Books in September

23- Stars in My Pocket, Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany
24- This is My Funniest- edited by Mike Resnick.
25- Assault on Reason by Al Gore
26- The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump by Harry Turtledove.
27- Death by the Riverside by J.M. Redmann

Ok, first I’m scratching my head as I thought there SHOULD be another book between Deadly Hollows (22) and Stars in My Pocket, Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany( 23) but I didn’t blog about it… and I suck… so will say that there was NOTHING between them. ARGH.
Stars in My Pocket, Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany- even though I finished it and read it for a while it appears- I never really got into it. Part of me blamed my reading habits, of only reading a few pages at a time on my commute or on breaks… But I’m able to read OTHER books just fine like that; so I feel most of the blame needs to go to Samuel R Delany. I feel he should get part of the blame because of his messing around with the pronouns. He uses a generic SHE A LOT… So I sometimes have to pause and remember that most of the characters are actually MALE, even though Delany is referring to them as SHE. I think I was recommended this book by Amazon- I know none of my friends recommended it- and I don’t plan to recommend it to anyone else.

This is my Funniest (24) I read on my trip to Cali… finishing it up about midway on my 10 hour or so flights back. It is a collection of short stories chosen by EACH writer as what they consider their funniest. As I love reading short story collections- I had read many of these before- esp. as two of them came from Global Dispatches- about what ELSE was going on in the world during the Martian Invasion ( ala H.G. Wells and NOT Orson.). One of my favorites I had NOT read before, The Capo of Darkness by Laura Resnick (daughter of Mike), this story portrays Satan as a Don- ala the Godfather and has Adam and Eve asking him a favor- they want him to waste the Main Man… No, not Lobo, God. Satan points out that he’s tried this but since God is immortal- He sort of got tired of just womping on God.
My favorite lines from the story were:
“Yes, well, rumor has it that no one with the capacity to feel guilt winds up here.” She said
“No, we’ve got some Jews here.” A moment later I admitted, “Well, okay, only the ones who were lawyers.”

So my ‘midway point’ if I actually thought I was going to do 50, which I highly doubt, is Al Gore’s Assault on Reason (25). I should say that while I think it is well written, I was aware of many of the problems that the ‘union’ has: That our president lies to us on a regular basis, that the president and his party try to ‘sell’ us on their ideas- using television as tool to fit their needs, that the fact that it cost SO MUCH to run for office( because most elected officials spend most of their budgets on Television commercials that they don’t have time to do their job), that the C-SPAN cameras aren’t allowed to pan congress when they cover congress- so we can’t see how many of our representatives are NOT there during debates; esp as they spend too much of their time trying to raise money for their campaigns to actually legislate, and that the news media is now ‘tamed’- example we hear more about O.J. and his LATEST alleged crime then we do about Blackwater- and by golly I want to hear more about Blackwater. I’m sick of these newscycles with NO NEWS.
Actually what bothered me about this book, was while I felt it was well written and would recommend it, was the fact that a) he quotes Andrew Jackson and doesn’t single Jackson out for HIS abuse of power. I’m referring to the Trail of Tears- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the government didn’t have the right to relocate the Cherokee; Jackson had them relocated and pointed out that the Supreme Court did NOT have the power to stop him. Which reminds me A LOT of W.’s abuses of powers.
b) Was Gore’s love of Lincoln. I know that many historians love Lincoln but I don’t. See while Lincoln freed the slaves- he did it as a political move. Lincoln was ALL about the federal government- he once said “"If I could free all of the slaves and save the Union, I would, and if I could free some of the slaves and save the Union, I would also do that, and if I could free none of the slaves and save the Union I would do that, too." And thus I really don’t think he was as great as people make him out.

The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump (26) - I had sort of recommended this book to my brother’s step daughter (and btw- should I be calling her NIECE? I mean I’ve realized I’m never going to get a tattoo of my nephews’ and niece’s names- because then I’d have to tattoo my niece’s half sisters and what happens if my brother gets dumped by the mom?). I thought this book was ok for a 10 year old… I had thought of it for her, because she liked Harry Potter and I wanted to fan her interest in fantasy. The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump is about a world that has MAGIC instead of TECHNOLOGY; so instead of cars, they have flying carpets, Virtual Reality becomes Virtuous Reality, and phones have little demons in them… Our hero is a member of the EPA- Environmental Perfection Agency and is investigating a… Toxic Spell Dump. The premise I thought was amusing- if you replace technology with magic- you’re still going to end up with ‘trash’ and toxic waste, just a different kind.
I decided before I gave it to her to re-read MY copy. Not being able to find it, I ordered two from Amazon… As a friend recently re-read it and said it was ok for the 10 year old. I started questioning his decision when I got to page 31 and it had the main character mentions to his girlfriend “… and then you’ll think I invited you over just to lure you into bed.” which I thought might be borderline for today’s youth… However when the main character (and narrator) gets his girl home after dinner on page 35 and mentions CONTRACEPTIVES… She takes her ‘roots’ with beer; he “… kept the testicles and blood of a dunghill cock under [his] bed” Which I really felt was NOT ok for the 10 year old.
I also was a bit fearful that the author used the word ‘molest’. Granted our hero mentioned he was NOT molested by his girlfriend, as he wanted it, but I just thought that was a big NO-NO, another word I don’t think a ten year old girl should have in her lexicon.

And between the time I started writing these reviews and posting them I’ve read book 27- Death by the Riverside by J.M. Redmann. I LOVED this book. I bought because I thought it was ‘right up my alley’. A lesbian hard boiled detective novel- love lesbian fiction AND detectives… But it just was more awesome than I could have hoped for. It was written in first person, which I normally can take or leave (I have a friend who adds points to a book if it’s written in first person), but this really helped get into the character- Mickey Knight. Mickey has A LOT of layers/baggage- which is a huge plus to me for a detective. I also loved how her ‘origin’ is played out- we don’t get everything at once but bits and pieces of her tragic life… She drinks too much, is sarcastic, and has problems letting people into her life- which is your usual detective set up, but the way in which Redmann writes Mickey… You really feel for Mickey and hopes she’s able to make everything ok. I know this was the first book in the series (I ordered the second one from Amazon yesterday), but I still was deeply worried about Mickey’s survival because Redmann is a GOOD writer.
Not sure if I’ll read all 4 of Redmann’s books this year but know I will read them.

Footnotes:
I would also like to mention that I read this weekend: Devils Arithmetic by Jane Yolan. I’m not counting it because it’s a ‘kid’s book’ about a 160 pages. I read it because my brother’s gf suggested I buy Anne Frank for her 9 year old… I was a bit unsure of this (granted it is her kid) and thought perhaps Devil’s Arithmetic might be better suited for a 9 year old then Anne Frank. After reading it- I think I will get the 9 year old Anne Frank. I know that Devil’s Arithmetic was written for kids; but I don’t think it’s any more kid friendly because how can you REALLY write a kid friendly version of the Holocaust? I like Anne Frank more because it deals with a REAL kid and it talks about Anne hiding from the Nazis, and what that entails. Devil’s Arithmetic deals with the actual camps- so I think it’s more of a punch to the guts- in Anne Frank, you read that Anne doesn’t survive but in Devil’s Arithmetic you read more about the horrors of the camps.

I also read this weekend the Doctor 13 trade by Brian Azzarello. Love it. I mean LOVED IT. Doesn’t count as a book but mentioning it here because well… it has a Nazi Super Soldier Vampire APE! I want to play that sort of character in a game even if it’s a GMPC.