Read, dammit.

Marvel 1602, by Neil Gaiman

2007-02-03T10:17:00.001-08:00

I just finished reading Neil Gaiman's post-Sandman endeavour, entitled Marvel 1602 due to the simple fact that he's taken the Marvel universe and plunked it firmly in the final year of Queen Elizabeth's reign. 1602, to be precise.

Well-written, and a fun spin on the whole Jack Kirby/Stan Lee character empire. Mutants are called Witchbreed, and are hunted by the Inquisition.

Strangely, the character I'm most into is Daredevil, all-too brooding and self-absorbed in his usual incarnation; here a blind minstrel with a penchant for one-liners.

A fun read, I must say, especially necessary for me right now, since most of the time these days I'm knee-deep in non-fiction Latin American history or fighting through intense Shakespearean analyses.

Oh, and did I mention the bitchin' scratchboard covers by Scott McKowen? They're, well, bitchin'.

Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift

2006-10-15T17:26:00.000-07:00

Gulliver's Travels
Jonathan Swift

Published: 1726
Read: October 2006

Capsule: Lemuel Gulliver writes a series of observations about his unusual travels to lands previously unseen by European eyes. Most identifiable for the image of Gulliver pinned to the earth by 10-cm tall Liliputians, GT is most compelling for its unswerving bite in attacking the colonial enterprise. Look for the coining of the term "yahoo" in describing the undesirable actions of a person.

Trade Paperback: 306 pages
Penguin Classics
ISBN: 0-14-143949-1

As a precursor to the 18th Century lit course I'm to take in the new year, I recently perused Jonathan Swift's 1726 masterpiece, the brutally honest sendup of the British superiority complex called Gulliver's Travels.

Most of us know it only through a single image: the everykid fantasy of suddenly finding oneself a giant amongst little people. After his ship is ripped asunder, a victim of the sea, Gulliver wakes up on a beach, prisoner of the Liliputians, a race of people barely 10 centimetres tall. Since the mid-18th Century, this is the image we've all grown up with, that we've all identified with, that we've all taken for granted:

The sad, joyous, tragic and compelling part is that Gulliver's Travels is so much more than a single child's play painting. What starts as an exercise in Swift's hatred for travel books soon moves out of mere sarcastic disdain for self-absorbed writing. The author uses the monstrously large Brobdingnagians to ridicule human illusions of grandeur; the misshapen Laputians (whose name literally translated from Spanish means "the whores") to mock navelgazers, artists, religious zealots and psychologists; the Chicken Little-esque Balnibarbians to skewer both sides of the British-Irish conflict; the form-over-function Luggnaggians to spank both Asian traditions and those in the west who refuse to respect them; the immortal Struldbruggs to shame dreamers who refuse to grow old gracefully; and the equestrian Houhnhums to out-and-out name humankind as the single greatest scourge to slither, crawl, swim or walk the face of the earth.

Even paintings rendered fairly early on decided to run in unintended directions with Swift's work; every representation has Gulliver wearing his hat while being staked to the ground by tiny creatures. If you read with even the slightest care, you'll find that the cap was actually recovered and returned to its owner days later by a scouting party. Notes in my Penguin edition bear out Swift's claims, even centuries later: from the very first, publishers edited, rewrote, renamed and otherwise bastardized Gulliver and his Travels for fear of reprisals from politicians and readers alike. Since then, the holier-than-everythou scholars have spent nigh on three hundred years arguing over which pronouns are preferred, what chapters ought be renamed, and how many lines may have been redone by Swift himself or a jealous compatriot. Some of these debates have, in their utmost importance, brought academics to tears, shouting matches and even bloodshed.

That may sound silly, but today our problem is worse. It's truly unfortunate that our soundbite-driven modern society has reduced such an opus as GT to a single image. (Even more saddening when such a biting portrayal of colonial missteps is so wholly ruined by association with an American C-list actor such as Ted Danson.) Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point is an aptly simplified look at how we juxtapose all the information we encounter: we are so bombarded with imagery and popular culture minutiae, we're forced to take even the most pointed message and flatten it for easier placement in our cerebral filing system. No longer do we roll phrases around our mouths to find hidden meanings, or labour to read up on an author's influences. Instead we reiterate half-baked conspiracy theories handed us by writers of The X-Files and memorize inconsistencies between episodes of CSI: Miami; we look up quotes on the internet, sans context, often sans citation or even accuracy.

As a culture, we've stripped & sold parts of hundreds of amazingly detailed pieces of historical commentary rather than take time to study them in detail. This is why our modern runaway hits are so bland by comparison; The Da Vinci Code is already flat, uncomplicated pageturning that has spoonfed the masses a two-thousand-year-old mystery unravelled in a weekend by a middle-aged college prof and his twenty-something love interest. Rich Dad, Poor Dad is fast food for the financially illiterate: complete with its large print, oversimplified repetitions & numerous typos, it's pre-digested pablum that's more improbable for success, but much easier to swallow than, say, the semester or two of Intro to Financial Management that should be mandatory in junior high school.

Even the sacred tomes of Harry Potter are simply watered down Norse, Greek & random collected myth. Boy-child vs unimaginable arch villain: David & Goliath, anyone? Child pulls magic sword out of... well, you pick: a hat for Harry, or a stone for Arthur. JK Rowling is an astute pupil of reshaping myth; so was her countryman Shakespeare, as was Ovid in Rome, and Homer for the Greeks. They've all created stories that look great on the surface and invite voracious first reads. What the mother of the Harry Potter franchise has managed to do, however, is decidedly different: she's pre-flattened the story for easy entry into the mental hard drive, and by doing so, removed the meaty, subtextual flesh that makes for good study.

Jonathan Swift compared his melodramatic travelogue to the song of Sinon, the Greek who sold the Trojan Horse like a car salesman with a good-looking lemon. Both Vergil and Swift, but by a few staid classicists, have long since been dumbed down. Only time will tell if or how Harry Potter and the Overhyped Ending will fare with audiences three centuries down the road. If Rowling's hero is still in the collective memory by then, here's betting it'll be in a single pictograph and an advertising catchphrase.

The Island of Dr Moreau - H G Wells

2006-01-16T22:25:00.000-08:00

The Island of Dr Moreau
H G Wells

Published: 1896
Read: January 2006

Capsule: Edward Prendick finds himself on a desert isle with myriad beast people created by a wanton vivisectionist, Dr Moreau. A classic early foray into the genre of scientific horror, The Island of Dr Moreau challenges Darwinian exploration and assumptions of Christian dominion. It also successfully displays both sides of the ethical scientist argument while taking typically 19th-Century British shots at "lesser" races.

Trade Paperback: 104 pages
ISBN: 0486290271
Dover Thrift Editions

I've read only a little H G Wells over the years, but spurred by the recent Tom Cruise debacle thought I should give the real deal a try. Despite being contemporaries in the newly emerging field of science fiction, Wells and Jules Verne apparently used to hate each other's writing. Wells thought Verne was unnecessarily dry and dark; Verne thought Wells was implausible and overly fantastic. For readers today, both authors provide fascinating looks at a genre in its infancy.

The Island of Dr Moreau is best placed beside works like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: it's as much about the people involved as it is the crazy science of it all. With monthly breakthroughs in cloning, the Genome Project and medical nanotechnology, these stories are perhaps more important now than they have been in a hundred years.

At the same time, the most jarring issue for a modern reader is most likely going to be a very old one. The narrative spends half the book slamming species and races "less" evolved. Even with a clear call for scientific (and colonial) restraint, the racial intonations are, today, uncomfortable -- in agreement with British thought at the time, Wells equates white with intelligence and civilisation, black with brutish ignorance.

Moreau's attempts to inflict civility upon the animals of the kingdom, of course, turns out horribly. The vivisected beasts learn language to certain degrees, and are taught a rudimentary religion centred upon the good doctor's pain-giving abilities. "Stubborn beast-flesh" prevails time after time, however: invariably, the creatures slowly revert to instinctual, speechless animals. The racist comments make an otherwise brilliant text difficult to read in a modern context.

Sympathy for Moreau's victims quickly becomes awareness of colonial slave trade. One can't help think that Prendick's judgement of human servants would read similarly -- when the teachings of the great white man start wearing off, Prendick observes, "I... distinctly perceived a growing difference in their speech and carriage, a growing coarseness of articulation, a growing disinclination to talk."

The obvious allusions to race relations aside, Moreau is intelligent storytelling; Wells was incredibly well-read, and no matter Verne's opinion, his literacy shows through in his work. Near the end of the book, the Monkey Man offers up a little pre-Orwellian newspeak: everyday topics are "little thinks", while abstract discussion and inventive wordplay are "big thinks".

South Park took 30 minutes to tackle the little thinks in Moreau with their four-assed monkey interpretation. It would take a few semesters of studying colonial and black history, however, to even attempt a cranial wraparound on the big thinks in this story.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - J K Rowling

2006-01-08T18:01:00.000-08:00

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
J K Rowling

NOTE: Raincoast Books, the Canadian publisher of the Harry Potter franchise, is the sole publisher of these books to use Old Growth-free, recycled paper. Please support responsible companies like this whenever possible -- order the Raincoast edition of Harry Potter!

First Published: June 1997
First Read: 2000
Last Read: June 2005

Capsule: Is there anyone who doesn't know? Well, okay, for consistency's sake: Harry Potter is maltreated and abused by his step-parents. His life seems dreadful and sad, until his eleventh birthday, when he finds out: he's a wizard! He subsequently goes to Hogwart's, the finest school of magic and witchcraft in England. This, the first book of seven (six as of this blog post), literally woke up the bookreading world and started an empire for J K Rowling, who is now richer than the Queen of England.

Trade Paperback: 256 pages
ISBN: 155192398x
Raincoast Books

My review is hardly necessary -- there's so much cyberspace devoted to Harry Potter and the six books we've been treated to so far that I won't add my two cents. Suffice to say, as a storyteller I admire how she's created such an intriguing, complex world with essentially simple characters. As a writer, I love that Rowling has brought people -- especially children -- back to reading for the love of books. As a reader, I'm excited to see how she winds it all up. I go back and read all the books prior to publication of each new one; here's hoping the ending lives up to the stupendous material to come before it.

Calculating God - Robert J Sawyer

2006-01-07T09:37:00.000-08:00

Calculating God
Robert J Sawyer

First Published: April 1999
Read: May 2005

Capsule: Robert J Sawyer, Nebula Award-winning science fiction writer, weighs in on the intelligent design debate through contrived, heavy-handed fiction.

Paperback: 352 pages
ISBN: 0812580354
Tor Books

This was lent to me by a friend with high praise. Unfortunately I can't support his claims. While positing a smattering of interesting ideas and posing one or two questions of note, Calculating God is pretty much an ageing science fiction writer's attempt to show off how much he knows about physics, astronomy and cutting edge religious dogma.

After an alien spacecraft lands at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum, the world is shocked when the extraterrestrial that emerges asks not to meet political or military personnel, but rather desires an audience with the ROM's head paleontologist.

It seems that there are at least two other civilised worlds on the brink of self-destruction, like ours. These aliens, then, are searching for similarities in our cultural and physiological evolutions to head off disaster for our three races. Oh, did I mention both of these otherworldly visitors have scientific evidence for the existence of God?

What follows is little more than a seminar on intelligent design. Reading the book, you'll either feel that Sawyer's a holy salesman trying to convert you, or be oblivious to it and come away with all that subliminal religious programming swimming around in your head. Hey, I'm all for exploration of faith -- this, however, smacks of the Scientologists handing out coupons for "free IQ testing" to get people through the door. There's no subtlety whatsoever; it's just Sawyer as sci-fi preacher.

Calculating God is a mercifully quick read; as such, it's not a waste of time, but surely there are other sci-fi books that prophesise with a lighter touch.

The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

2006-01-04T22:45:00.000-08:00

The Little Prince
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Published: 1943
Read: May 2005

Capsule: The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is one of the world's most beloved children's stories. A pilot finds himself stranded in the desert where he meets an extra-terrestrial prince -- the alien's seemed innocence of course belies a cosmic wisdom, and forces the pilot to question all that he holds dear, all that he "knows". To date, The Little Prince has sold over 50 million copies worldwide.

Paperback: 96 pages
ISBN: 0156012197
Harcourt Publishers

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote a wonderful, touching and thoughtful story that should be mandatory reading for everybody. Simple characters give countless opportunities to think about the truly important things in life, and to put everything in your life in real perspective. Even if you're broken down in the desert, you need to realise the cosmic significance of your predicament, and the consequences of your actions. Do you want to be The Drunk, who drinks to forget he's ashamed of drinking? Or the Cartographer, who makes maps of the world, but never leaves his desk to actually experience those wonderful places?

The messages are simple, too. Open your eyes, and even more important, open your heart. Help those who need help. Appreciate what -- and whom -- you have around you. And strive to be the best person you can be while you're at it.

A wonderful story.

The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes - Neil Gaiman

2006-01-02T16:32:00.000-08:00

The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes
Neil Gaiman

Published: Single issues, 1988; Collection, 1991
Read: April 2005

Capsule: Neil Gaiman's work as a writer is hailed throughout the comic, goth and post-modern literature communities as some of the best work of the late 20th Century -- issue number 19 won the World Fantasy Award for Best Short Fiction, prompting a rule change to disallow illustrated works from future consideration. These stories about Dream, the ruler of the dream world, weaving characters and ideas from myriad faiths and mythologies, is among the most influential of the past 50 years -- its touch is seen on television, in the movies, and in music around the world.

Graphic Novel: issues 1-8; 233 pages
ISBN: 1563890119
Published by DC/Vertigo

Morpheus is pissed off. The ruler of the dream world, he has been inadvertantly captured and imprisoned by some basement witchcraft of a hobby cult. Immortal, he outwaits two generations of human captors before escaping and regaining control of his domain. In the meantime, horrible things have taken place in our world; without the ability to dream, some bad shit goes down for nigh on 100 years.

This is how we're introduced to the Sandman, the brainchild of the brilliant Neil Gaiman, who was asked in the mid to late 80s to create a title for DC's new adult-themed imprint Vertigo. He took the obsolete superhero Sandman (a WWII hero dressed in green and gold with a gas mask and sleeping powder) and ramped him up several notches. Instead of a traditional superhero comic, readers were treated to a sophisticated, literate rendition of entities older than ancient mythology. Dream had seen Zeus come and go; he watched Buddha, Mohammed and Ron L Hubbard rise and fall; that Christianity? -- just a phase.

To placate the suits at DC, some mentions of heroes from that universe are present: Arkham Asylum gets a few plugs in the first storyline, which has the Justice League of America's old foe Doctor Destiny in possession of the Sandman's ultra-mystic paraphernalia. The original Sandman even appears for a guest spot as a one-panel illustration of how Morpheus's decades-long absence has inspired mortal copycats.

From these humble beginnings grew a phenomenon that has touched TV (X-Files, Charmed), movies (Matrix, Underworld), and music (Tori Amos, every goth band since 1990). This first collection isn't as polished as the volumes that follow, but after all, it is titled Preludes and Nocturnes. A wonderful read, extremely literate and intellectually as stimulating as any well-planned university lecture on mythology.

A Clash of Kings - George R.R. Martin

2006-01-01T22:14:00.000-08:00

A Clash of Kings
George R.R. Martin

Published: September 2000
Read: April 2005

Capsule: The sequel to George R.R. Martin's successful A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings is pretty much more of the same. The first 200 pages or so is stiff going, but the it's all investment for the last 800-plus pages of pageturning pleasure.

Paperback: 1040 pages
ISBN: 0-553-57990-8
Random House Books

The second installment of medieval struggles between the honourable House Stark and the seedy House of Lannister, A Clash of Kings focuses largely on the misshapen imp Tyrion Lannister. Written off by his enemies and ignored by his family, Tyrion is nonetheless the smartest of them all. Despite being wracked by painful dwarfism in a time where the slightest scar belittles you in social circles, Tyrion schemes and plays power with the best of them. He wheedles his way from bedroom to dungeon, from whorehouse to control of the very throne of the Seven Kingdoms.

The arena in which the story is played out is widening, moving into bizarre, magical eastern lands and harsh northern climes full of threats both mortal and spiritual. Also entering the fray are shadowy forces under the guise of religion, that look to usurp steel as the power of choice. Brother fights brother, father fights son, and the fates of the Stark children are as variant as the landscape of the kingdom. One lies a cripple, unable to remember the Lannister prince who dropped him from a second story window; another walks the 30-metre ice wall at the northern perimeter of the kingdom; the eldest daughter is held captive by a merciless Lannister queen; the other daughter lives alternately as a soldier boy and a serving girl, using her samurai-style training to help her subvert the bad guys' war effort from within.

As mentioned in the capsule above, the first 200 pages or so are frustrating, a slow go at best. Stick it out to get to the good stuff. After Martin finishes setting up the board, he moves his pieces without peer.

Girlfriend in a Coma - Douglas Coupland

2005-12-26T21:45:00.001-08:00

Girlfriend in a Coma
Douglas Coupland

Published: 1997
Read: April 2005

Capsule: Karen McNeil starts as a typical bored high schooler, giggling with girlfriends, exasperating boys, and experimenting with sex. When she tells her high school senior boyfriend that she will go away for a very long time -- just after they lose their virginities to each other -- he thinks it's just some female mindfuck -- the title of the book should tell you that she ends up being right, only she doesn't go away so much as to sleep. She gives birth while in a coma, and the father (and narrator of the story), Richard, allows the baby's grandparents to raise her. For a time, things are pretty bleak, with Richard spiraling into alcoholism and their friends getting pulled into drug abuse, until Karen re-awakens more than ten years later. After that, the story gets, well, weird. That she shows no cerebral signs of damage is the least odd of the remaining plot points, which I won't spoil here.

Trade Paperback: 240 pages
ISBN: 0006485979
Reagan Books

Strangely enough, this was my first foray into Douglas Coupland's novel-length work. No, I've never read Generation X or Microserfs, both of which aren't merely career-defining; they're era-defining. Along with William Gibson, Coupland has genrified, vocabularised and otherwise help shape the public view of the information age. Like Joseph Heller (Catch-22) and Gibson (cyberspace), Coupland has done something few writers can boast: create vocabulary that has become regular usage within his lifetime.

I picked this copy of Girlfriend in a Coma up for $5 at a used book store on Granville Street, and absolutely devoured it. It's really three novels in one, but all three parts are examples of consummate storytelling. The first part, literally: in setting up the story, we meet Richard and Karen, two high school sweethearts who have their first sexual experience in a snowbank while night-skiing on Grouse Mountain. The characters are utterly real (and all-too familiar): the narrator is an awkward, inward teen who in lieu of his myriad emotions, tends to grunt at his bright, talkative girlfriend. He, like most teenaged guys -- hell, like most guys -- is completely mystified as to why a beautiful, vivacious woman like Karen would have anything to do with him.

She tells him that she has had strange dreams of late, and that dark times, they are a-comin'. By graduation, she is both pregnant and -- cue the title -- in a coma. The other two parts of the book are spent taking shots at human nature. Just about everyone in the book squanders their opportunities: whether hand-picked for model shoots around the world or doomed for a life of Joe jobs in North Vancouver, every one of Karen's friends end up hooked on drugs or booze. The parents are self-absorbed and thus clueless, and nobody is saved either by the child Megan or by the awakening of skeletal Karen.

Her return bodes well for Richard personally, but bad for the world; she has come back to witness the end of the world. There are spirits, rains of fire, lootings and death without rhyme or reason. It's a bizarre story, but an enjoyable one -- I'll definitely read more Coupland when the chance permits, and recommend that anyone into contemporary literature give him a gander.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki

2005-12-26T21:44:00.000-08:00

Rich Dad, Poor Dad
What the Rich Teach Their Kids about Money that the Poor and Middle Class Do Not
Robert Kiyosaki

Published: May 2000
Read: March 2005

Capsule: Robert Kiyosaki uses vague stories from his youth to compare those who own or invest in businesses (his friend's, "rich" dad) and the average working man (his real, "poor" dad). The books in this series are repetitive and preachy, but have nuggets worth exploring. It sounds like a trite website testimonial, but this book was honestly a big part of my financial renaissance.

Trade Paperback: 207 pages
ISBN: 0446677450
Warner Books

Okay, Robert Kiyosaki doesn't need any more advertising. His brainwashed minions are everywhere, promoting the Rich Dad, Poor Dad empire. You could spend the rest of your life playing the Rat Race boardgame, attending seminars and networking with highly motivated people who want you as a part of their personal get rich-slow scheme.

While it looks and sounds suspicious, and certainly has enough holes and flaws for skeptics to skewer, there are grains of truth and inspiration in Mr Kiyosaki's work. The books are repetitive, overly simple and mostly vague inspirational messages that you, too, could be rich if you think outside the box. But therein lies his greatest conceit: those who choose to view his books are repetitive and vague are destined to work for the rest of their lives. Those who look for, and find, the inspiration and motivation in these simple games and tomes have a shot at getting out of the cheque-to-cheque grind.

There is no great conspiracy to keep you down. There are, however, many more mechanisms built to make the rich richer than those built to give ordinary people a shot at early retirement. Books like this, at least, give normal folk like me something they wouldn't have otherwise: a glimpse of possibility.

The Pleasure of My Company - Steve Martin

2005-12-26T21:43:00.000-08:00

The Pleasure of My Company
Steve Martin

Published: October 2003
First Read: December 2003
Second Read: March 2005

Capsule: Daniel Pecan Cambridge makes Jack Nicholson's character in As Good As It Gets look like an outgoing casanova. Martin's trademark intellectual goofiness is here in spades; also present are hope and a bucket of heartwarming truth.

Hardback: 144 pages
ISBN: 0786869216
Hyperion Books

Steve Martin is quietly producing some of the best fiction of the last twenty years. Where he started with the subtle character study Shopgirl, he continues in The Pleasure of My Company.

Daniel Pecan Cambridge is, to use medical jargon, a nutjob. He's trapped himself in a complex web of idiosyncrasies, combining the best bits from any number of nervous disorders. For example, the wattage of light bulbs on in his apartment must be equal at all times; to turn off a 100W bulb in his bedroom, he needs to strategically seek out ons and offs in other rooms to balance the apartment total. As an excuse to avoid excessive forays out of the apartment, he is deathly afraid of stepping off curbs; he needs coolly discerned plans before exiting his front door, lest he be caught without a driveway or wheelchair ramp to leave the block.

Daniel is old school Martin: on the surface, goofy for the sake of goofiness, but upon inspection so much more. After years of calculating and calibrating his own entrapment, both the love of a girl and his grandmother's death force him to confront his myriad fears. Martin's treatment of Daniel's internal struggle is equal parts mock epic and celebration of the victory of everyman.

Throughout Martin's career, I've gotten the feeling that he hasn't really wanted to be the centre of attention, that he just happened to end up in the spotlight, so he shrugged his shoulders and did what came naturally. Daniel Pecan Cambridge is an inventive incarnation of Steve Martin, the private citizen, who, even in the face of mortality, has nothing to fear but fear itself.

Lullaby - Chuck Palahniuk

2005-12-26T15:27:00.000-08:00

Lullaby
Chuck Palahniuk

Published: September 2002
First Read: October 2002
Second Read: February 2005

Capsule: The author of Fight Club explores his signature cocktail of grief-driven desperation, this time through modern magick, unchecked apathy and the power of suggestion. It's a fast read, and one of my favourites.

Trade Paperback: 272 pages
ISBN: 0385504470
Doubleday Books

The fourth of Chuck Palahniuk's descents into the darkness of the human condition, this is perhaps his most imaginative book. Where Fight Club simply extrapolates Generation X's lack of direction or purpose, Lullaby uses the mystery of crib death to launch an exploration of loss, guilt, self and magick (the last of which is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "an action or effort undertaken because of a personal need to effect change, especially as associated with Wicca or Wiccan beliefs").

Reporter Carl Streator finds a wholly unsecular similarity between instances of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome that has eluded law enforcement and medical personnel. Every family suffering the SIDS-related loss of a child has inadvertantly used an ancient African culling song printed in a book of children's rhymes; the song, used by long-lost tribes to give painless death to the old and infirm, has been sung for years to countless babies by well-meaning parents, something Streator means to stop.

To test his theory, Streator ends up killing his editor -- every writer's dream, right? -- and soon finds himself able to kill passersby and even annoying radio hosts with a mere thought of the culling song.

He meets a bizarre upwardly mobile real estate agent who repeatedly sells haunted houses to unknowing buyers, her new age assistant and herecoterrorist boyfriend along the way. Palahniuk is nothing if not the master of extremity -- he takes his story so far along its arc that it's in danger of flying off on an uncontrollable tangent.

On second thought, the entirety of Lullaby is a tangent. That, perhaps, is Palahniuk's forte: his texts reek of familiarity, the feeling that despite their fantastic nature, they're utterly real, completely possible. Like that niggling feeling that you have to shake off, that yeah, Elvis could be alive, Palahniuk's books have the feel of the real story that inspires supermarket tabloid excess.

How to Spot a Bastard by his Star Sign - Adele Lang & Susi Rajah

2005-12-26T15:04:00.000-08:00

How to Spot a Bastard By His Star Sign

Adele Lang & Susi Rajah

Published: 2002
Read: January 2005

Capsule: Okay, I'll give them this much: all men are bastards. I'm still not convinced our individual styles of bastardness are discernable by plotting our birthdates, however.

Trade Paperback: 144 pages
ISBN: 0-312-28486-1
St Martin's Press

I was loaned this horoscope book by Ray at work -- he just happens to be, like me, a pedantic Aquarian know-it-all grammar geek.

Like most novelty titles, it was chock full of throwaway humour, predictable, unfunny or both. The idea is clever, however, and I'm sure this small publishing house has sold plenty of copies as stocking stuffers, conversation pieces and tongue-in-cheek citations for gender studies majors.

Strange Heaven - Lynn Coady

2005-12-26T12:25:00.000-08:00

Strange Heaven

Lynn Coady

Published: 1998
First Read: January 1999
Second Read: January 2005

Capsule: A sad but entertaining first novel from one of Canada's next-generation authors.

Trade Paperback: 198 pages
ISBN: 0864922302
Goose Lane Editions

Lynn Coady has for the last few years been hailed as one of the next generation of great Canadian writers. This was her first novel, published eight years ago now, and in my opinion still her best work. Since this Cape Breton-born east coaster moved out to Vancouver, her work has smacked, ever-so-slightly, of something she actually lamented in an article in This Magazine some time ago: the insincerity of Lotusland; this book, by contrast, displays an uncontrived portraiture that interweaves both 90s irony and ghost town heartbreak.

Bridget is on a "rest cure" in the children's mental hospital after giving up an illegitimate child for adoption. Flashbacks tell the tale of her pregnancy, and the reactions of her friends and family show the utter helplessness we all feel as we hurtle through life without a script. High school superstars are eternally stalled under the weight of their respective teenaged labels, working dead end jobs to pay for weekend drinking binges and endless revolving girlfriends and boyfriends. Bridget only recognises this when one of them turns up dead: "[Jenny] was queen of the prom, on her parents' mantelpiece forever, now." Her epiphany, told over a quickly-read 200 pages, is both tragic and hilarious, and its consistency is what Coady has yet failed to match in her subsequent work.

I've been pleased with Coady's decision to keep her hands wet in journalism. She's a heavyweight essayist, in my opinion, and her work between novels in publications like This Magazine, and more recently The Globe and Mail Review, ensures her voice will be heard for a long time to come.

A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin

2005-12-26T11:49:00.000-08:00

A Game of Thrones
Book One of A Song of Ice and Fire

George R.R. Martin

Published: 1996
Read: January 2005

Capsule: It's frustrating at first, but this mammoth entry into A Song of Ice and Fire is an enjoyable tome.

Paperback: 864 pages
ISBN: 0553573403
Spectra Publishing

An ex of mine warned against reading this series by George R.R. Martin, saying it was utterly addictive and, therefore, utterly disappointing. You see, due to the sheer number of characters and separate plotlines involved, Martin seems to take a good four or five years between installments of the story. This is the first in the franchise -- the fourth book was released a few weeks before Christmas -- of what promises to be at least seven volumes. Each book in the series is massive, weighing in at around 1000 pages, this last so huge that they've divided it into two volumes; book five, the illegitimate stepchild of book four, is due in the spring sometime.

I tried reading this, the first book a few years back, and got about 100 or so pages in before giving up. I'd never been much of a medieval-style fantasy fan, and this book was no exception. The characters were wooden, the setting contrived, the development and action slooooooooow. I gave the book to Briana and moved on to another book.

Then over Christmas 2004, the cover of Game of Thrones caught my eye at Book Warehouse. My experience with the first attempt was so unimpressive that I didn't remember having tried. I bought Thrones a second time and got to reading. Again.

The first 150 pages were absolutely infuriating. In judging the wooden characters, contrived setting, slow development, non-existent action, I found a maddening familiarity. I couldn't figure out why I felt so close to these badly-written characters; I was so involved with them that I could predict what they'd do next. Anyway, I stuck it out this time, and by the 200 page mark, I was hooked. Things picked up, and the pieces moved around the meticulously developed chess board brilliantly.

The story revolves around the family of Eddard Stark, an upstanding, soldierly nobleman in charge of the northern lands of Winterfell. The world is similar to 14th or 15th Century England, with one huge exception: seasons are of an extreme and indeterminate length -- a good summer will last nine or ten years. The cold seasons, then, bring not months, but years of hardship, toil and trouble. The Starks, as the earnest figureheads of the northern territories: they are the proverbial ants working hard through the summer, forever preparing for times of have-not. This leads to the Stark family motto, bleak but strong: "Winter is coming."

Eddard Stark and his comrade-in-arms, Robert Baratheon, overthrew an evil king years ago, and the latter now rules the Seven Kingdoms. A just but firm ruler in his youth, Baratheon has been fattened and slowed by years of unhealthful kingship and a questionable marriage to a scheming queen. Mysterious murders and heirs to the throne that don't resemble the king one whit are all precursors to kingdom-wide strife to hit as a winter of legendary prophesy falls upon the land.

Martin is an accomplished hobby historian, so the marked similarities between his story and the real-life civil unrest that culminated in the 30-year War of the Roses aren't surprising in their realism. He is decidedly unapologetic in depicting realistic medieval patriarchy: nearly every man of worth has as many bastard children as he does legitimate offspring, and nearly every other man (of worth or not) is willing to rape, pillage and kill wives and children to get ahead.

Most interesting, for me at least, is the Wall. The far northern rim of the kingdom is lined by an ancient, massive wall of ice. Hundreds of metres high and wide enough for several to ride abreast, this border wall is manned by bastards, criminals and miscreants as part of the Night's Watch. There's an odd honour in being part of the Watch; rather than being hanged or jailed for crimes, or begging for the want of a job, these outcasts find a comaraderie and purpose unavailable for them elsewhere.

On the other side of the wall lies a mysterious mix of wildmen, ye olde magic and feared bloodthirsty spirits. Magic isn't at the forefront of A Song of Fire and Ice, a la many fantasy novels, but supplies a (usually) subtle, sinister undercurrent throughout the books.

Frankly, with each book as thick as a contributor to Stephen Harper's Conservatives, it would be unwieldy for me to accurately summarise the story here. Besides, there are so many that have done the job already: The Citadel and The Tower of the Hand: The Encyclopedia of Ice and Fire are definitive sites, as only fantasy geeks and webheads could possible compile.

Bloated and spent after three weeks of this literary Roman orgy, I rolled out the door and bought the second book, A Clash of Kings. At a book exchange party a few weeks later, I asked Bree if she wanted Thrones, and she looked at me with her inimitable "I love you, friend, but you're a perfect idiot" smile.

Whenever I eye up a new paperback, then, I try to remember if I've given it to Bree first.