under the (dust) covers

The Giller shortlist is out and I’m ecSTATIC that one of my staff picks made the cut!  Fall by Colin McAdams is a fanTASTIC coming of age read with a creepy and yet awesome twist!  I loved it!  I’m mostly excited about this because I’ve never once enjoyed a prize winning book… and now I have!…. well it hasn’t won yet… who CARES?!~  Apparently I have taste!

For those of you who perhaps care about the OTHER books on the shortlist… here you go: http://www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca/

I am horrendously amused by the fact that we are being allowed to put Diana Gabaldon’s new book “Echo in the Bone” out 3 days early due to the fact that Walmart broke the embargo…

“But TTC,” you say, “you’ve flipped out before, what’s different about this time?”

What’s different is that I’m supremely angry and I almost just threw my book across the room… I love books… I revere them and would never treat them that way, so I restrained myself… but I was damn close!

Back to Olympos… and I know a lot of you are saying: “After the purple headed penis incident why did you continue to read this book?”  And I will tell you this: It’s REALLY hard for me NOT to finish a book… I just need to know what happens… and if it’s an author that I LOVE I have faith that they will somehow pull the horrible book out of the nosedive it’s taken and make it right again… but I do believe I have officially lost all faith in Dan Simmons…

Harman is one of the main characters from the three branching storylines in Ilium and Ilium’s sequel: Olympos.  Harman has been taken away from his wife and unborn child just when they need him most by the “magus” Prospero.  Prospero is called a magus because everything he does with technology is magical to Harman because Harman was raised in a society where everything was done for him, and he didn’t know anything about technology until his world began to fall apart.  Prospero is a holographic man walking around and waving his arms at things to make them move or open…

So Prospero takes Harman on a ride to the top of Mt. Everest to a temple that was built atop the summit CENTURIES before (this is in our distant future).  They go inside the temple and there’s a HUGE library that goes on forever like a maze inside this building (which, by the way, is an enlarged replica of the Taj Mahal that’s been mounted on top of Mt. Everest).  Prospero leads Harman down into this glass floored room that holds a Snow White style glass sarcophogus with a beautiful young naked woman inside.

Harman’s like: “Dude, just tell me how to get home to my wife… she’s in trouble and preggers and I just want to be with her, and protect her…”

Prospero says: “Sorry buddy… you’ve gotta stick around here… you need to wake up this young naked chick who’s been in hibernation for thousands of years and talk to her.  She will answer ALL of your questions…”

“There’s obviously been people here since she was put to sleep… why didn’t they wake her up?  Why didn’t you for that matter?”  Harman asks…

“They could never wake her,” Prospero replies, “Nor could I… Only one thing will wake her up….”

The suspense builds… I’m expecting something really cool…

“What’s that?”  Harman asks, wanting nothing more than to go home to his wife…

“For her original husband, or someone descended from her original husband to….”

“FUCK HER WHILE SHE SLEEPS!!!!!”  ARE YOU JOKING DAN SIMMONS?!

And it just so happens that Harman is descended from this original hubby of naked chick’s… and he has to have sex with this comatose 1500 year old naked hot chick…  with a creepy old man hologram lookin’ on… SERIOUSLY!?!?!?!  FIRST THE PURPLE HEADED STAFF AND NOW THIS?!  GAH!!!!

But alas… I keep reading… because I’ve invested a LOT of my time in these books… I’ll be damned if Dan Simmons is gonna beat me!  But I swear to the gods of science fiction that if I come across ONE more ridiculous sexual reference… or if he decides to describe the sex scene where Harman screws the coma chick… I’ll vomit all over the book and throw it out the window…

The shortlist for the Booker Prize was announced today and, once again, I haven’t read any of them.  I’ve never really been one for literary fiction — I’m all about the quirky non-fic and the genre fic — but my goal this year is to branch out.  I think what I’ll try to do is read one book from each of the shortlists for the major prizes.  (Of course, that means I also have to figure out what I consider to be the “major” prizes…)

Anyway, any suggestions from this shortlist?  I’ve read Sarah Waters before and loved her, especially Fingersmith, but I’ve never read any of the others on the list.

Over the past couple of months I’ve become completely obsessed with Goodreads, mainly because I’m a huge nerd who loves lists. Being able to organize my reading and have it all separated into neat little lists makes me very happy.  But the one thing that has gotten me utterly hooked is the Seasonal Reading Challenge. Not only does it help me decide what to read from my enormous stack of to-read books (more on that coming soon!) but it lets me get competative about reading!  What more could I possibly want?

I’ve already completed three tasks:

An Apple (Book) A Day Keeps The Librarians Away – September Is National Apple Month So Let’s… Read A Book That Has A Picture Of An Apple On The Cover OR A Book With The Word Apple(s) In The Title. (5 points)

Apples are From Kazakhstan: The Land That Disappeared by Christopher Robbins
A complete stranger on a plane tells the author that “apples are from Kazakhstan,” leading him to research and finally visit (numerous times) this country he can’t even place on the map. It ends up being a fascinating exploration of the people, history, and culture of Kazakhstan. I’m a sucker for any book that teaches me stuff I don’t already know, plus I got to see the stuff I studied in my Soviet history class from a very different angle.

This Year Thanksgiving Falls On November 26th – Famous Children’s Author Stanley “Stan” Berenstain (The Berenstain Bears) Died On That Day In 2005 (He Was Born September 29, 1923) – In Memory Of Him… Read A Book With The Word Bear Or Bears In The Title OR Several Children’s Books. (10 points)

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury
Farley Follows His Nose by Lynn Johnston, illustrated by Beth Cruikshank
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett, illustrated by Ron Barrett
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Some were re-reads of old favourites, some were new to me.  I found that I liked Where the Wild Things Are much less this time around, but absolutely loved Farley Follows His Nose and We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.  I just adored the illustrations in both.

Discover The Equation For Good Books: Addition – Add Up The Number Of Letters Found In Your First and Last Names Then Read A Book Written By An Author Whose Name Contains The Same Number Of Letters AND Division – Divide The Year You Were Born By Your Age (Round That Number To The Nearest Whole Number) And Then Read A Book That Is That Number In A Series. (15 points)

Secrets From the Vinyl Cafe by Stuart McLean (addition) and Castle of Wizardry by David Eddings (division)
Despite having listened to a lot of the Vinyl Cafe stories, this is my first time reading the books and I’m loving them so much.  It helps that I tend to hear them in Stuart’s voice in my head as I read, but I think people would probably find them funny even if they’d never heard him.  Though, really, given that they’re available on the web as a podcast I can’t understand why there is anyone out there who hasn’t heard them.  Some of the best Canadian comedy out there — and we’re fabulous at comedy, trust me!

Castle of Wizardry, on the other hand, is a re-read.  I first read the Belgariad way back in high school and absolutely loved it.  I was talking about it with someone at the store about a month ago and all of a sudden had this strong urge to re-read them and see if they stood up to the test of time.  My verdict?  Kind of. Fantasy writing has come a long way in the last 25 years (they were already 10 years old when I read them!) and these definitely are old-school fantasy.  Think Tolkien, if his characters were more whiny and his editor had done a better job.  But they’re excellent, nostalgia-wise.  They take me back to a time when my Saturday nights were spent playing Magic or MERP… wait, hold on, that’s still my life.  Possibly I’m enjoying them because I never really got past high school and have absolutely no problem with that.

Twilight, frankly, makes me sick. I don’t understand why this series has become such a HUGE phenomenon… I guess the same way Gossip Girl became huge… too many teenage girls (and their mother’s apparently) have stopped using their brains…

Here is my synopsis of Twilight (yes I actually read the book I’m ranting about this time… it happens occasionally): Edward sparkles like diamonds in the sun, and Bella smells like steak… basically that’s it! It’s a relationship that is solely based on physical attraction… WHICH DRIVES ME INSANE!!!! Edward decides to break all the rules for her… and what’s his reasoning? She smells like the best thing EVER to eat… in the book he compares her to creme brulee or something… she just smells SO good that he is constantly holding himself back from gnawing off her head and sucking all the blood from her body… that sounds like a healthy relationship… they have no personal connection whatsoever! They don’t talk about liking the same music or books really… And Bella thinks he’s SO pretty that even when she finds out he’s a monster… she’s like: “That’s ok… you look like a Calvin Klein model!” Let’s be clear here… I’m talking about Edward from the book who is described as being EVERY girl’s GREATEST fantasy he’s SOOOOO totally dreamy, ok? I’m am NOT… I repeat NOT talking about Robert Pattinson who is probably one of the ugliest people I’ve ever had the discomfort of laying eyes on… The only saving grace for the person who cast that movie is that they cast Bella… she was perfect… anyway… I digress… Twilight sucks… don’t read it…

I’m better Edward and Bella’s marriage lasts maybe two years after the end of Book 4 before they want a divorce…
Merry Labor Day to all and to all a goodnight!

I have come to my official decision that, although Ilium was an amazing book… I will not suffer Olympos to live… It’s ok… but compared to Ilium it’s not all that great…

Let me give you the run down… so you have a good idea of what I’m talking about…

Ilium and Olympos are a duology (I like that word tee hee) of Science Fiction books written by Dan Simmons…  Ilium takes place on Mars where God like beings (with tons of tech that makes them able to fly and transport and cool stuff like that) are recreating the Trojan war according to Homer’s book… this is WAY far in the future… The only God who actually knows what’s going on is Zeus… all the other gods are just playing themselves with no idea of the outcome of the war… The God have ressurected scholars from all time periods on Earth who were Homer scholars… somehow they’ve managed, through DNA and some such to bring people back from the dead who’ve been dead thousands of years… The objective of these “scholics” is to go down to Ilium (Troy) using their cool morphing outfits and watch the war… they then report back to a muse and tell her whether anything strayed from the writings of Homer.  But they are NOT allowed to tell the muse or anyone other than the other scholics what happens at the end of the war.

The main character is Hockenberry (a scholic) who decides one day that he’s going to fuck shit up, pardon the expression.  He’s sick and tired of everything going the way it’s going and he’s developed friends in Troy that he knows are going to die… so he decides he’s going to alter the timeline… he decides he wants to ensure that the Greeks and Trojans ally and go to war against the gods.  So what does he do?  Well first he boinks Helen of Troy… I mean… c’mon wouldn’t you?  Then he kills the love of Achilles life, Patroclus…  He kills Patroclus while he’s mophed into Athena so that Achilles will go: “Hey!  You bitch I want my boy toy back!!!”  and go to war with the gods…  which he does… THEN he decides that the only way to make Hector get angry at the gods is to steal his son Scamandrius… but he can’t bring himself to do it… so he allies himself with some of the women of Troy, including Helen, and they kill the baby for him… and so the Greeks and Trojans get together and declare war on Olympos…

So ends book one… I was very excited… sounds cool eh?  So I moved on to Olympos RIGHT away… and guess what…  like 100 pages in there is a GOD AWFUL sex scene between Hera and Zeus that basically ruined the rest of the book for me… Words and phrases were used that only have one place: a really ranchy romance book…  “But TTC,” you say, “how can that be true?  You MUST be exagerating like you ALWAYS do…”  But alas dear reader… I am not… I will give you ONE example to shut your little argumentative mouths… At one point during the sex scene Zeus’ penis is referred to as his “throbbing purple staff.”  Hera says after this description that it’s the only tool he would ever need to instill fear and awe in anyone, mortal or god alike…

You’ll never doubt me again will you?

Read Ilium though… it was AMAZING!