House of Leaves

House of Leaves is a truly unique and fantastic book.  From it's opening page that says simply "This is not for you" all the way to its conclusion that completely rerenders the reader's view of the story, this book blew me away. 

Describing the basic premise of the book makes it sound somewhat ridiculous.  It is about a man who finds and edits an exhaustive movie review.  This review is of a documentary (or perhaps horror) film called The Navidson Record.  However, as the man, Truant,  reads and edits the review things in his life tend to get stranger and stranger.  The Navidson Record doesn't exist within the world of the book (nor in real life) which makes the story all the more intriguing.  The main portion of the book is the review of the movie and the story of the editor is told in footnotes.

The book has a beautifully executed gradual ramp up to anything scary, in the beginning it is much more of a mystery than anything else.  As the histories of the characters are slowly revealed, one step at a time, the book really grows.

This book also, in the world of ebooks and pdfs, truly embraces the printed medium.  The book itself is such a critical part of the feel of the story, from the small touches like certain words being consistently printed in different colors, to the big touches like strange page layouts and multipage upside down footnotes. The very layout of the book tells part of the story.

The book is eccentric in other ways too.  It is over 700 pages, 200 of which are appendices and an index.  The appendices have random additional information, some of it relevant, some of it not.  The index is another beast entirely.  Some parts have interesting

I will say that the story of the editor did not interest me anywhere near as much as the story of the characters in The Navidson Record but it provided an interesting break from the main story and some of the most pervasive imagery, the parts that literally kept me up at night, were in the sections written by Truant.

I feel like there is almost nothing that I can say that will truly do this book justice, but I can say for a certainty, it is a unique literary experience.  This is my favorite book that I have read so far in 2012.

Overall, I would give this book a 98%.

The Dirk Gently Duology

Douglas Adams is famous (rightfully so) for his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, which was, as he called it, a trilogy in 5 parts.  However, many people forget that he also wrote other things.  While nothing can really top the Hitchhiker's guide in the niche it carved for itself, the Dirk Gently duology is an good read, especially if you like funny mysteries with a taste of sci-fi. 

The two books are called Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul.  They share almost no characters other than Mr. Gently and deal with completely different areas of science fiction.  You could read them almost in either order or one without the other (OK, so perhaps calling it a duology was a stretch).

I read them back to back after picking up the second book in Chicago and then months later finding the first in a used book store where I go to school.  They certainly have the trademark Douglas Adams' weird, funny, and slightly depressing dark humor.  Anyone who enjoyed Hitchhiker's will enjoy these.

The main character is a detective who believes in the interconnectedness of all things.  Acting upon these beliefs gets him into very silly situations and yet things always seem to work out for him.  I laughed out loud at some parts of this book.

A note of warning, don't go into this expecting a traditional whodunit.  This definitely has science fiction and fantasy elements and if you don't like those mixed with your mystery then these books will probably be a disappointment.

Overall, I would give these two an 83%.

Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith: The Collected Stories

The Lost Tribe of the Sith stories were released as free eBooks to promote Del Rey's publishing of other Star Wars works.  They were written by John Jackson Miller who is a history nerd and tries to weave all of the history knowledge bottled up in his head into science fiction, making for quite the enjoyable tale.  If you can ever hear him talk about what influenced him to write basically any plot point, it is sure to be interesting and probably have some grounding in world history.

The eBooks became quite popular and so Del Rey decided to publish them together in a collection as well as with a novella that followed after the last story and wrapped up the open ending of the last story.  The novella takes up about 3/8ths of the book, while the other 8 short stories take up the rest. 

The stories cover over 2000 years, so the reader can really watch the society evolve and change over time.  There are basically three trilogies with the novella making up the third part of the last trilogy.  The basic premise is that this group (tribe) of Sith crash lands on an unknown (lost) planet and must support themselves without killing each other, a tall order for Sith.

Each of the stories has a pretty clear protagonist and it is sort of interesting to think that the guy that you are rooting for could easily have been the villain in a variety of other tales.  Also, seeing a large group of ego-centric people try to get along is pretty humorous.

An issue with this is that (if you haven't done the math) not all of the characters get the same amount of screen time.  The final part in the time line takes up about half of the book.  While I didn't have a problem with this, I could easily see how someone could be miffed that they were stuck with characters they didn't like as much as those the author introduced 1000 years ago.

No one from the movies shows up in this story and it requires no real knowledge of the Star Wars universe to enjoy.  The book presents a unique perspective on Star Wars and while the marooned on an alien planet is sort of a sci-fi trope, I can't think of another story that follows the growth of the marooned civilization like this one does.

Overall, I would give this collection a 82%.

Star Wars: Scourge

Scourge is sort of a unique Star Wars book, it contains basically no characters from any of the movies.  However, unlike most Star Wars books, it is kind of a mystery, trying to figure out who the actual villain is.  It has some really fun action scenes and some unique characters.  It really doesn't feel like most tie in novels, mostly because it just expands the overall universe.

The main character is something that you don't see very often in Star Wars, a Jedi lacking in self-confidence.  Then when he is thrown together with other characters, some of whom are from stereotypes not often portrayed as protagonists, they really mesh and it makes for a good story.

The only downside is that it is very short.  It really doesn't take long to finish.  While I cannot point to any specific part of the book that I wish was fleshed out, it just seemed like it could have taken up a little more shelf space.  It was like those amusement park rides that are fun but over far too soon.

Overall, I would give this book a 79%.

Star Wars Reads Day

This post is one of the few posts that are not book reviews.  Today is Star Wars Reads Day.  This is a collaboration by everyone who publishes Star Wars books (Del Rey and Scholastic to name just a couple) to have a national day that celebrates both Star Wars and reading.  Since those two are both things that are near and dear to my heart, I have decided to write up this short post about them.

You might be thinking, "But wait, Star Wars is a movie, how can you read about it?"  While I do love the Star Wars movies, there is a whole universe beyond that in the form of novels, comic books, video games, and other multimedia items.  Unlike many franchises, all of these coexist together and tell one cohesive story  (at least much better than can be expected for something that has been going on for 35+ years under many different publishers and even more authors) streching across millenia of Star Wars "history".  This is a awesome boon for someone like me who has a hard time letting characters go.  I will follow a character basically as long as an author will let me.

While I will freely admit there are many bad books out there with franchise names emblazoned on their covers, there are many good Star Wars books.  I am obviously biased because it is something I like so much, but there is a real sense of connectedness to this universe.  Every book ties in to other books, it is really like reading a history of some undiscovered culture in novel form.  To me the movies are just a fraction of this larger universe.

Some of my personal favorites from this universe:

Revenge of the Sith by Mattew Stover:  This doesn't quite count because it is a novellization of a movie but it is different than almost any other movie novelization and due to the fact that it ties so closely to that movie makes it a great jumping off point for someone getting started in the series.  Here is the books version of the opening crawl and possibly one of my favorite introductions to any book ever: http://web.archive.org/web/20080529033558/http://www.starwars.com/episode-iii/release/publishing/f20050330/indexp3.html (It goes the whole page, not just the little bit in italics).


X-Wing: Rouge Squadron by Michael A. Stackpole (and the rest of the X-Wing books):  This is a book set after all the movies about some of the background characters, specifically the pilots.  Despite getting a dance party with ewoks, the war is far from over and this book and series detail some missions and show Star Wars from a different perspective than most of the movies because The Force plays a very small role in these books.  They are much more of the science fiction of Star Wars and much less of the fantasy.  Also, they can be side splittingly funny in parts.

Hard Contact by Karen Traviss: This is about a team of clone commandos behind enemy lines with some jedi action too.  Karen Traviss earned praise from fans (including those in the military) for her gritty and apparently realistic portrayal of what it was actually like to be fighting a war and being a soldier.

Path of Destruction by Drew Karpyshyn (and the rest of the Bane Trilogy): This book takes place a millenia before the movies and features a Sith as the main character. This makes for some really interesting story telling because it is hard to tell who to root for. It too is sort of a unique take on the saga. Showcasing some interesting ideas that are never really explored in the movies.

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor by Matthew Stover: While this is also by Mr. Stover, this is a completely different story.  Its title and style are more meant to evoke the Star Wars novels of the 80s than the modern day ones.  It is a fun story, very serious but with lots of cool hero moments that really evoke the spirit of the movies.

Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn (and the rest of the Thrawn Trilogy): This is a classic.  It was the first adult star wars novel after a long hiatus.  People were not sure there was even going to be a market for Star Wars books but it sold like crazy when it came out.  It takes place a while after the movies but it is a great jumping in point because that is where many people jumped in.  The antagonist, the aforementioned Thrawn, is a really interesting villian.  (This also ranked 88 on NPRs top 100 Sci-fi and fantasy books)

There are also many other Star Wars books out there, these are only a token few (and some of my favorites).  In the coming months I will be putting reviews of Star Wars books up as I read them.