vel veeter – Page 149 – Cannonball Read 17

Everybody said: so? As in so what?

Summer by Ali Smith

September 17, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

The closing volume of the Seasons Quarter by Ali Smith. Arguably, this is the best or at least most impressive of the books, but I will get to that. The books are not sequels, so you can read them in any order. Instead, each novel focuses on a season (and things attached to that season) and generally try to capture the current moment (as of publication) while also trying to place things within broader contexts or connected thematic moments. So in this book, the absolute […]

He leaned forward, his breath the smell of whiskey drunk straight from the bottle.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Congo by Michael Crichton

September 17, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This is a reread for both of these books, but it’s also possible I never read Congo — I did see the movie on HBO while babysitting in like 1997 and it’s truly awful. The book is also, not great, but it is a lot better than the movie. Fight Club, of course, I read right after watching the movie. Fight Club – 4/5 Stars This book mostly still holds up. Like the movie, of course, the satire (WHICH IS NOT SUBTLE ACTUALLY) does not […]

The hegemony consul sat on the balcony of his ebony spaceship and played Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-sharp Minor on an ancient but well-maintained Steinway while great saurian things surged and bellowed in the swamps below.

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

September 13, 2020 by vel veeter 2 Comments

I had a very unclear understanding of what I thought this book was, not by reading about it or looking at reviews for it, but by looking at the original cover. It looks like a kind of sci-fi fantasy novel ala Dune or some other kind of adventure in space. And while there’s elements of that throughout, the book ended up being so much smarter, better written, and a number of other things as I started to understand what I was reading. We begin aboard […]

In the myriadic year of our Lord–the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death!–Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth.

Gideon the Ninth by Tasmyn Muir

September 13, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

While it took me awhile to sort my way through the early morass of the world-building and language of the first chapter, I ended up enjoying this novel a lot, while still feeling annoyed at some of the too cleverness that often inhabits playful sci fi and fantasy (Brandon Sanderson is deeply enamored with overly cutesy and playful “repartee” at times, and so is this novel as well too often). So the world we’re looking at involves a series of nine aristocratic houses inhabiting nine […]

Dancing all alone, feeling nothing good

Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie

September 13, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This is the debut novel by Sherman Alexie, who had already put out a near perfect short story collection: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven a little earlier. I always think about Alexie as being a very talented writer, but it’s interesting to consider that because his output is varied in terms of type, the over all collective oeuvre is a little harder to assess. This novel begins with the blues musician Robert Johnson making his way onto the Spokane Indian reservation and […]

A little more than one hundred days into the fortieth year of her confinement, Dajeil Gelian was visited in her lonely tower overlooking the sea by an avatar of the great ship that was her home.

Excession by Iain M Banks

September 12, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This is the fifth book in the Culture series by Iain M Banks, and the fourth proper novel. There’s a novella tucked in there that is interesting but not really a full story. This once still has the classic touches of humor, wildness, hilarious naming conventions. The novels are generally a mix of Ursula Le Guin’s Hainish books (by which I mean he pretty much rips her off in a number of ways) and a very very very toned down Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams. […]

Loreen on “I made promises to you that I’m not sure I can keep.”Just so you know, there are now 18 books banned in Utah. Here’s the list compiled by the Salt Lake...
Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...

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