Book Challenge 3 review
So, with that said, my final review of Flashforward is that it is a decent read. It ends better than I thought it would. There still isn't enough characterization to satisfy me, but then I read Middlemarch at the beginning of this year and so far many books I've read this year haven't come close to it yet. Which sometimes I think is unfair, but again, if the best book I read this year was written two centuries ago, doesn't that say something amazing about how literature survives past its immediate time? I don't think Flashforward will - although the idea it presents is so interesting - but some of the very best SF, oh yes, we'll be reading into the next 100 years. So, if you are watching the tv show and it's going too slowly for you, read this book - the tv series is different enough that I think you can do the two at the same time. If you are interested in Canadian science fiction and need a book for the Canadian Challenge, this is a fun one to read for it. And if you want to know what life could be like in 2023, as well as 2008, this is also enjoyable. And the characters are fun, but I can't take them seriously. Some of their motivations aren't explained, and how they react could be more explored, but he took a philosophical bent and that was interesting to think about too. I understand the Schrodinger's Cat physics theory better after reading this book! This book is about the science, but it is enjoyable to read also. 3/5

Talking about best books of the year, Bart at Bart's Book Reviews has a very good post up about choosing your favourite books of the year, since we are approaching that time of year again. He is interested in how readers go about choosing their favourite books. Please let him know, he wants to hear from anyone who goes through this process! How do you choose your favourite book read? I will be doing a post about this later, so all I'll say for now is, yes, there are certain criteria a book has to meet in order to make my list of best books of the year.

I have one last thing before I finish this post. This is for you, my lovely Bad Bloggers. I have a journal now that I keep my list of books I want to read because of YOUR REVIEWS. When I was compiling my list of books I want for Christmas, that was merely what I'd seen in one bookstore this week. I had an idea last night, and went into my bad blogger journal. Here are some books I'm adding to my Books I Want For Christmas List that I began yesterday, that are due entirely to YOUR REVIEWS (bad bloggers are highlighted)

SUSAN'S BAD BLOGGER'S CHRISTMAS BOOK LIST

- Book of Lost Things - John Connolly (Robin, A Fondness for Reading)
- Voodoo Season - Jewell Parker Rhodes (Chris, Stuff as Dreams are Made Of and Eva, A Striped Armchair- reviewed closely together, both equally guilty!)
- Monkey Beach - Eden Robinson (Stephanie, Stephanie's Confessions of a Book-a-Holic)
- Company of Liars - Karen Maitland (Margaret, Books Please)
- The True Story of Hansel and Gretel - Louise Murphy (Wendy, Musings of a Bookish Kitty)
- Looking For Alaska - John Green (Tanabata, In the Spring It is the Dawn)
- Leviathan or the Whale - Philip Hoare (Bride, Bride of the Book God)
- The Way the Crow Flies - Ann-Marie MacDonald (Ann, Table Talk)
- Sea of Trolls - Nancy Farmer (Book Pusher, The Genteel Arsenal)
- Rosemary and Rue - Seanan McGuire (Joanne, Book Zombie)
- An Instance of the Fingerpost - Iain Pears (Ann, Table Talk)
- Mortal Love - Elizabeth Hand (Nymeth, Things Mean Alot)
- The Night Watch - Sergei Lukyanenko (Memory, Stella Matutina)

*Eva at A Striped Armchair is also responsible for The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie review she did recently, which also brought to my attention that Alan Bradley is Canadian. So she gets another point even though I mentioned it yesterday.....

The best of all? Many of these books are books that you loved and posted about. Some you mentioned to me in comments, or in separate emails. All are books I made a note of, and then looking through my journal, thought, "yes! yes, I'm ready to read this now." So thank you, lovely bad creative book bloggers. That's 13 books easily added to my Christmas list. This does NOT include the books from the library I've been getting out and reading because of your blogs, although alas, I'm not doing very well at posting about the books I've read because of you this year.

******Oh! Added just now: just found this one on Genteel Arsenal and MUST find this book asap:
The Bog Child - Siobhan Dowd.

Yes, I'm back. Happy Sunday reading, every one!

Where I've Been

So. Where have I been?

Mostly, I've spent the last month waiting for test results to see if I have cancer. I've gotten a mostly clean report back, except for one thing that we still don't quite know is going on. I thought I was handling the waiting well - this has been going on since the middle of summer - but I found I couldn't engage in the world while I waited these past three weeks. I didn't know this beforehand, or I would have left a little message! I only realized I was withdrawing last weekend, when I realized I had missed shopping for our youngest's birthday last Monday because I didn't want to leave the house.


I have been able to read, and am half-way through Jane Eyre, and took a break to read Flashforward by Robert Sawyer, which the new tv series is based on. I missed the beginning (3 episodes) of the tv show so I decided to read the book instead! It's good SF - I love the premise, but as is the case with usual SF, the characterization peters out about half-way through, and it becomes explanation, telling the story instead of showing us. In writer's circles, we are always being told "show the reader, don't tell." Science fiction, when they are trying to fit the characters and story around the science idea, always reminds me of this lesson (and how not to tell a story!). A good example of writing for characters and science is anything by Connie Willis, the new Doctor Who on TV, Neal Stephenson (and I just looked at Anathem by him and added it to my Christmas wish list!), Kim Stanley Robinson, Ray Bradbury - character driven science fiction. Among the best? Dune by Frank Herbert. At least for me it is, I'm sure many of you have science fiction authors you love. So Flashforward is enjoyable, but don't go into it expecting great storytelling. It's still worth reading, just for how the flash-forward is explained, and the philosophical discussions around a fixed fate vs free will: is our future already fixed? Or is it fluid? If we see what's ahead, does it have to be that way?

So, as I begin to recover from my first scare (and hopefully many years before any more!), I find I can to talk again. It wasn't just you, my dear Gentle Reader, I stopped talking to really everyone but my immediate family, without knowing I was doing it. I used to do this as a child, and apparently some coping mechanisms never go away!

I hope you all have had a really good Hallowe'en in the meantime, and have watched the leaves falling as the year darkens. The good thing about this time of year, as many of you said in your comments to my post about autumn, is that it means we can spend more time reading happily in our homes. I certainly will be. After getting the good news on Wednesday, I can start thinking about Christmas happily, and the first thing I did was -

go to a bookstore.

Even my husband noticed that I hadn't bought any books for almost two months, which is most unlike me. So I'm going to make up for it now! :

My Christmas Wish List (to be added to until Christmas Eve, and possibly after if I don't get everything I want!!)


Canadian Living Slow Cooker Collection (I love my slow cooker!)


Slow Cooker: Best Cookbook Ever - Diane Phillips


Diabetic Cookbook - Bridget Jones (for me, still getting used to this too!)
Fearless Fourteen - Janet Evanovich


Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - Alan Bradley (this looks really good, finally out in softcover)


Anathem - Neal Stephenson (one of the best books of last year, finally out in softcover, and it looks really good)


Champlain's Dream - David Hackett Fischer (since I didn't get it last year, and I still want to read it!)


All The Colours of Darkness - Peter Robinson (latest in Insp Banks series)

Arctic Chill - Arnaldur Indridason (the latest in the series)


Doors Open - Ian Rankin (stand alone mystery)


The Complaints - " " (new series with Malcolm Fox, I think is the main detective's name. Looks very dark and quite good).


The Private Patient - PD James


Tarot Wisdom - Rachel Pollack


Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom - " " (both are classic books in tarot reading)
Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories - Connie Willis (sadly the hardcover no longer available, still waiting for a soft cover version. Come on, Subterranean Press!!!)
oooh, her new one is just listed for next Feb '10:
Blackout - Connie Willis


I've only just begun looking, so more will be added! and I don't expect to get everything! It's just lovely to have lots to choose from. Is there anything on your Christmas lists yet, dear Gentle Reader?

I also have to apologize for not finishing the RIP1V challenge the way I'd planned, nor the ghost stories. In fact, I couldn't read any more horror or ghost stories; Jane Eyre was the closest I could come, and I put it down last week when it's her wedding day and she's about to find out about the wife. This is my least favourite part of the book and I hate her journey to the moors and the religious nut she finds (sorry but I loathe him!) so as my test results were given on Wednesday, I put it down until I'm ready to deal with Rochester's betrayal. I had forgotten what a masterful creation he is, such a complex character - he so loves Jane, but he's never quite fully honest with her, and I know he's trapped, but I still think lying to her was reprehensible. Do you have any thoughts about this, dear Reader? Let me know......

Do you want me to keep posting some of the ghost stories from Bluenose Ghosts? Or is it too close to Christmas now? I do intend to finish it now, so if anyone wants to hear a few more ghost stories, let me know (yes, Cath at Read-warbler, I'm looking at you.....)

Mmm. The pictures on the cookbooks have made me hungry.

And then, this book lover admits, it's time for my nightly viewing of an episode of Fringe. Yes, I've watched the entire first season (now on DVD) once, and am working my way through a second time. I love this series!! I won't confess to how often I watch each weekly episode of Season 2 as it airs this season, let's just say, this is one of those very rare tv shows that I can watch two or three times (in some cases many more!) and still feel there are things I'm missing.

Happy reading and Fringe-watching, everyone!