Of Two Minds

It was another two months where I didn’t read very many things with covers.

Captain’s Fury by Jim Butcher [4/5]

This is the fourth installment in the Codex Alera series, and I thought it was another fine effort. Jim has a knack for keeping things moving, which helped to keep this sword-and-horses tale
down to a svelte 438 pages. I’m very much looking forward to the final two books in the series.

The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Sixteen Original Works by Speculative Fiction’s Finest Voices edited by Ellen Datlow [4/5]

I picked up the ARC of this anthology when I was at NY Comic Con, and I’m glad I did. My favorite of the included stories was Elizabeth Bear’s “Sonny Liston Takes the Fall,” and I also quite enjoyed Maureen F. McHugh’s “Special Economics,” Margo Lanagan’s “The Goosle,” and Laird Barron’s “The Lagerstatte.” Some of the other choices didn’t work as well for me, but it’s still a good group of stories overall.

As-yet-unpublished manuscripts read:

• Green by Jay Lake
• Chill (or at least part of it) by Elizabeth Bear
• Good Housekeeping by Mary Robinette Kowal

Better late than never….

Gone Baby Gone [4/5] Amazon

This was a really impressive piece of work by first-time director Ben Affleck, with an excellent performance by his brother Casey in the lead role and strong supporting efforts from Ed Harris, John Ashton and Morgan Freeman. It’s a movie that asks some tough questions about doing the wrong thing for the right reasons (or the right thing for the wrong ones).

Death at a Funeral [4/5] Amazon

Not as funny as it might have been, but Alan Tudyk’s performance makes this one very worth seeing. He’s hilarious.

Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian [2.5/5] Amazon

I’ve never actually read the Narnia books, so I can’t comment on how accurately this adaptation portrayed the events of the novel (though I’ve been told there are plenty of things that were changed). As a straight fantasy movie though, I didn’t find Prince Caspian to be very impressive, and I certainly didn’t enjoy it as much as I did the first installment.

Grace is Gone [3/5] Amazon

It’s a good premise, and John Cusack and the young Shélan O’Keefe both give great performances, but I don’t think the movie worked very well overall. It started off strong, but then faded.

Two already-published books this month, which is up from zero last month. Actually, with everything else that I was reading for work, it just took me quite a while to get through this one:

Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy, edited by Ekaterina Sedia: I had an advance copy and have been “sneaking” a short story here and there between manuscripts. I really enjoyed this anthology, particularly revisiting Jay Lake’s City Imperishable in “Promises” and Hal Duncan’s “The Tower of Maddening Bones.” Having now seen Hal read at various conventions, I can actually hear his accent in the prose and imagine his flamboyant delivery in the periphery of my mind’s eye. I also found the imagery in “The One that Got Away” by Mark Teppo evocative and the character study presented in Jen Reese’s “Taser” was also intriguing. My thanks to Kathy for introducing me to these two writers, whom I don’t believe I’ve read before. Michael also reviewed this book in April when it was released.

The other book I read this month was Repossessed by A. M. Jenkins. This is part of my ongoing project to read current YA fiction for a conference panel I’m on this summer, and it was a gift from the editor. It’s essentially about a demon from hell that possesses a 17-year-old boy, and the demon’s intention to experience being human. I’d definitely call it a “boy book” and there were some narrative choices that didn’t quite work for me, such as the narrator’s first person voice that constantly referred to the boy’s family, friends, things, etc. as things outside himself, which left me feeling a bit distant and uninvolved. It did win an award from the ALA, though, so it’s definitely worth the read, and it was a nice change from all the “girl books” I read earlier this year.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford [5/5] [Amazon]

This is a slow movie, but if you know that going in then you can take the time to appreciate what a fine piece of filmmaking it is. From the atmospheric cinematography, to the excellent performances by both Casey Affleck and Brad Pitt, to the perfect score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, I thought this was a brilliant film. Maybe some of the bits in the middle could have been edited to help the pacing there, but overall it was just great. I may even have to pick this up for myself on DVD.

The Red Violin [3/5] [Amazon]

I liked the basic premise of the movie, but I didn’t at all appreciate the structure used to tell the story. Still, there are some fine performances and some excellent violin playing.

Juno [5/5] [Amazon]

Diablo Cody’s sharp writing is what makes this movie, and the great acting, especially by Ellen Page, works to make that writing come alive. This one is a definite winner.

There Will Be Blood [4/5] [Amazon]

As was the case with Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland, I thought the performance by the lead actor in this movie was absolutely brilliant, but I was less in love with the film itself. I found it to be uneven, and thought it fell apart to some extent toward the end. Daniel Day-Lewis’ acting still makes it worth seeing though.

Almost all of these books were read in March, as April found me mainly reading things that didn’t have covers.

Uglies by Scott Westerfield [4.5/5]

This was my first Scott Westerfield book, and I thought it definitely lived up to the hype. The writing was smooth, the characters engaging, and it never gave the sense of somehow talking down to it’s audience simply because it’s nominally a YA book. Highly recommended.

The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson [3.5/5]

There are some great ideas here, but I thought the novel started a lot more strongly than it finished, and I didn’t find the resolution of the plot to be at all satisfying.

Snake Agent: A Detective Inspector Chen Novel by Liz Williams [4/5]

I liked the combination of police procedural and Chinese mythology, and I found the characters to be engaging. There were times though that I thought things weren’t quite as well paced as they might have been, but it was still a fun read.

Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy edited by Ekaterina Sedia [5/5]

I already reviewed this one here.

As-yet-unpublished manuscripts read:

• The House of Discarded Dreams by Ekaterina Sedia
• 1 non-client ms. for Jenn

On May 1st, Jenn and I travelled to the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton, MA, to see Liz Carroll and John Doyle perform. Since I apparently didn’t ever get around to blogging about the last concert of theirs we went to, I don’t want to let this one get missed too just because it took place during a week that was bookended by Veda Hille and Vienna Teng shows.

I’d seen Liz and John perform twice before, once at the University of Hartford and once at the Meeting House in Newtown, CT, so I was expecting another evening of excellent tunes and songs. We got to the venue before doors opened, so we could grab the small table up against the stage, which was the perfect vantage point for watching Liz on fiddle and John on guitar demonstrate their mastery of their respective instruments. They tore through two long sets of reel, jigs and other tunes, interspersed with a few songs sung by John. There was also an easy exchange of banter between the two of them, in case the way they played together wasn’t already evidence enough of how comfortable they were with each other on stage.

The only downside to the evening was the people at the table directly in front of Liz and John. They obviously all knew one or both of the performers to some extent, and they decided that this meant they should try to make requests and crack jokes whenever the opportunity arose. It was almost as though they thought the concert was for them alone, and not the rest of us in the audience. Given their reaction, I don’t think either Liz or John was entirely comfortable with all of this.

Despite that annoyance, it was still a great evening of music, and if you at all like the Irish traditional stuff, I highly recommend going to see Liz and John if they play in your area.

Way back on April 27th, Jenn and I hitched a ride with our friend woj down into NYC to see Veda Hille at Joe’s Pub. It had been almost seven years since I’d last seen her play, when she performed her album Field Study (and showed the accompanying film) in woj and Meredith’s living room. The July heat that day did it’s best to melt my brain, but I still remember the packed room being completely enraptured by her. Since then Veda hadn’t crossed the border into the States very often (thanks, stupid U.S. visa hassle!), and hadn’t made it out New York at all, so I was really looking forward to the chance to see her again.

Joe’s Pub has a reputation of being somewhat of a hassle to see shows in, and I hadn’t been there for years, but on the quiet Sunday night when we saw Veda it was almost entirely free of annoyances. We got there a few minutes early and joined a group of ectophiles who had staked out good seats, and the waitress was laid back about us buying drinks. All of that meant that I was free to concentrate on the show without distractions.

Veda was awesome. She was accompanied only by Ske Brooks on drums (and some vocals), but that was all she needed. On piano, keyboard and tenor guitar, she performed a great set of songs, mainly taken from her most recent album, This Riot Life. I had been lame about getting her last few CDs, so between that failing of mine and her playing things that weren’t on any of her albums, almost the entire set consisted of material I hadn’t heard before. That just meant that I got to be amazed by each song as I heard it for the first time. Wow.

As an extra bonus feature, I got to get Vienna Teng hooked on Veda too, by encouraging her to go to the show. I felt inordinately proud of myself for that one. Jenn helped too, by sharing her cash so Vienna could buy two of Veda’s CD instead of just one, as Joe’s Pub had decided to make Ms. Teng pay twice to get in, claiming that they didn’t have the ticket she’d bought in advance. Susan McKeown probably would have been at the show also, if I’d given her more notice about the concert, but it didn’t end up working out. Sorry about that, Susan. In other musician sightings, Erin McKeown had made the long drive down to the city, so I guess she’s a definite Veda fan too.

After the show there was much hanging out and chatting with Veda and various ectophiles (including Vienna, an ectophile herself from back in the day). In the end, the trip back wasn’t over until 3am, so I was a zombie the next day. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

Back on April 20th, Jenn and I were in the city for NY Comic Con, and we were therefore lucky enough to have the chance to catch Vienna Teng’s set at the Green Apple Festival in Central Park. She was on at noon, as the first act of the day, and there was definitely a contingent of Vienna’s fans out there among the people who were just there to get a good spot for the rest of the afternoon’s entertainment. With Alex Wong backing her up, she did six or seven songs, including some of those I think of as almost her standards and her cover of Radiohead’s “Idioteque” (which was a definite crowd pleaser). I think she may have won over a few new fans, and it was nice to both hear her play and then have time to say hi afterwards before we headed downtown for another engagement.

Looking at Vienna’s tour schedule we didn’t think we’d have a chance to see her play again for a while, but early last week a May 2nd concert at Williams College was announced. I was already seriously considering making the trek out to far northwestern Massachusetts, and then I asked Vienna if she planned on playing any of her newer songs (which I had yet to hear). When she replied that indeed she was going to be playing some of the new material, I decided that I was definitely making the long drive out to Williamstown.

It wasn’t hard to convince Jenn to go too (all I had to do was tell her about the show), so this past Friday we made the long drive out. We stopped on the way at the Lhasa Cafe in Northampton for some tasty Tibetan food, and then got stuck behind a tractor trailer on the steep climb up the Mohawk Trail, but we still managed to make it to Baxter Hall at Williams College in time to get pretty good seats for the concert. It was a free performance held in what was basically the open great hall of the college’s student center, which was perhaps not the ideal location (especially when the staff decided they needed to run the vacuum nearby in the middle of one of the songs), but there was a pretty impressive turnout. The sound from the PA system was about what you’d expect from an event like this, sort of muddy and with a bit too much low end, but it was a great show despite that. I even managed to keep a set list:

Gravity
Whatever You Want
In Another Life*
Stray Italian Greyhound*
The Tower
Antebellum* [co-written with Alex Wong]
Kansas*
City Hall [earlier in the set than planned, by request]
Augustine*
Decade and One
Transcontinental, 1:30am
1br/1ba
Grandmothers Song* [not sure of the name on this one]
Recessional
Harbor

* indicates a new song

That’s right, we got six new songs! I thought they were all good, with the standouts for me being “Antebellum” and “Augustine.” Vienna’s hoping to have her next album out in 2009, so I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for both of those making it onto the CD. All in all, it was a great show, and I was glad we’d made the trek out to hear it.

After she was done, Vienna did plenty of signing, and even played “Soon Love Soon” through the monitor for a few fans who’d wanted the chance to sing along with that. Then she asked Jenn and I if we’d like to join her for some late-night food, and we headed out with her and a couple of other folks to find what we could in Williamstown. The tavern we ended up at may have served me the single worst piece of pecan pie I’ve ever had, but it was still a fun time, and we lingered until the place was about to shut down. That meant a long, rainy, foggy, late night drive back, but we survived it intact, so I’d definitely say that it was well worth it.

Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

That’s published already, that is.

Guess I just had too many clients with manuscripts due in April.

Check back next month to see if that status has changed….

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld : Given the buzz for this series, I was worried it wouldn’t live up to all the praise. But I was wrong to be concerned in this case. This was a really intriguing book with a lot of compelling character detail and a way to look at societal perceptions from a refreshing angle. I’m looking forward to reading the next one.

No Control by Shannon K. Butcher : I read Shannon’s first book last summer and enjoyed it. This one also did not disappoint. Full of adventure. Can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

Fingerprints: The Origins of Crime Detection and the Murder Case that Launched Forensic Science by Colin Beavan : My token non-fiction book on the history of crime detection and the first case in the U.K. that used fingerprints to solve a murder. My interest in forensic science was satisfied with this book, and I found the discourse between the anthropomorphic mode vs. the fingerprinting system for criminal identification particularly interesting in its development. The author did have a tendency to wander from the topic somewhat which was luckily saved by the fact that the tangents were also historically interesting.

Vengeance in Death and Holiday in Death by J.D. Robb : Books 6 and 7 in the bestselling series about Eve Dallas, the sexiest and most determined cop of the future and her gazillionaire husband, the super-sexy Irish-born Roarke. Once again, I enjoyed these and I’m thankful to Lou for loaning them to me. I have two more in the queue now, though I’m not sure when I’m going to get the chance to read them. I do have to admit that I felt like Eve’s and Roarke’s relationship has begun to feel a little bit stale, and though the mysteries are well-done, the overall pattern of the plot, particularly the inevitable confrontation between Eve and the criminal near the end, are also starting to feel a little too familiar. I hope she does something to shake things up in the next couple books. Still, they’re fun.

The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson : The science in this was intriguing, and conceptually I was fully engaged by the story. I have to admit, though, that the ending felt a little too manipulative for my taste, and though I thought Scott was an intriguing character, Sue didn’t quite work for me, so her fate didn’t leave me feeling as involved as it was likely intended to. But it’s a New York Times Notable Book and got a starred review in PW, so what do I know. Heh.

Snake Agent: A Detective Inspector Chen Novel by Liz Williams : I adored Chen and also poor Zhu Irzh. The world-building in this one is very original and, of course, makes the mystery element work in a unique way. I enjoyed the cultural aspects of this one too.

Given the current backlog of manuscripts, I doubt I’ll report any already-published books finished in the month of April, but I am occasionally still reading stories in Paper Cities here and there.