March 2024 book log
May. 6th, 2024 06:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stdesjardinsI started keeping a diary in March, not very detailed, mostly recording what books I read. I haven't been good about keeping up, the most recent entry is April 14th, but I've gone through and made a list of all the books I read in March, and I will try to reconstruct my reading list for April and May and keep it up-to-date moving forward.
March included seven prose works and ten comics (not counting re-reads). As I am out of shelf space in my apartment, I've made notes on the physical books whether I kept them or tossed them in the donation bin downstairs. (I have been disposing of more books than I buy, but it will take quite a while at this rate to get completely organized.)
March 1: Last Will and Testament by E. X. Ferrars. Odd couple cozy mystery. Virginia is separated from her husband Felix, a kleptomaniac and con artist. She remains quite fond of him, even though she disapproves of and distrusts him, and the casual domesticity of their interactions is a high point of the novel. Felix's general character and felonious associations give him a plausible reason to shun the police, although at least in this novel the lead investigator is pleasantly perceptive and inclined to believe that obvious suspects are innocent when the evidence points that way. The one thing I'd fault is that Virginia is somewhat tedious in doubting Felix's deductions, Watson might have been imperceptive but he at least trusted Sherlock to be smarter than him. E-book; I bought the second book in the series, but if it doesn't improve a bit I won't get a third.
March 2: Mickey's Craziest Adventures by Lewis Trondheim and Keramidas is a faux "lost" European serial, supposedly created as one-page stories for a monthly Disney comic which had limited circulation and was never archived. The conceit is that only a fraction of the issues were ever found so there are gaps between most installments. It's a fun romp, with Mickey in intrepid adventurer mode and Donald his annoying screw-up companion, as they chase the Beagle Boys and Black Pete, who stole Gyro Gearloose's shrink ray and used it to steal the contents of Uncle Scrooge's money bin. Keep.
Jean Grey: Flames of Fear is fairly standard what-if superhero comics stuff, with a comatose Jean Grey remembering turning points of her life where she could have made different choices and imagining how those choices would have turned out. Spoiler, they're all bad, the message of her dreams is that she should trust her instincts and have no regrets, mistakes are inevitable and if someone else had her power they would screw things up worse. Not a convincing message or a particularly entertaining story, discard.
March 3: Asterios the Minotaur by Serge Le Tendre and Frédéric Peynet, translated by Jerome Saincantin. Slender but satisfying graphic novel. Asterios recounts his life story to a wounded and captive Theseus. Not all is as recorded by myth. Keep.
March 4: A Strange and Beautiful Sound by Zep, translated by Jeremy Melloul. I pulled this off the shelf because I couldn't remember what it was about, and after flipping through a few pages I decided to do a full re-read. After 26 years in a monastery, a monk is temporarily released from his vow of silence to attend the reading of his mother's will. On the train to Paris he meets a young woman with a terminal illness. Lovely, expressive monochrome art suits a gentle story of religious conviction. Keep.
Batman: Urban Legends vol. 6, various writers and artists. Short stories, some better than others. The best was a story by Anthony Falcone and Michael Cho with cartoony art and a light tone, but all of them were at least re-readable. If I had unlimited shelf space, I might keep this one, but since I don't it's a discard. (My philosophy of buying comics is that if I am going to read it once and enjoy it, I should buy it with no regrets.)
March 5: Savage Art is a collection of pulp covers, with an introduction by Frank M. Robinson. Aside from the introduction, which provides a historical overview of the pulps and the role of cover art in their popularity, there's no commentary on the covers, which are reproduced at larger-than-original size. Keep, but barely.
March 8: Traveller's Joy by Victoria Goddard. Perfectly pleasant short story from her Nine Worlds series. E-book, but would be a keep regardless, this is the sort of book I will re-read on the drop of the hat just because I'm in the mood for something light and familiar but clever and well-written.
March 10: The Casino Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine. I haven't read a Philo Vance mystery in somewhere around thirty years, and I decided to give this one a go on the principle that I was in the mood for a Golden Age style mystery and maybe it would be better than I remembered. It wasn't, an incredibly annoying protagonist (the sort who is unnecessarily cryptic with pretentious mannerisms) and an unexceptional plot. E-book, otherwise this would be an immediate discard.
March 11: Duck Avenger Strikes Again. Third-rate Romana Scarpa Mickey Mouse stories. (Floyd Gottfredson is first-rate, Paul Murry teeters between first- and second-rate, the rest is pretty chancy.) Discard.
March 12-15: Knight Moves by Walter Jon Williams. Book club. I am generally a big fan of Walter Jon Williams, so I expected to like this Zelazny-esque novel. Instead, I hated it. The protagonist is incredibly rich thanks to a civilization-changing invention which he has parlayed into near-complete power over society. For example, he basically bribed everyone on Earth to move to other planets with the promise of immortality. If you believe that society could be improved by giving billionaires more power to pursue their crank sociological theories, this is a book for you. If you're looking for a thoughtful critique of the notion that society could be improved by giving billionaires more power to pursue their crank sociological theories, this is not a book for you.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Usagi Yojimbo: Wherewhen. So-so. Keeping out of affection for the rest of Usagi Yojimbo, but it doesn't really deserve it. Stan Sakai is great and I don't begrudge him the opportunity to cash in on his long-term association with TMNT, but I strongly prefer Usagi without science fiction elements.
A Frog in the Throat by E. X. Ferrars. Second book in the series, will not be buying a third. Mystery sidekicks should not be simultaneously much more wrong than the detective and also convinced that everything the detective thinks is wrong. At a bare minimum, they should respect the detective's intelligence, even if they can't replicate it, and ideally they should have at least one area of competence which the detective lacks. (Holmes, for example, greatly respected Watson's abilities as a physician.)
March 16-18: Re-read Walter Jon Williams's Drake Maijstral books, which are excellent light reading.
The Immortal Thor: All Weather Turns to Storm was high-concept cleverness at the expense of, well, being interesting. Discard.
Strange Academy: The Deadly Field Trip was a weak keep. This series started out just barely good enough for me to keep buying it, and has maintained that level of quality.
Wayne Family Adventures vol. 3 is a collection of short kid-friendly Batman stories. This is the first volume I've read and it's good enough for me to go back and get the earlier volumes.
March 25: Skinny by Avram Davidson. A very slim book, basically a short story, which the publisher describes as semi-autobiographical apparently on the principle that the setting is drawn from the author's own military service during World War II. I very strongly doubt the events are. It's a good story, but I am a little baffled why the publisher thought it worth publishing on its own and not as part of a collection.
March 26: Mickey Mouse: The Monster of Sawtooth Mountain, Paul Murry stories, well-crafted, does a good job of maintaining kid-friendly levels of peril and suspense. I read 1/3 of the title story as a child and was very pleased to have the remaining installments in a physically attractive, sturdy volume. Keep.
March included seven prose works and ten comics (not counting re-reads). As I am out of shelf space in my apartment, I've made notes on the physical books whether I kept them or tossed them in the donation bin downstairs. (I have been disposing of more books than I buy, but it will take quite a while at this rate to get completely organized.)
March 1: Last Will and Testament by E. X. Ferrars. Odd couple cozy mystery. Virginia is separated from her husband Felix, a kleptomaniac and con artist. She remains quite fond of him, even though she disapproves of and distrusts him, and the casual domesticity of their interactions is a high point of the novel. Felix's general character and felonious associations give him a plausible reason to shun the police, although at least in this novel the lead investigator is pleasantly perceptive and inclined to believe that obvious suspects are innocent when the evidence points that way. The one thing I'd fault is that Virginia is somewhat tedious in doubting Felix's deductions, Watson might have been imperceptive but he at least trusted Sherlock to be smarter than him. E-book; I bought the second book in the series, but if it doesn't improve a bit I won't get a third.
March 2: Mickey's Craziest Adventures by Lewis Trondheim and Keramidas is a faux "lost" European serial, supposedly created as one-page stories for a monthly Disney comic which had limited circulation and was never archived. The conceit is that only a fraction of the issues were ever found so there are gaps between most installments. It's a fun romp, with Mickey in intrepid adventurer mode and Donald his annoying screw-up companion, as they chase the Beagle Boys and Black Pete, who stole Gyro Gearloose's shrink ray and used it to steal the contents of Uncle Scrooge's money bin. Keep.
Jean Grey: Flames of Fear is fairly standard what-if superhero comics stuff, with a comatose Jean Grey remembering turning points of her life where she could have made different choices and imagining how those choices would have turned out. Spoiler, they're all bad, the message of her dreams is that she should trust her instincts and have no regrets, mistakes are inevitable and if someone else had her power they would screw things up worse. Not a convincing message or a particularly entertaining story, discard.
March 3: Asterios the Minotaur by Serge Le Tendre and Frédéric Peynet, translated by Jerome Saincantin. Slender but satisfying graphic novel. Asterios recounts his life story to a wounded and captive Theseus. Not all is as recorded by myth. Keep.
March 4: A Strange and Beautiful Sound by Zep, translated by Jeremy Melloul. I pulled this off the shelf because I couldn't remember what it was about, and after flipping through a few pages I decided to do a full re-read. After 26 years in a monastery, a monk is temporarily released from his vow of silence to attend the reading of his mother's will. On the train to Paris he meets a young woman with a terminal illness. Lovely, expressive monochrome art suits a gentle story of religious conviction. Keep.
Batman: Urban Legends vol. 6, various writers and artists. Short stories, some better than others. The best was a story by Anthony Falcone and Michael Cho with cartoony art and a light tone, but all of them were at least re-readable. If I had unlimited shelf space, I might keep this one, but since I don't it's a discard. (My philosophy of buying comics is that if I am going to read it once and enjoy it, I should buy it with no regrets.)
March 5: Savage Art is a collection of pulp covers, with an introduction by Frank M. Robinson. Aside from the introduction, which provides a historical overview of the pulps and the role of cover art in their popularity, there's no commentary on the covers, which are reproduced at larger-than-original size. Keep, but barely.
March 8: Traveller's Joy by Victoria Goddard. Perfectly pleasant short story from her Nine Worlds series. E-book, but would be a keep regardless, this is the sort of book I will re-read on the drop of the hat just because I'm in the mood for something light and familiar but clever and well-written.
March 10: The Casino Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine. I haven't read a Philo Vance mystery in somewhere around thirty years, and I decided to give this one a go on the principle that I was in the mood for a Golden Age style mystery and maybe it would be better than I remembered. It wasn't, an incredibly annoying protagonist (the sort who is unnecessarily cryptic with pretentious mannerisms) and an unexceptional plot. E-book, otherwise this would be an immediate discard.
March 11: Duck Avenger Strikes Again. Third-rate Romana Scarpa Mickey Mouse stories. (Floyd Gottfredson is first-rate, Paul Murry teeters between first- and second-rate, the rest is pretty chancy.) Discard.
March 12-15: Knight Moves by Walter Jon Williams. Book club. I am generally a big fan of Walter Jon Williams, so I expected to like this Zelazny-esque novel. Instead, I hated it. The protagonist is incredibly rich thanks to a civilization-changing invention which he has parlayed into near-complete power over society. For example, he basically bribed everyone on Earth to move to other planets with the promise of immortality. If you believe that society could be improved by giving billionaires more power to pursue their crank sociological theories, this is a book for you. If you're looking for a thoughtful critique of the notion that society could be improved by giving billionaires more power to pursue their crank sociological theories, this is not a book for you.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Usagi Yojimbo: Wherewhen. So-so. Keeping out of affection for the rest of Usagi Yojimbo, but it doesn't really deserve it. Stan Sakai is great and I don't begrudge him the opportunity to cash in on his long-term association with TMNT, but I strongly prefer Usagi without science fiction elements.
A Frog in the Throat by E. X. Ferrars. Second book in the series, will not be buying a third. Mystery sidekicks should not be simultaneously much more wrong than the detective and also convinced that everything the detective thinks is wrong. At a bare minimum, they should respect the detective's intelligence, even if they can't replicate it, and ideally they should have at least one area of competence which the detective lacks. (Holmes, for example, greatly respected Watson's abilities as a physician.)
March 16-18: Re-read Walter Jon Williams's Drake Maijstral books, which are excellent light reading.
The Immortal Thor: All Weather Turns to Storm was high-concept cleverness at the expense of, well, being interesting. Discard.
Strange Academy: The Deadly Field Trip was a weak keep. This series started out just barely good enough for me to keep buying it, and has maintained that level of quality.
Wayne Family Adventures vol. 3 is a collection of short kid-friendly Batman stories. This is the first volume I've read and it's good enough for me to go back and get the earlier volumes.
March 25: Skinny by Avram Davidson. A very slim book, basically a short story, which the publisher describes as semi-autobiographical apparently on the principle that the setting is drawn from the author's own military service during World War II. I very strongly doubt the events are. It's a good story, but I am a little baffled why the publisher thought it worth publishing on its own and not as part of a collection.
March 26: Mickey Mouse: The Monster of Sawtooth Mountain, Paul Murry stories, well-crafted, does a good job of maintaining kid-friendly levels of peril and suspense. I read 1/3 of the title story as a child and was very pleased to have the remaining installments in a physically attractive, sturdy volume. Keep.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-07 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-07 04:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-05-07 07:55 pm (UTC)It's a first novel, and certainly isn't a Lord of Light or Nine Princes in Amber, but it was not undeserving of its Hugo.
no subject
Date: 2024-05-09 02:27 am (UTC)