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Here be summaries and minor spoilers for the below books.
3. Changing planes, by Ursula LeGuin. I found this one in the The Book Trail second hand bookshop, where it had made the trip from Oxford Books up the street. It’s a series of mostly charming, sometimes horrifying, snatches of alternate realities and worlds, discussing the joys and dangers of genetic engineering, growing wings and immortality, among other things. Beautiful, as always.
4, 5 & 6. Uglies/Pretties/Specials, by Scott Westerfeld. Reviewing as one, but counting as three. A solid Young Adult sci fi trilogy about a girl living in a world where people are, like the titles say, either ugly, pretty, or special. It was a little patchy (some bits had me grinding my teeth), but the overall message of thinking for yourself, and essentially deprogramming yourself of your culture’s nastier messages, is strong. Big points for Tally’s quiet epiphany that while she’d once loved guy X, she now loved someone else, and both of those were valid. Given the author’s audience (teenage girls) I really wanted a stronger denouncement of cutting than he delivered, but I’m curious enough to pick up the fourth part of the (not-anymore) trilogy Extras if it came within reach.
7. I am legend, by Richard Matheson. Read in its entirety last night, because it was short, and I was made curious by the impending movie. And interesting go at giving a scientific basis for vampirism, with (for me) an utterly unlike able protagonist. It might just be because it was written in the 1950s (reading the words: ‘starter button’ in relation to cars made me grin, that aside it’s aged well), or because five months ‘alone’ under constant pressure does that to a person, but I found myself recoiling from Neville as a character. The death of the dog hit me much harder than it would have pre moving in with Kenobi. I’m totally fascinated by the movie adaptation now, although by fascinated I mean ‘I’ll be reading a blow-by-blow account on The Movie Spoiler because actually viewing the movie means I wouldn’t sleep for a week’.
3. Changing planes, by Ursula LeGuin. I found this one in the The Book Trail second hand bookshop, where it had made the trip from Oxford Books up the street. It’s a series of mostly charming, sometimes horrifying, snatches of alternate realities and worlds, discussing the joys and dangers of genetic engineering, growing wings and immortality, among other things. Beautiful, as always.
4, 5 & 6. Uglies/Pretties/Specials, by Scott Westerfeld. Reviewing as one, but counting as three. A solid Young Adult sci fi trilogy about a girl living in a world where people are, like the titles say, either ugly, pretty, or special. It was a little patchy (some bits had me grinding my teeth), but the overall message of thinking for yourself, and essentially deprogramming yourself of your culture’s nastier messages, is strong. Big points for Tally’s quiet epiphany that while she’d once loved guy X, she now loved someone else, and both of those were valid. Given the author’s audience (teenage girls) I really wanted a stronger denouncement of cutting than he delivered, but I’m curious enough to pick up the fourth part of the (not-anymore) trilogy Extras if it came within reach.
7. I am legend, by Richard Matheson. Read in its entirety last night, because it was short, and I was made curious by the impending movie. And interesting go at giving a scientific basis for vampirism, with (for me) an utterly unlike able protagonist. It might just be because it was written in the 1950s (reading the words: ‘starter button’ in relation to cars made me grin, that aside it’s aged well), or because five months ‘alone’ under constant pressure does that to a person, but I found myself recoiling from Neville as a character. The death of the dog hit me much harder than it would have pre moving in with Kenobi. I’m totally fascinated by the movie adaptation now, although by fascinated I mean ‘I’ll be reading a blow-by-blow account on The Movie Spoiler because actually viewing the movie means I wouldn’t sleep for a week’.
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