There are two kinds of people in the world, those who re-read and those who don't.
No, don't be silly. There are far more than two kinds of people in the world. There are even people who don't read at all.
Description:
I do read some science fiction and fantasy, but usually stick to the masters like Clarke, Asimov, Tolkien, Heinlein, Bradbury, Lem, etc. My problem is there is a lot of sci-fi I simply don't respond to (too technologically complex, too fantastic, too bleak, too many strangely nuanced aliens and/or humans). So, to my secret shame, I rarely take the time even to read their first sentences.
What I really need is a trusted reviewer like Nancy Pearl or Joe Queenan, someone who reads voraciously and can point me to quality sci-fi titles they have discovered which I can then explore for myself.
Enter Jo Walton, the Hugo Award-winning author and prodigious reader (and re-reader) of sci-fi and fantasy. She admits she reads (or re-reads) a book a day, often 5-6 when sick and confined to bed. And she writes about what she has read in short, highly passionate and readable reviews found on the sci-fi website Tor.com. Her writings have now been compiled in What Makes This Book So Great?, all of which introduce and recommend Walton's best of the best in sci-fi and fantasy books.
She starts by clearly defining the genre, showing me why I often am disappointed with pseudo-sci-fi:
What I really need is a trusted reviewer like Nancy Pearl or Joe Queenan, someone who reads voraciously and can point me to quality sci-fi titles they have discovered which I can then explore for myself.
Enter Jo Walton, the Hugo Award-winning author and prodigious reader (and re-reader) of sci-fi and fantasy. She admits she reads (or re-reads) a book a day, often 5-6 when sick and confined to bed. And she writes about what she has read in short, highly passionate and readable reviews found on the sci-fi website Tor.com. Her writings have now been compiled in What Makes This Book So Great?, all of which introduce and recommend Walton's best of the best in sci-fi and fantasy books.
She starts by clearly defining the genre, showing me why I often am disappointed with pseudo-sci-fi:
In a science fiction novel, the world is a character, and often the most important character. In a mainstream novel, the world is implicitly our world, and the characters are the world. In a mainstream novel trying to be SF, this gets peculiar and can make the reading experience uneven.
Besides close to 100 reviews of book, series, and authors in What Makes This Book So Great?, there are short pieces on related topics including the beauty of re-reading books, problems with traveling faster than the speed of light, reading long sci-fi series, the weirdest book in the world, how to talk to writers, cozy catastrophes (where the common people are conveniently wiped out and the rich are spared), the Suck Fairy (who destroys a beloved book that turns into trash upon later re-reading), and much more.
Even better, I agree with her opinions on the few sci-fi/fantasy books that I actually have read. She recognizes The Lord of the Rings as the greatest fantasy book written. She's a Heinlein fan, too, even when his later books are not so great.
And she explains "IWantToReadItosity," an often inexplicable urge for her. It is the overwhelming lure of some books that keeps her plugging through long series, re-reading favorites, and anticipating new titles from certain authors. This urge gives her strong subjective opinions of books "entirely separate from whether a book is actually good." For example, she likes Heinlein and Le Guin, but doesn't like Hesse and Huxley for admittedly unknown reasons. I feel a similar desire, and can be eagerly and totally absorbed in the world created by a favorite writer.
If you are a reluctant sci-fi reader like me, someone looking for a new title in the genre, or just enjoy great writing by a skilled reviewer, jump into What Makes This Book So Great. Ideas, challenges, the beauty of quality writing by the author, and exciting recommended titles is the reward for anyone who picks up this book.Even better, I agree with her opinions on the few sci-fi/fantasy books that I actually have read. She recognizes The Lord of the Rings as the greatest fantasy book written. She's a Heinlein fan, too, even when his later books are not so great.
And she explains "IWantToReadItosity," an often inexplicable urge for her. It is the overwhelming lure of some books that keeps her plugging through long series, re-reading favorites, and anticipating new titles from certain authors. This urge gives her strong subjective opinions of books "entirely separate from whether a book is actually good." For example, she likes Heinlein and Le Guin, but doesn't like Hesse and Huxley for admittedly unknown reasons. I feel a similar desire, and can be eagerly and totally absorbed in the world created by a favorite writer.
A Game of Thrones is eight hundred pages long, and I've read it six times, but even so, every time I put the bookmark in, I put it in reluctantly.So now I'm at least willing to explore sci-fi with a little more confidence and open mind for some new authors. Now my to-be-read list has swelled to include, for their interesting titles alone as well as the intriguing plots:
- MIdnight's Children (Salman Rushdie) - children in India born on the eve of the revolution now posses super powers;
- Babel-17 (Samual Delany) - focusing on an intergalactic war, an unbreakable alien code and an unhappy female telepathic poet;
- A Fire Upon the Deep (Vernor Vinge) - a universe "where not only technology but also the very ability to think increases with distance from the galactic core;"
- Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand (Samuel R. Delany) - "like pop rocks for the brain;"
- The Left Hand of Darkness (Ursula K. Le Guin) - "one of those books that changed the world...it changed feminism, and it was part of the process to change of the concept of what it was to be a man or a woman;"
- The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (Robert Heinlein) - in Walton's top five books, it tells of the revolution of lunar inhabitants against their controlling government. Who can resist this title?
I am talking about books because I love books. I'm not standing on a mountain peak holding them at arm's length and issuing Olympian pronouncements about them. I'm reading them in the bath and shouting with excitement because I have noticed something that is really really cool.
She is my new hero for writing such compelling reviews which make you want to read everything that she brings to your attention. I can only hope to write one tenth as well about books with her passion and wit. Well, I can dream, can't I?
If this book interests you, be sure to check out:
Pearl, Nancy. Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason
Simply the best source for short,.highly entertaining and passionate book reviews for a huge variety of books. Makes you want to get each one and begin reading immediately.
Queenan, Joe. One for the Books
An insatiable reader who is absorbed in at least 15 books at a time, Queenan provides his strong opinions on popular and forgotten books on a wide range of topics, enough to satisfy any reading itch. (previously reviewed here)
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