6.27.2011

 

The Vampire Lestat


by Anne Rice, 550pgs, paperback
Series: The Vampire Chronicles book 2
Overall Grade: A-

Much better than 'Interview with the Vampire' in my opinion. This time around, we get the first-person narrative of Lestat, starting with him awakening in the (then) present-day shortly after 'IwtV' is published, and he joins a metal band. Well, if Louis can get away with his whiny biography, then so can Lestat.
The narrative quickly jumps us back to Lestat's pre-vampire life as rural gentry in 19th century France. He kills a pack of wolves all by himself, befriends Nicholas, they move to Paris, discover the arts, music, theater. Lestat is abducted and turned by an old vampire named Magnus. Spends some time revelling in his new status, turns his only mother, Gabrielle, into a vampire at the very brink of death. Together they confront the Paris coven, led by Armand, and destroy it. Lestat turns his friend Nicholas into a vampire, Nicholas is still looney. Armand spills his whole history out for Lestat & Gabrielle. Lestat sets up Armand, Nicholas and the remnants of the Paris coven as the Theatre of the Vampires (last seen in IwtV), before he and his mother go further and further abroad looking for the ancient vampire, Marius, and his mysterious charges Those Who Must Be Kept.

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# posted by Cptn. Suz @ 3:06 PM
 

The Dolphins of Laurentum


by Caroline Lawrence, 155 pgs, paperback
Series: The Roman Mysteries book 5
Overall Grade: A

Not so much a mystery this one, but an backstory info-dump on Lupus.
Flavia's father has returned, just barely surviving a shipwreck, and with all his money literally at the bottom of the sea, his creditors are demanding he pay up. At the same time Lupus is looking to hire an assassin to kill the slave-trader Venalicius, who murdered his parents and cut out his tongue. Fortunately, they meet Pliny the Younger, very thankful that they stayed with his uncle until nearly his dying moments, who offers to put them all up in his seaside villa in Laurentum till things get sorted out. And wouldn't you happen to know, there's an old shipwreck just off the shore that's supposed to have gold in it!

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# posted by Cptn. Suz @ 2:55 PM
 

Water for Elephants


by Sara Gruen, 331 pgs, paperback
Overall Grade: A

Sometimes the popular books are just popular because they're good. This seems to be the case with 'Water for Elephants'.
Jacob Jankowski is a ninety-some year old man in a nursing home when the sudden appearance of a circus across the street causes a stir, and makes him remember eventful days of the 1930s when he literally dropped out of college, jumped a train, and worked for a circus. He also falls head-over-heels in love, and meets tons of colorful characters, and animals. Wins the girl, survives a stampede.
Just read it, it's good.

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# posted by Cptn. Suz @ 2:47 PM
 

A Pale View of Hills


by Kazuo Ishiguro, 183 pgs, paperback
Overall Grade: B-

In a disjointed fashion, we glimpse two episodes in Etsuko's life. One in post-WWII Nagasaki, where she, pregnant with her first daughter, befriends a strange neighbor woman and her daughter. The second in near present-day England, where a much older Etsuko plays host to her grown second daughter on a home visit.

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# posted by Cptn. Suz @ 2:01 PM

6.15.2011

 

X-Men: First Class

PG-13, 132 minutes
IMDb | Official Website
Overall Grade: A+

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# posted by Cptn. Suz @ 8:08 PM

6.14.2011

 

Krakatoa


by Simon Winchester, 384 pgs, paperback
Overall Grade: B

Yeah, I'm totes the sucker for non-fiction like this. Winchester does a fair job of dishing up servings of history, anthropology, geology, biology, technology and human interest. Yes, this is about the eruption of Krakatoa, an Indonesian volcano that completely blew itself apart in 1883.
The only reason my grade is not higher is because I was greatly bored by the half-arsed explanations of plate tectonics and subduction zones. (I do have a geology minor after all!)

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# posted by Cptn. Suz @ 2:54 PM
 

Behemoth


by Scott Westerfeld, 481 pgs, hardcover
Series: Leviathan trilogy book 2
Overall Grade: B+

I could hardly remember the first book when I picked this one up, but that was okay. The second book in this deliciously steampunk alt.history WWI finds Deryn (still masquerading as a boy, Dylan) and Alek (Austrian crown prince on the run) on the air beast/ship Leviathan, headed for Istanbul to deliver there cargo. Once there, the Darwinist British crew find themselves vying with the present German Clankers for influence over the sultan. Meanwhile, Alek and his keepers decide to make a break for it and escape from the airship.

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# posted by Cptn. Suz @ 2:51 PM
 

The Assassins of Rome


by Caroline Lawrence, 152 pgs, paperback
Series: The Roman Mysteries book 4
Overall Grade: B+

Backstory like whoa!
So Flavia and company are back home in Ostia finally have their eventful travels around Pompeii. But they're not there long before Jonathan's uncle shows up, begrudgingly telling him that his mother (whom he thought had died many years in the siege of Jerusalem) might be alive and tucked away somewhere in the imperial palace in Rome. So Jonathan scampers off to Rome with his uncle, leaving his father to be arrested back in Ostia, Lupus gets to hang out in a tree for a... while, and leaving Flavia and Nubia to devise their own plan to set off for Rome to find Jonathan and rescue him. Oh yeah, and some assassins might also be there trying to kill the emperor.

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# posted by Cptn. Suz @ 2:47 PM

6.02.2011

 

Day of the Oprichnik


by Vladimir Sorokin, 191 pgs, hardcover
Overall Grade: C

I suppose I'm just not "literary" enough to enjoy this novel. Set in a future Russia, the story tells a day in the life of one oprichnik. From what I can tell, the oprichnina (the collective of oprichnik) are Tsar-ist government officials that spend their day ousting nobles, burning houses, raping women, doing drugs, acting as censors, carrying out assassinations, bribery, controlling various dissidents, being busy-bodies, and having orgies.
--Having wikied oprichnik, that's pretty much what they did historically in the 16th century. Well, they were supposed to live more austerely like monks, but fulfilled the same government role.

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# posted by Cptn. Suz @ 5:20 PM
 

The Remains of the Day


by Kazuo Ishiguro, 245pgs, paperback
Overall Grade: B+

An English butler relates his view on the profession and his service to his current and previous employers. The story is told in a piecemeal fashion as he travels on a roadtrip across the English countryside to visit and a former housekeeper from the estate.
As long as you can stand the snail's pace of the narrative and the constant skipping about in chronology, the novel is quite readable. The prose is especially well done, and you can perfectly imagine that an English butler is speaking to you.

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# posted by Cptn. Suz @ 5:00 PM

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