Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

This is a book I thought for a long time I HAD read, and for some reason, I was sure that it's an easy read. Ha-ha-ha. No, I mean, it IS funny sometimes, but plowing through some dense 18-century satire is not an easy feat. Most of all, I'm just glad I'm in the 19th century now, with books that are easier to enjoy. But first, the inquiry stages.

Fable or a chronicle?

The author plays with a chronicle style - although everything happening to Gulliver is surreal and allegorical, he gives such minutiae of his travels as locations, days, measurements, etc. that it totally reads as a real account.

What does Gulliver want?

Most of the time he wants to explore and learn, but when things get tough, he starts earning to return home. In the end, all he wants is to stay away from the humans, in the blissful country of the Houyhnhnms.

Who's telling the story?

The story is told in the first person - G. is telling his own perception of what's been happening to him. It's rather well done, as at first, after encountering something new, it's all guesswork, both for him and the reader. Later, he learns a language or finds somebody to explain and all gets clear.

Where is the story set?

It's set in the blank spots on the map, and there were quite a few of them in the age of exploration. Easy to imagine that they were hiding all sorts of weird and wonderful countries.

What style is employed?

It's a business-meaning, precise style of a travelogue.

Images and metaphors

Oh, plenty of those here. Pretty much everybody and everything symbolizes something in the political world in Swift's times.

Beginnings and endings

Every story begins with G., restless at home and eager for adventure, sailing off and ends with him coming back home, changed and reacting to the people around him in a new way.

Do you sympathize with G. and why?

I do sympathize with G. most of the time - his thirst for knowledge, aptness with languages, eagerness to learn and understand, determination - all that is very likable. Sometimes he can be really full of himself though. And the way he treated his family - I'm surprised his wife hasn't killed him yet.

Did the writer's times affect him?

Oh, yes! As it's satire, it's pretty difficult to get what exactly Swift is making fun of without knowing the political context. Swift has also probably read a lot of utopias and travelogues, as well as political writings, as the book resembles the three. I can't help noticing how even the species intended to have a "utopian" society still have social classes (like colors on H.s). Seems like imagining no such division would be too forward in Swift's times.

Is there an argument?

Lilliputs seem to be mocking England, it's political climate and relationships with France; the third journey points out how ridiculously useless and disconnected from real life science is; part 4 is a treatise on human nature and simple, "natural" living. in the end, it seems to conclude that human race is generally disgusting.

Do you agree?

I agree with many arguments about the ridiculousness of politics, wars, and some laws. Hell, as somebody stuck in academia, I see some of the crazy research from part 3 closely resembling what's happening in the real life)) Is was really funny. However, I can's agree that humans are the inherently evil and disgusting Yahoos. Hey, maybe we're not as cool as the sentient horses, but we're not that bad!

(Already Traditional) Mini-Reviews, Part 2

Looking at these two bunches of mini-reviews, you can probably tell that I have not been much into serious lit this spring and summer :D But come on, sometimes mind-blowing Sci-Fi is just a better choice than those daunting 19-century chunksters :) 

Title: The Name of the Wind 

Author: Patrick Rothfuss

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

I should listen to Riv more. She read it last year and wrote that the book is not as good as Goodreads and other reviews would you believe. It’s not that I don’t trust her opinion (I’m yet to discover a book on which our opinions differ significantly), but I still felt I have to read a book which gets so much hype. And well… I can see why people love it so much, but as for Riv, it also fell flat for me. I loved the magic system and the part at the university, but then the love story began and it was just so adolescent and ridiculous… And don’t even get me started on the pointless 200-page hang out in the forests with the draccus or whatever this thing is called. I also expected the book to have an ENDING, but apparently it cannot be read as a standalone novel. If the author thinks that would make me read the rest of the series… Um, no. Good writing and gripping plotline would do that, not failing to round-up a story even a little bit before the end of the first volume.

Title: The Night Circus 

Author: Erin Morgenstern

Rating: ★★★★☆

This novel should be made into a movie immediately! It screams for big screen special effects. Although the writing does an amazing job creating all this effects in your own head. Very atmospheric! Plotline… well, it exists, but it’s not the main point of the book. I feel that the characters and their relationships could have been written better, but as I’ve said, the book is amazing as it is!

Title: The Passage 

Author: Justin Cronin

Rating: ★★★★☆

The book reminds me a lot of The Girl with all the Gifts, although it should be vice versa, as The Passage was written before The Girl. That makes it two zombie apocalypse books that I’ve read and liked during this year, so I guess never say never? I don’t know what I expected from The Passage, but it was gripping and beautifully written and I spent more than one night not being able to put it down instead of getting some healthy sleep.

Title: L'amour dure trois ans (Love Lasts Three Years) 

Author: Frederic Beigbeder

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

I’ve never read the guy before and most probably will never read him again. There is no literary merit in the book, the characters are just papier-mashe masks without any depth and the ideas are questionable in the least. It reads fast and there are some catchy phrases and aphorisms in it, but the novel gives you a feeling it was written to provide facebook status updates to people who like to put quotes there.

Title: The Universe Versus Alex Woods 

Author: Gavin Extence

Rating: ★★★★★

I loved this book!! It’s so poignantly sincere and kind… But not in a way SPECIFICALLY designed to jerk tears out of you. Everything is described very matter-of-factly and that’s why it’s so relatable and realistic. Alex is the best, really. The way he thinks is precious and I guess our world would be a much better place if everybody followed the same logic.

Title: Lexicon 

Author: Max Barry

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

I think my biggest problem with this book was that I had unrealistically high expectations. I’ve always been intrigued by NLP techniques and I thought this novel would be about it. Instead, it’s much more fantastic and hard to believe. Also, I did not understand what was happening until I reached the middle of the book. In some cases it can be intriguing, but here it was rather irritating. Also, the ending was just… Meh. I don’t get it, really.

Title: Ancillary Justice
Author: Ann Leckie

Rating: ★★★☆☆

This novel is like a riddle: at first you don’t understand what is happening and get lost in a lot of new words and alien references, but then without any explicit explanation it all kinda starts making sense, and you feel the world taking shape around you, gradually and imperceptibly. It is a beautifully written book, and the idea is awesome, but somehow this time I do not appreciate not understanding what’s happening for such a long time. Have I mentioned my attention span tend to be really short lately? So I don’t have enough patience for this kind of story

So what so do you think about these books? Do you agree or disagree with my opinions? I'd like to hear both :-P

I'm preparing some longer reviews next, as my reading is getting back to normal pretty fast. Stay tuned and have a nice weekend!

(Already Traditional) Mini-Reviews, Part 1

As promised, here's the first batch of long-due mini-reviews :)

Title: The Return of Sherlock Holmes
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Rating: ★★★☆☆

Is it me or has Sir Arthur lost some of his flair for awesomeness after the first three short story collections? I guess he’s not to blame, as *spoiler alert* he honestly tried to kill Sherlock and not write about him anymore, and had only caved to extreme public pressure to resurrect him. Anyway, I don’t even remember any of the stories that stand out in this particular book… And some are repetitive of the ones in the earlier collections. Still, Sherlock is adorable, and anything about him is a great comfort read.

Title: Zoo City
Author: Lauren Beukes
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

This was January choice for Coursera Fantasy and Sci-Fi Book Club, and it was the first book we read together that I didn’t like. Maybe Southern African English and excessive use of slang words are to blame, but I never understood what was really happening in the book and WHY it was happening. You see, when you commit a crime there, they give you an animal mascot(?) that you can’t be separated from. “Animalled” people are considered lower class and live in some kind of slums. They are despised and also feared, as animals sometimes give them supernatural powers. Now I could have told you more, but as I’ve said, I’m clueless as to what the plot is and why this imaginary world functions like it does.

Title: The Handmaid’s Tale
Author: Margaret Atwood
Rating: ★★★★★ 

Oh, this book! If you think of it, the society structure is rather ridiculous and it’s hard to imagine how people can end up living like this, but the writing is so brilliant that the story totally makes sense and you don’t want to see any plot holes. Not much HAPPENS in the book per se, because things are not supposed to happen to a handmaid, but the descriptions and musings of the protagonist are so engrossing that you literally can’t put the book down. And the ending… Oh, I just love the ending!

Title: Changing Places
Author: David Lodge
Rating: ★★★★★

This is a very funny novel that just GETS academia life! Two professors, one from US and one from UK are on an international exchange program and have to spend half a year in each other’s shoes. Hilarity ensues as they battle cultural differences and discover their new selves. Ah, there’s nothing like a funny book about professors :)

Title: Station Eleven
Author: Emily St. John Mandel
Rating: ★★★★☆ 

An award winning hit, and yet I don’t wait a couple of years before reading it? Weird! But everybody in my feed was praising this novel, and besides the premise is awesome! There has been an epidemic, and 10 years after it the few people that are left alive are reduced to scavenging, hunting and primitive lifestyle in general. However, for some “survival is insufficient”, so a theater on wheels is travelling across Canada, performing what do you think? Shakespeare! Who apparently never goes out of fashion. The writing is beautiful, magical even, but the plot, although converging satisfactory in the end, is not without lapses. Like what about that menacing and pointless Prophet? I just don’t buy it.

Title: The Rosie Project
Author: Graeme Simsion
Rating: ★★★★★

Ah, what a sweet book! Apart from being hilarious, it’s also very optimistic and good-humored. It just makes you feel good, especially if you are partial to weird scientists and happen to know a lot of them, even though such grave cases of social awkwardness are unlikely to exist in real life.

Title: The Lives of Tao
Author: Wesley Chu
Rating: ★★★★☆

This is a very enjoyable and fun read. A tad bit too much pathos in the end to my taste, but the dialogues! They are awesome. Also, I can’t help wishing for an all-knowing and wise alien sitting in my head and pushing me to greatness. Maybe then I’d actually run in the mornings!!

Title: Москва - Петушки (Moscow to the End of the Line)
Author: Venedict Erofeev
Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

I just wish it was possible to format the part of my brain that remembers this book. It’s really postmodernist and unusual… for the first 5 pages. Then it gets repetitive, boring and straight mad.











So that's it! A really mixed bag of books, some being awesome 5-star ones and some ending up on my hate list... Part 2, covering my reading adventures from the end of April to current time is coming soon :)

Catching Up On 2014 Reviews

Hi everybody and congratulations on the New Year! :) I hope your holiday season was as fun as mine and you had a good rest and quality family time!

Today I've come back from my trip to Sofia to see a very good friend and fellow fantasy geek. It was awesome! We cooked, made cocktails, discussed everything in the world and binge-watched the director's cut of LOTR. What can be better? :)

Yes, there's Balrog on the screen :)

Now I finally have some time to wrap up year 2014, and I'll start with mini-reviews of the rest of the books I managed to read in the end of the year. Then I'll probably try to catch up on over-500 posts in my RSS feed... Oh well, maybe not :)

Title: Amsterdam
Author: Ian McEwan
First published: 1998
Add it: Goodreads, Book Depository
Rating: ★★★★☆

I started to read Amsterdam on my way to Amsterdam, but didn't finish it until a week after the trip. And it's OK, because it's not about the city at all :) I have always been curious about Ian McEwan, and I can say I've enjoyed his writing a lot. He is a great psychologist, and his descriptions of thoughts and feelings of the two main characters felt so real it was hard to believe it's only fiction. But as if to mock a reader who by this point already trusts McEwan as a great expert in human nature, there is such an unbelievable twist in the end of the novel that it left me embarrassed.  

In my book:
Great writing and character study.

Title: The Way of Kings
Author: Brandon Sanderson
First published: 2010
Add it: Goodreads, Book Depository
Rating: ★★★★☆

For the first 100-200 pages of this huge novel, which is part of even huger series, I had no idea what was happening and wanted to stop reading. I survived, though, and it appeared it was worth the time and struggle, as by the end of the book I was quite unable to put it down. The greatest thing about the book is the world-building. There's a totally different biology, physics and social structure, and it's all very fitting and works well together... but not before you really get into it. And this doesn't happen very soon. Strictly speaking, it wouldn't hurt if the book was shorter, but as I've said, in the end I came to appreciate it anyway :)

In my book:
Worth the time, but make sure you have a lot of it at hand before starting this mammoth :))

Title: High Fidelity
Author: Nick Hornby
First published: 1995
Add it: Goodreads, Book Depository
Rating: ★★★★☆

The intro, where the main character recaps his past heartbreaks is awesome! I've even read it twice. Then, however, some music records nerdiness starts (as the narrator is a fan and owns a record shop), which I can't appreciate due to my utter lack of knowledge or interest on the subject. Overall, the writing is great, and at times the novel is very funny, but when you think of it, the main character is really very sad and unlikable, and the ending is kinda... meh.

In my book:
Fun and entertaining, but makes you think nevertheless. Just skip the music parts :)

Title: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
Author: Alan Bradley
First published: 2009
Add it: Goodreads, Book Depository
Rating: ★★★☆☆

I think I might have loved this book if I read it at the age of 12 or so (I loved children's detective novels!), but for a grown-up there's not enough of mystery or character depth or humor. It's a sweet little novel, and the main heroine is pretty bad-ass, but it's not very gripping overall.

In my book:
Pick up for a total brain relax or as a present to your kid.

The Martian by Andy Weir (Review)

Title: The Martian
Author: Andy Weir
First published: 2012
Add it: Goodreads, Book Depository
Rating: ★★★★★

I read The Martian in two days, finishing at 5a.m. This fact alone illustrates how great the book is, considering how I love to sleep :) The next day I enthusiastically recommended it to one of my colleagues, and the next morning he was spotted drinking too much coffee and blaming me for disturbing his sleep. Since then the news about the book spread around our office like fire, and I get emails from grateful colleagues all the time, telling me how they appreciate my recommendation. Well, we are a research lab and a bunch of geeks, so what do you want :D The book was meant to be read by the likes of us!

The Martian is about Mark Watney, an astronaut left on Mars after the evacuation of the whole expedition. Now his only chance is to survive for 4 years until the next expedition. Meanwhile, he deals with the lack of food, technical emergencies and loneliness, all with the help of his innate resourcefulness and great sense of humor.

What I loved most about this novel is the technical details Mark goes into while planning his escape and solving his everyday problems. You ever wonder how to make water from burning fuel in pure oxygen and not get exploded? Or how to measure the size of the hurricane and where it goes? Or how to fix the rover's receiver? It's all explained! Another thing is the writing. It's awesome and funny and keeps you turning pages through the wee hours of the morning. The novel makes you feel good and fills you with optimism and faith in mankind. This is a bit bombastic but it's true.

In my book:
This is the ultimate geeky book! But it's not only for the geeks, I can't imagine anybody who would not enjoy it. Read it! :)

My Autumn of Silent Escapist Reading

Hi everybody! :) As you've probably noticed, I haven't been in the mood to post for the whole autumn. I've also sucked at commenting and participating in events, and I'm truly sorry for this. I'm not sure what's happening to my reading habits, but my attention span is still very short, and now I shun from classics and big books and often pick books on a whim. I don't like it, as I usually enjoy being organized (and it's a pity I'm not finishing any of my challenges, the year has started so well!), but I can't do anything about it. Also, I'm reading much less now and am much more likely to play a game or watch a movie/series instead. Well, I hope it's just a short period...

Nevertheless, I HAVE been reading and I have missed blogging in the short moments of activeness. So it feels good to finally write a post :)

For starters, I've decided to make a small recap of what I read this autumn in the format of mini-reviews. These are really good books, and most of them are, I guess, unknown to many readers, so let me tell you more about them! :)

Title: Y: The Last Man
Author: Brian K. Vaughan
First published: 2003-2008
Add it: Goodreads, Book Depository
Rating: ★★★★★

This 10-volume comics was October's book of choice for Coursera Fantasy and Sci Fi book club, and I loved it so much! It tells about a sudden epidemic of unknown origin which results in wiping out all the male population on Earth. All except Yorick and his monkey Ampersand. See? How can one NOT love a story with a plot like this? :) Add some great humor, kick-ass characters, amazing plot, beautiful pictures and an oh-so-great finale - and you get Y: The Last Man.

In my book: An awesome, awesome story. Read it.

Title: Spectrum
Author: Sergei Lukyanenko
First published: 2002
Add it: Goodreads
Rating: ★★★★★

This is my favorite Lukyanenko book, and I've read them all! :) It is also a standalone novel rather than a part of the series, which I also appreciate. Unfortunately, it is not translated into English yet, although it is very popular in some European countries. US publishers are just soooo bad at seeing further than the ends of their noses. As nearly every Lukyanenko book, Spectrum features a very likable hero stumble over some mystery of the universe and forced to make difficult decisions. The book is very clever and philosophical and yet packed with action and suspense and great world-building. I'm very glad I've re-read it!

In my book: This novel is like an old friend which, when you meet after a long time apart, never fails to keep you up all night while discussing philosophical problems and drinking wine :)

Title: Hard to Be a God
Author: Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky
First published: 1964
Add it: Goodreads, Book Depository
Rating: ★★★★☆

Another great Russian Sci-Fi novel, Hard to Be a God is also an old favourite. It tells about a historian from Earth doing research on a "medieval" planet. He poses as a noble and has to observe and cautiously encourage progress without getting too involved and unnaturally changing the course of history. But pretending to be someone else for so long is not easy, and with obtaining more relations it's hard to stay impassive during a shocking twist in the planet's historical course. Re-reading the novel as an adult dimmed my initial impression of it a bit, as the moral became much more obvious. But it's a great book nevertheless!

In my book: Still very relevant and makes you think a lot. And the main character is great.

Title: Night Watch
Author: Sergei Lukyanenko
First published: 1998
Add it: Goodreads, Book Depository
Rating: ★★★★☆

As I've already mentioned, Lukyanenko is great, and luckily this book is translated into English, so it is an introduction to his writing for many readers. Which is a pity, because in my opinion it is not his best book, and the continuation of the series gets worse. I've read three out of (already) six books and don't intend to continue. The first one is still good though, if only a bit simplistic. The idea is that there are magicians between us, and they have two guilds: the Light and the Dark (I know, so obvious!) and they have some kind of a pact which ensures that they don't destroy each other. So it's "battles for souls" mixed with political plots to get round the pact.

In my book: Rather fun if you don't get sick of this whole Light/Dark opposition stuff.

Title: The Last Wish
Author: Andrzej Sapkowski
First published: 1992
Add it: Goodreads, Book Depository
Rating: ★★★★☆

You can already tell this autumn was full of Eastern European fantasy/sci-fi, right? :D Well, here's a super-popular polish fantasy saga, which inspired a computer game, dozens of spin-offs, fanfics, etc. I even have two friends who participated in role-playing games based on The Witcher world. The book is a collection of short stories telling about separate adventures of a Witcher - a guy specifically trained to kill different evil supernatural beings. I loved how Sapkowski took different Slavic fairy tale tropes and turned them into an entertaining and sometimes funny heroic saga.

In my book: An iconic novel, Slavic fantasy at its best. Recommended!

Title: The Master and Margarita
Author: Mikhail Bulgakov
First published: 1967
Add it: Goodreads, Book Depository
Rating: ★★★★★

This is a classic of Russian lit, which is unlike any other book. For most of high school students in Russia this is the only book they like from the school program, even though I bet none of them understand much of it. To tell you the truth I can't say I understood everything even after this re-reading, and I hope I can say that I'm now a more experienced reader then I was in the 11th grade :) Anyway, the novel is a satire about early Soviet era, and is set in Moscow in the 1930s. But it also has a plot line which tells about Pontius Pilate and the two intertwine through Master - a writer with a difficult fate, who wrote a story about ancient Jerusalem. The architecture of the novel, the beautiful language, the characters, the scaring hilarity of the dialogues, the macabre mood of it all - Bulgakov IS the real Master, and I can't possibly over-recommend this book :)

In my book: Just read it, OK? Nothing more that I can say :)

That's it! I have a couple of stand-alone reviews coming (hopefully soon) and I'm thinking about doing some year overview. We'll see if I have time and enthusiasm for that :)

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (Review)

Title: The Eyre Affair
Author: Jasper Fforde
First published: 2001
Add it: Goodreads, Book Depository
Rating: ★★★☆☆

I've been eager to read The Eyre Affair for a long time, especially after Riv's recommendations, and I'm glad I finally did! However, the book turned out to be less awesome than I had expected. There may be spoilers ahead, as I wanted to discuss certain things in particular, but I don't think they are dangerous for you, as most plot twists are kinda obvious long before they happen.

The most fascinating thing about The Eyre Affair is the setting: the world is so similar to ours, but not quite. For one thing, literature is super-important! People are not divided into politically left or right, but according to their opinions about Shakespeare's identity. And the fights between the sides are much more heated! Time travel and other incredible things are an every-day matter in this world. And Crimean War has been going on since 1800s. Sounds menacing in the light of the recent events... But I digress. Exploring this world was like visiting Wonderland—you never know what will happen next. But it's also a problem, as I like to know how a fictional world operates. When some difficult situation is resolved with some plot twist you couldn't imagine was possible, well... I call it cheating.

The plot itself was a bit weird, as the main bad guy's motives were hard to grasp, but everything to do with Jane Eyre plot is awesome! The explanation of that strange plot twist fits so well into the story! No “Gothic romance convention” can explain Jane hearing Rochester calling for her quite as well!

I really liked the main character. She's kinda cool, if maybe too militaristic to my taste. Which makes the sugar-sweet ending so much worse. I mean, seriously, they just go and live happily ever after? After all their problems and 10 years apart? I don't believe. I'd also like to have more witty dialogues in the book. You have so many awesome characters—let them speak and amuse the reader! Which brings me to the main reason why I gave the book just three stars in spite of great plot, characters and world-building: the writing. It just didn't grip me. I could put the book down in the middle of some dangerous situation and go make some tea. Although I like tea, it's not a good sign at all.

In my book:
It's a nice summer read, especially if you wish to be able to put the book down and actually enjoy the summer around you.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams (Mini Reviews)

Title: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Author: Douglas Adams
First published: 1979
Add it: Goodreads, Book Depository
Rating: ★★★★★

By now, I've read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy three times, and it still makes me laugh and love it, because it's so awesome! Why? Well, here are some reasons: Marvin, Vogon poetry, a towel, mice, Alpha Centauri regional planning office which we didn't have the responsibility to visit, fjord design and of course 42 and Don't Panic! Seriously, I think it's the most brilliant book ever! Nothing more to add, so let's discuss the second one now.

Title: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Author: Douglas Adams
First published: 1980
Add it: Goodreads, Book Depository
Rating: ★★★☆☆

Unfortunately, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe falls short of the awesomeness of the first book. First, there are so many repetitions of the stuff from The Hitchhiker's Guide, that it made me really impatient. Can't Adams think of something new? Well, there are new things in the book, like the restaurant itself, but somehow they are not funny, and most of them are too bitter and even mean. Also, the plot is much more action-packed, and it's a bad thing, as I enjoy the dialogues much more than running. There's also some conspiracy plot which didn't make much sense for me. I'd be happier with their wandering meaninglessly across the galaxy encountering some hilarious things.

Overall, I will not be reading the further books anytime soon in order not to spoil the impression from the first book, which you can bet I'll re-read again, more than once :)

Quotes:

"... here's something to occupy you and keep your mind off things."
"It won't work," droned Marvin, "I have an exceptionally large mind."

It gives me a headache just trying to think down to your level

"we're having a great time. Food, wine, a little personal abuse and the Universe going foom."

It is a curious fact, and one to which no one knows quite how much importance to attach, that something like 85% of all known worlds in the Galaxy, be they primitive or highly advanced, have invented a drink called jynnan tonnyx, or gee-N'N-T'N-ix, or jinond-o-nicks, or any one of a thousand or more variations on the same phonetic theme. The drinks themselves are not the same, and vary between the Sivolvian 'chinanto/mnigs' which is ordinary water served at slightly above room temperature, and the Gagrakackan 'tzjin-anthony-ks' which kill cows at a hundred paces; and in fact the one common factor between all of them, beyond the fact that the names sound the same, is that they were all invented and named before the worlds concerned made contact with any other worlds.
What can be made of this fact? It exists in total isolation. As far as any theory of structural linguistics is concerned it is right off the graph, and yet it persists. Old structural linguists get very angry when young structural linguists go on about it. Young structural linguists get deeply excited about it and stay up late at night convinced that they are very close to something of profound importance, and end up becoming old structural linguists before their time, getting very angry with the young ones. Structural linguistics is a bitterly divided and unhappy discipline, and a large number of its practitioners spend too many nights drowning their problems in Ouisghian Zodahs.

Starship Grifters by Robert Kroese (Review)

Title: Starship Grifters
Author: Robert Kroese
First published: 2014
Add it: Goodreads, Book Depository
Rating: ★★★★☆

I have been given this book for review by Lori, and I must say she's great at choosing appropriate reviewers :) I really enjoyed Starship Grifters!

Usually I would complain that the book lacks depth. You know, The Hitchhiker's Guide, which it is compared to, is about "life, universe and everything"; Starship Grifters is not. It's just some funny adventures of some crazy characters in a totally unbelievable universe. But just because of this it's just a perfect book to read when you are in the end of the semester writing your diploma, your long-term relationship is fucked-up and you undergo an unpleasant and expensive medical treatment. There was literally nothing that could make me laugh or even engage me enough to care, but this book could!

The first amazing thing about the book is that the story is being told by a robot! A nearly-intelligent robot that shuts off every time there is a danger of generating an original thought. How awesome is that? I can also tell that the author apparently knows something about artificial intelligence, as the technical descriptions were very accurate. It pleases a scientist inside me :)

The second amazing thing is all the craziness of what's happening in the book. There's no telling what'll happen next, but you'll surely be surprised. There are some funny and sarcastic commentaries on certain easily recognizable real-life characters and situations, but the book is still far from being satirical. The dialogues are funny and made me giggle a couple of times, and the final plot twist is really good.

I had some problem with the main character, though. Rex is very, very crazy, and although sometimes it's great, sometimes he becomes insufferable. I think that was the point, but somehow he is still the most unbelievable character in the book for me. However, his martini "thing" was classy! And his character made me sympathize with his robot even more :)

In my book: Starship Grifters is a farce, full of cliches and unbelievable stuff. But it's very funny and just great for raising your spirits, even at times when you are totally unable to concentrate on everything.

P.S. Look at the cover! It looks like a battered copy of a classic sci-fi paperback! I love that!

Candide by Voltaire (Review)

Title: Candide
Author: Voltaire
First published: 1759
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Rating: ★★★☆☆

I intended to read Candide together with this read-a-long, but instead I finished it the same evening I started it. I know I didn't understand as much of it as I would have if I had read is slowly, but I knew I didn't want to spend the whole month with this book.

As you probably already know, Candide is a satire of the philosophy of optimism, that is, the belief that everything is for the best, and this world is the best of all possible worlds. Voltaire drags his characters through A LOT of horrible life situations to prove otherwise, all this in a very hyperbolic manner.

I have nothing against satire, and I like it when it's well-done, but here it is probably over-done. The things happening to Candide and his co-sufferers are brutal, horrifying and disgusting, and only some of them are funny. Also, a lot of satire is really hard to understand because it's the product of its time. For example, different religious orders and movements are obviously being mocked, but I have no idea what for... But the bits which are funny saved this book a bit for me. I liked the Eldorado part, and I quite enjoyed the character of Martin, who is wonderfully cynical. 

In my book:
The main appeal of this novel is that it's really short. If you are able to see some other appeal as well - well, you are probably very high-brow and really into French Enlightenment... I'm not and that's why I didn't really enjoy Candide.

Dead Man's Tale by Joanna Chmielewska (Review)

Title: Dead Man's Tale
Author: Joanna Chmielewska
First published: 1972
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Rating: ★★★☆☆

I was not sure if I should write about this book at all, as according to Wikipedia there are no English translations of Chmielewska's books. Or at least there were no in 2008, and I doubt anything has changed since then... But I thought "hey, I'm trying to be multilingual here, so to heck with it!" :)

The novel is an "ironical detective" bordering with chick-lit. My mom recommended me the book, otherwise there's no way I would have picked it. My mom also doesn't often read this kind of literature, but she swore it was really funny. Well, it did turn out to be funny, but only after I had got used to the overly simplistic and over-the-top writing style. Who would have thought that I'll need time to get used to pulp?

The novel tells about a middle-aged woman who happens to hear the last words of a dying gang member and is left the only bearer of the secret where the gang's vast funds are hidden. The gang smuggle her to Argentina and try to make her speak, but she is not an easy person to scare into doing something, so she rather prefers to escape. What follows is a mad around-the-world chase, in which female "logic" always triumphs.

It was really funny how she deals with problems in her own, female way. Like measuring petrol needed to cross the Atlantic in wash-basins, knitting a net to hold the steering will when she can't switch on the auto-pilot on a yacht and many more. It's interesting that she IS really clever, and is able to infer her coordinates from the position of the sun and the stars, for example, but sometimes she relapses in such a true-blonde fit, that it's totally impossible to predict what she'll do next.

In my book:
A nice and funny relaxing read if you don't care about your brain turning to mash from the lack of substance :) I don't sometimes :)

The Princess Bride by William Goldman (Review)

Title: The Princess Bride
Author: William Goldman
First published: 1973
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Rating: ★★★★★

Another choice for Coursera Fantasy and Sci Fi book club has quite unexpectedly become a huge success with me. It's rather surprising, because really, if you read the premise it sounds like a typical Disney story. Don't let it mislead you! Even though “Fencing. Fighting. Torture. Poison. True love. Hate. Revenge. Giants. Hunters. Bad men. Good men. Beautifulest ladies. Snakes. Spiders. Beasts of all natures and descriptions. Pain. Death. Brave men. Coward men. Strongest men. Chases. Escapes. Lies. Truths. Passion. Miracles.” are all present, as promised, it's also very, very funny.

The book is subtitled as "S. Morgenstern's classic tale of true love and high adventure. The "good parts" version abridged  by William Goldman", and it starts with an introduction in which the fictionalized Goldman explains how he came to love this book and why it needs abridging. The problem with the "original Morgenstern" is that he was writing a satire, and some satirical parts are better left out if the reader is not particularly interested in Florinese history and politics. So Goldman is doing what his father was doing when he read his son from the book - skipping the boring stuff. He actually substitutes it with his own commentary, justifying his omissions and commenting on their content. Sometimes the commentary also tells the reader about Goldman's experience when he was first read the book by his father. So, this way, with the additional awesomeness of Morgenstern's and Goldman's commentary, the story is told.

And the story itself is rather potent: not only does it have all the elements of a great narrative (fencing and true love, dudes!), it is also very ironic, with some twists of the plot rather unthinkable and some purely ridiculous. Yet, all of them pertaining to the style.

With all this complexity, the story holds together surprisingly well and is read in one breath. It took me only two nights, and that with all the impending exams. That says something about it!

In my book:
A great story: engaging, humorous, comforting. An unusual format adds to the appeal and doesn't distract :)

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving (Review)

Title: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Author: Washington Irving
First published: 1820
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Rating: ★★★★★

All of you native English speakers probably don't need any plot summary of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, because, as I've heard, it's included in nearly every school program. Even for me the story felt very familiar, although I don't remember actually reading it. I guess it's already in the domain of collective unconscious. What I consciously knew about it, however, is just that it had a headless specter in it. So, naturally, I expected it to be this normal creepy ghost story. What I didn't expect at all is that it would be so funny!

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is not in the least about something paranormal, it instead deals with people's beliefs and superstitions and how they influence their everyday lives. Nothing assuredly unnatural actually happens, but in a small village like Sleepy Hollow, superstitions flower in uneducated minds of people to such extent that they explain many things with ghosts, and it's not surprising that they tend to start seeing them :)

The main character, Ichabod, is a school teacher, but he can't be called particularly enlightened. He enjoys sitting in front of a hearth with older ladies and share ghost stories, and when he is alone he imagines supernatural things all around him. But that doesn't prevent him from having a practical mind, and so he enters an open competition for the hand of a rich farmer's daughter with the village's most reckless youth Brom Bones. It would be stupid of Bones not to use Ichabod's inclination to superstitions to his own benefit, and Bones is not stupid :)

I find characters in the story to be very lively and Irving's kind mockery of them really endearing. I was smiling a lot and sometimes even laughed at the descriptions of Ichabod's courting and then of his misfortunes. There is only one problem with this story: I intended it to count for RIPVIII event, but now that I know it's not scary, I'm not so sure :) But I'm very glad I read it anyway :) 

In my book:
A very well written, funny and entertaining story. Definitely recommended to anybody who hasn't yet had the pleasure of discovering it for himself :)

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson (Review)

Title: The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared
Author: Jonas Jonasson
First published: 2009
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Rating: ★★★☆☆

This book may be an "international publishing sensation", but the premise is anything but new. A disrespectful attitude to historical personae and an impudent handling of history in general are the same as in My Uncle Oswald by Roald Dahl, and a suitcase full of money and an adventurous elder seem to be both taken directly from Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene. And unfortunately Jonas Jonasson doesn't have as much talent as any of the above mentioned writers :) I may seem too strict and this search for similarities may seem unnecessary, but read all three of them and you'll see that they are so alike that making comparisons is totally inevitable :)

This said, I rather enjoyed the book, as I like such hilarious and unbelievable plots. The novel is cute, but I had expected more of it. The book is positioned as humorous, but I didn't actually laugh once. I'd say it's just a relaxing and amusing read, nothing more. I was reading it while recovering after an operation, and it fitted the day of lying on my back and not moving perfectly, which means it kept me occupied and distracted, but it's not great literature by any means :)

In my book:
An amusing holiday read, but Dahl and Green did it better :)

As You Like It by William Shakespeare (Review)

Title: As You Like It
Author: William Shakespeare
First published: 1623
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Rating: ★★★★☆

I'm not a very big fan of Shakespeare's comedies, because, let's be honest, the jokes may have been funny at his times, but they are not funny anymore. So the "funny" scenes usually leave me abashed and perplexed. But luckily there's much more to As You Like It than just humour, so the book was not disappointing overall.

The style of the play may be characterized as pastoral: all the good guys leave the court in favour of a simpler life in the forest with the shepherds. As usual, there is also love, cross-dressing, a fool and some court intrigues, spiced up with a few nice philosophical sayings. By the way, As You Like It is the play where the famous "All the world's a stage" speech comes from. I didn't know it!

Some of the other favourite quotes include:

"Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak."

"...honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar."

"O, that woman that cannot make her fault her husband's occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will breed it like a fool!"

"...take a good heart and counterfeit to be a man."

- I'll remember it to use as an encouragement to somebody :)

"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."

In my book:
It's everything you expect from a Shakespeare's comedy.

Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett (Review)

Title: Wyrd Sisters
Author: Terry Pratchett
First published: 1988
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Rating: ★★★★★

After some of you convinced me not to judge Pratchett by The Colour of Magic, I have already made it up with him as a result of reading Good Omens, and now we are finally fully reconciled. I can honestly say that I enjoyed Wyrd Sisters very much, and I'm now willing to read more of the Discworld series.

The novel makes fun of Shakespeare's plays by taking all the stuff he used to put in his works, including ghosts, kings, witches, fools, etc. and making a story out of it. A slightly different story, for sure, and with the normal language use. Moreover, there is a character that parodies the Bard himself, and he is a gnome! And their theater company is building a theater which is called guess how? The Dysk! Awesome, isn't it?

The main characters are the three witches, two of which are granny-ish, grumpy, severe and old-fashioned (but very cute!), and the third is a young beginner in witchery. They are respected by everybody around until a rather hypochondriac usurper begins to see them as a danger to his reign, and the witches have to settle a few governmental matters. Theatrical propaganda plays no little role in the palace intrigues. So the characters are very likable and the book is full of Shakespearean events and plays-inside-plays.

In my book:
A totally enjoyable novel, with a lot of jokes and witty parodies. You need to know some Shakespeare to enjoy it, but I suspect it is not an impossible condition :) Thanks to everybody who convinced me not to give up on Pratchett and Discworld!

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

Title: A Midsummer Night's Dream
Author: William Shakespeare
First published: 1596
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It's been a while since I participated in Let's Read Plays event because of exams, conference and other stuff. So A Midsummer Night's Dream was actually supposed to be an April read, but it seems even more timely now, in June, when summer solstice is approaching. I've also decided that I don't want the pressure of catching-up, so I'll skip Romeo and Juliet and An Ideal Husband which were re-reads anyway and start next month with a clean slate to fully enjoy The Seagull.

Now to the play itself. Remember me writing that I'm not actually enjoying Shakespeare's comedies because of rude and primitive jokes which are moreover nearly impossible to understand because of the language? Well, this is completely not true about this play, and I enjoyed every line of it. I guess that's thanks to the main topic of the jokes, which is theatrical business, the thing that Shakespeare knew very well and so could ridicule best.

As for the plot, there are three distinct story lines in the play. One is a love triangle, or rather quadrangle with twisted sides: two men in love with one woman; she loves one of them, but her father is supporting another, and the second girl is in love with the unwonted suitor. She wants to fight for her love, but, as she says:

We cannot fight for love, as men may do;
We should be woo'd and were not made to woo.

and it takes a love potion to set all this straight. The love potion comes from another cast of characters, fairy folk, who has their own story: Oberon and Titania, the king and the queen of the faerie, are having an argument about a servant and are eager to spite each other, for which Oberon sets up a plan of enamoring his wife with something repulsive. And someone suitable turns up, as one of the troop of common men rehearsing a play for the royal wedding in the same forest is half-turned into an ass by another fairy character Puck. So there is a lot of fun in the play, but everything ends well, and the poorly rehearsed play is performed at the celebration, accompanied by the most hilarious jests and commentaries as to the setting, the plot and the performing ever!

Some more lines that I liked in the play:

...reason and love keep little company together now-a-days;

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; 

And I'll finish with my favorite:

Lord, what fools this mortals be!

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Title: Good Omens
Authors: Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman
First published: 1990
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As a lot of people told me not to give up on Terry after The Color of Magic, I've decided to try something close, but not exactly the same, and ended up choosing Good Omens, a book recommended by nearly everybody I know. And I love Gaiman, by the way. The choice has proved to be a very sensible one, as I enjoyed the book very much and I don't hate Pratchett any more :)

So the book is about an Apocalypse, and a very badly organised one. Antichrist was misplaced on the day he appeared on Earth and now nobody knows where to find him, while an angel and a demon, who happen to be friends, are trying to stop the Apocalypse altogether because they rather like it here on the Earth. And there is a book of prophesies of Agnes Nutter, witch, who saw everything that will happen, and a strange organisation of Witchfinders, and the four horsemen of Apocalypse, and four children who just play their games in a small village in Oxfordshire. Then it all gets wonderfully mixed up and spiced up with jokes and footnotes (which are the funniest part), and results in a pretty amazing book.

Biblical tradition is a good source of jokes in itself, but there are also a lot of jests about human ways, stereotypes, etc. I giggled a lot while reading it, which caused a lot of unpleasant looks from my neighbors on a night trans-Atlantic plane. It all got a bit too philosophical for my taste in the end, but one can endure it for the sake of fun.

I guess I saw a film once which was also about two angels doing some crazy stuff on Earth, and it also had Metatron, some other biblical characters and the end of the world. I guess the director found the inspiration for it in Good Omens. I'm mentioning the film here because I think it'd be pretty amazing to have Good Omens adapted for the screen, I think it will make an amazing movie. But the script must be written by Gaiman himself. He writes scripts, anyway :)

BTW, the amazing Coursera Fantasy and Sci Fi book club will be discussing Good Omens tomorrow. They are great guys, always choosing something nice to read. Welcome to join!

The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett

Title: The Color of Magic
Author: Pratchett, Terry
First published: 1983
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Goodreads description:

On a world supported on the back of a giant turtle (sex unknown), a gleeful, explosive, wickedly eccentric expedition sets out. There's an avaricious buy inept wizard, a naive tourist whose luggage moves on hundreds of dear little legs, dragons who only exist if you believe in them, and of course THE EDGE of the planet...

The fact that I am putting a plot description from Goodreads here instead of writing it myself means that I'm not particularly inspired to write about this book. The reason is that Pratchett's humor is just not my kind of humor. I know a lot of people who adore his books, so I expected quite a lot from The Color of Magic, but I wasn't impressed at all. While reading, I noticed all the places where the narrative is supposed to be funny, I understood why, but for me it was not, that's all. It is written on my cover that Pratchett is a mixture of Jerome K. Jerome and Tolkien, but I think he is not even near any of them. 

Another problem is that I didn't care for the main characters at all. I didn't like any of them, except probably the Luggage, which is rather cute. The Discworld is quite authentic, with its peculiar geography and physics, but without some likable characters it loses its charm. Whatever happens to them, the reader is sure that somehow (probably in the most improbable way) they will be saved. Besides, all the action scenes look like some D&D log and are not very convincing. 

So this book was quite a disappointment, and I don't think I'll read more from the Discworld series. Sorry, all Pratchett fans! :)

My Uncle Oswald by Roald Dahl

I picked this book or Around the World in 12 Books Challenge. I was looking for some books set in Sudan, which was February's country, and it was the only one that interested me, as all the others were about war and refugees, and it's definitely not what you need in the gloomy month of February. I've never read anything by Roald Dahl before, but I've heard about him a lot, so I was quite excited. In the end, it turned out that Sudan figured on no more than ten pages in the whole book, but I enjoyed it nevertheless, and that's what counts anyway =)

For anyone who is familiar with Roald Dahl's children's books, this one would be a surprise, as it a very adult one. Seriously, don't pick it up if you can't stand any sex scenes, as this is the core of the book. But somehow it's not all that horrible, because the novel is really funny, and there is nothing TOO repulsive there.

The main character is a very businesslike young gentleman, who made his first fortune on selling wondrous sex-pills made from the essence of some rare Sudanese bugs. Then he starts an even more complicated scheme of collecting and preserving the sperm of all the famous people of his time to sell it later to the extravagant ladies who want to have a child with some good genetics. Very novel schemes for the beginning of the 20th century, I must say!

Oswald and his assistant, a young lady who lures the famous people into having sex with her to collect their material, travel all around Europe and meet a lot of famous people of the time, including kings, painters, musicians, writers, etc. Some of them are described mockingly, some with all due respect, but it's really funny to read about all of them.

I really enjoyed the book, as it is refreshingly light and amusing, and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who is not easily abused by sex scenes. And for those who is already a Dahl's fan, this book will help to see him from a completely different point of view!