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Recent reading
Jun. 27th, 2015 10:36 pmThe Moon is Down by John Steinbeck
I'd been meaning to read more Steinbeck (I loved Grapes of Wrath) and then this book was recced in a podcast. It's a short book set in an unnamed town during the German occupation of Norway in WWII (at least I'm assuming so), though the countries aren't named and the character names of both sides are vaguely English-sounding. Which I suppose is a way to make them both seem closer/more familiar to the reader. I thought it was good, though I didn't love it as I did Grapes of Wrath. It's a fairly uplifting story of popular resistance, though more stoic and stubborn than fiery, and it doesn't delve deeply into the characters--it's more like a play unfolding before us.
An Autumn War by Daniel Abraham (#3 in the Long Price quartet)
This book raised the stakes compared to the two previous books--the two others had personal drama and the politics of cities, but this one involves war and the magic which is the foundation of a civilization (and it's an interesting system of magic). This series has the least id-appeal of any fantasy series I've read, I think. But it's good! Just in a non-iddy way. My sympathies are finely balanced between the sides of the war--one side has more characters that I know and care about, but the other side has a pretty good moral point. I like how the series follows a set of characters over the years with quite large gaps between the books: they were young in the first book, and now they're middle-aged. I'm curious to see where the last book takes them.
I'd been meaning to read more Steinbeck (I loved Grapes of Wrath) and then this book was recced in a podcast. It's a short book set in an unnamed town during the German occupation of Norway in WWII (at least I'm assuming so), though the countries aren't named and the character names of both sides are vaguely English-sounding. Which I suppose is a way to make them both seem closer/more familiar to the reader. I thought it was good, though I didn't love it as I did Grapes of Wrath. It's a fairly uplifting story of popular resistance, though more stoic and stubborn than fiery, and it doesn't delve deeply into the characters--it's more like a play unfolding before us.
An Autumn War by Daniel Abraham (#3 in the Long Price quartet)
This book raised the stakes compared to the two previous books--the two others had personal drama and the politics of cities, but this one involves war and the magic which is the foundation of a civilization (and it's an interesting system of magic). This series has the least id-appeal of any fantasy series I've read, I think. But it's good! Just in a non-iddy way. My sympathies are finely balanced between the sides of the war--one side has more characters that I know and care about, but the other side has a pretty good moral point. I like how the series follows a set of characters over the years with quite large gaps between the books: they were young in the first book, and now they're middle-aged. I'm curious to see where the last book takes them.
