The bookpost crows twice

[roadrunnertwice]

Things I read in… a completely arbitrary interval

I am renouncing the idea of “month” around here, surprising nobody.

Vera Brosgol — Anya’s Ghost

(June 21)

I’ve been looking forward to this for a while, on account of Vera being a basically stellar cartoonist, and it doesn’t disappoint. Seriously, read this one. (I guess it’s scarce on the ground right now, but the second printing is apparently on its way.)

Things that were awesome:

• Anya’s character design. So expressive! She keeps wavering back and forth between pretty and goony-looking and awkward and tough.
• It’s a believable depiction of a kinda awful protagonist in the process of becoming something better. That’s tough to do well.
• Emily’s expressions once she really cuts loose. AUGH.
• This one’s kind of hard to explain, but late in the book there’s a kind of half-callback to Anya’s fantasy scene about Sean: it sure looks like Dima actually DID need someone “more… negative.” Right? I think the way Anya acts in this scene is actually really crucial to making some unrelated parts of the story hold together. (Just ignore me; this is the equivalent of when I go off on songs that seem to be from the future, or whatever.)
• I have a major soft spot for any modern story that includes a microfilm scene.

Yellow Tanabe — Kekkaishi 23

(June something)

I’ve been kind of stalling on this, because what I learned from the scanlations is that the next leg of the story is too slow to read at the pace at which it’s published; I’d like a nice long backlog ramp so’s to get some hangtime. But if the library’s manga shelf happens to have the next volume when I pick up a hold, I’ll tend to just grab it.

Anyway, stuff happens here, but nothing gets particularly resolved. There’s a new boy at the site, and I’m kind of wondering if maybe this one will be the one to NOT end up having a heart of gold. (Who am I kidding, of course Yoshimori will bring him around.)

Also, something just occurred to me the other day! Yoshimori/Gen = Gilgamesh/Enkidu. Right?

Shigeru Kayano — Our Land Was a Forest: An Ainu Memoir

(June 29)

This struck me as a pretty important memoir. I gather that Kayano was one of the last half-dozen or so people who could have written anything like it. It was a quick read, it got me a little more context and background on the Ainu people (which I’ve been wanting ever since they were basically glossed completely over in my Japanese language and culture classes), and it raised a lot more questions than it answered. Especially recommended if you’re interested in endangered languages and cultures and the type of work that goes into protecting them.

(Also, it’s worth doing the Wikipedia Epilogue after you finish it, since history seems to be in the process of vindicating everything he spent the last half of his life working for.)

Doris Egan — The Gate of Ivory

(July 8)

Pretty decent but not great. I actually wish it had grabbed me a lot more than it did, because it had some interesting things going on — it came to my attention in a rec thread (I forget whose) asking for interplanetary magic-based fantasy. (Digresion: Come to think of it, every Star Wars product that doesn’t mention “midichlorians” would count as that, right?) The main character does anthropology, there are smart thoughts about what an interplanetary economy could actually consist of, the culture is interesting and cool, there’s the continuing mystery of what magic actually IS and why it only works on one planet. But it was kind of episodic and drifty, and like I said, it didn’t grab. There are two sequels, but I think I’ll give em a miss.

(Jo Walton liked it, though.)

Sara Ryan — The Rules For Hearts

(When the hell did I read this, anyway? Must have been May.)

Further adventures of Battle from The Empress of the World. I think I liked this one quite a bit better — Battle is a better narrator than Nic, probably because she’s terse by nature and not super-aware of what’s going on in her own head.

Anyway, a likable and kind of refreshing book; very character-driven, and a good example of plenty of story with almost no plot. It was just what I was looking for when I read it, whenever that actually was.

Hazel Dixon-Cooper — Born on a Rotten Day: Illuminating and Coping with the Dark Side of the Zodiac

(July 9)

I was trying to use this in a character-design exercise, mining it for believable collections of harmonious personality flaws, but it ended up disappointing me — just another specimin of unenlightening and formulaic astrology, nothing to see here. (And the prose was an excruciatingly cutesy mess, I mean god damn.)

The only fun part was that the Pisces section pretty much got me personally dead to rights. I suppose a stopped star clock is always going to be right for SOME douchebag.