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Nov. 25th, 2014 02:02 pmHunger Games: Catching Fire (film)
I thought this was done fairly well, but I still thought that it was undermined by the fact that everyone was lying to her all the way through, it made the middle bits so different in retrospect in way which doesn't really seem to be acknowledged.
Mirage, Matt Ruff
I read this for Bug's book club and then had a clashing engagement and couldn't go.
About an alternate world where there's a United States of Arabia instead of United States of America and 9/11 happens in reverse. I liked a lot of the characters, but lost interest in what was going to happen half way through.
It was a lot less fail-some than I expected, and made some good points about some of the problems in how many arabic countries are seen. But I thought the mirror-image conceit was pushed too hard, in a way which reinforces an idea that America=civilised and middle-east=not, which isn't what we want to reinforce.
I agreed with Rmc's review http://rmc28.dreamwidth.org/555077.html which said it better than I have time for.
The Demon's Lexicon, Sarah Rees Brennan
I enjoyed this. I think I saw SRB doing something cool online or at a con and found the book from there, but I don't recall exactly how.
Magicians main power is summoning demons, which always must be imprisoned in circles. This is a quick path to the dark side because they need to feed on people. Some people have lesser magic powers, but it's hard to compete. About the main character and his brother, and traumatised almost-silent mother, moving from city to city intermittently trying to have a normal school life while being intermittently found and hunted down by circles of magicians.
It's a YA-type book which I find slightly reminiscent of DWJ (with imperfect relationships between teens and discovering a lot of things which were evident but the main character was oblivious to), which is a good start.
I was left wanting something chewier, and more "lexicon", but I enjoyed it. I don't know how it would compare for someone closer in age to the protagonists.
Shadowboxer, Tricia Sullivan
Somewhere I was recommended several female-protagonist urban-fantasy combat-sports books, the last being Jacqueline Carey's Santa Olivia about a faux-werewolf boxer.
I'm only 2/3 of the way through this. About a just-under-18 girl with a large temper and chequered history as an up-and-coming Mixed-Martial-Arts fighter, who punches someone at the wrong time and takes a sabbatical at her manager's cousin's gym in Thailand, fighting Muay Thai. Mixed up with the story with magic about the eternal forest, and a fostered girl escaping her immortality-seeking guardian, starting from Thailand but later returning back to America.
I loved the main character and MMA/Muay Thai, which has small touches of magic, which are well done as relevant but deniable, but is mostly about her real life. The secondary characters are vivid, and the main character comes across well as someone sympathetic but with a real anger problem.
The other thread was well described but I found less engaging, as I'm already convinced that 99% of fictional orphans warring against evil magicians automatically prevail, whereas I was genuinely unsure about the fights.
I thought this was done fairly well, but I still thought that it was undermined by the fact that everyone was lying to her all the way through, it made the middle bits so different in retrospect in way which doesn't really seem to be acknowledged.
Mirage, Matt Ruff
I read this for Bug's book club and then had a clashing engagement and couldn't go.
About an alternate world where there's a United States of Arabia instead of United States of America and 9/11 happens in reverse. I liked a lot of the characters, but lost interest in what was going to happen half way through.
It was a lot less fail-some than I expected, and made some good points about some of the problems in how many arabic countries are seen. But I thought the mirror-image conceit was pushed too hard, in a way which reinforces an idea that America=civilised and middle-east=not, which isn't what we want to reinforce.
I agreed with Rmc's review http://rmc28.dreamwidth.org/555077.html which said it better than I have time for.
The Demon's Lexicon, Sarah Rees Brennan
I enjoyed this. I think I saw SRB doing something cool online or at a con and found the book from there, but I don't recall exactly how.
Magicians main power is summoning demons, which always must be imprisoned in circles. This is a quick path to the dark side because they need to feed on people. Some people have lesser magic powers, but it's hard to compete. About the main character and his brother, and traumatised almost-silent mother, moving from city to city intermittently trying to have a normal school life while being intermittently found and hunted down by circles of magicians.
It's a YA-type book which I find slightly reminiscent of DWJ (with imperfect relationships between teens and discovering a lot of things which were evident but the main character was oblivious to), which is a good start.
I was left wanting something chewier, and more "lexicon", but I enjoyed it. I don't know how it would compare for someone closer in age to the protagonists.
Shadowboxer, Tricia Sullivan
Somewhere I was recommended several female-protagonist urban-fantasy combat-sports books, the last being Jacqueline Carey's Santa Olivia about a faux-werewolf boxer.
I'm only 2/3 of the way through this. About a just-under-18 girl with a large temper and chequered history as an up-and-coming Mixed-Martial-Arts fighter, who punches someone at the wrong time and takes a sabbatical at her manager's cousin's gym in Thailand, fighting Muay Thai. Mixed up with the story with magic about the eternal forest, and a fostered girl escaping her immortality-seeking guardian, starting from Thailand but later returning back to America.
I loved the main character and MMA/Muay Thai, which has small touches of magic, which are well done as relevant but deniable, but is mostly about her real life. The secondary characters are vivid, and the main character comes across well as someone sympathetic but with a real anger problem.
The other thread was well described but I found less engaging, as I'm already convinced that 99% of fictional orphans warring against evil magicians automatically prevail, whereas I was genuinely unsure about the fights.