The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Century: 1910
by Alan Moore




I really, really, wanted to like this.



For those not familiar--the original League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was an interesting idea in which Alan Moore took a number of characters from various stories that were all roughly contemporaneous in their setting, and meshed them together in a sort of "Victorian superhero team". So you had Mina Harker, Alan Quartermain, Mr. Hyde, Captain Nemo, and the Invisible Man all teaming up to, well, fight crime. It's a bit more complicated than that, but that was the basic idea. The second series pitted the same group against the martians from War of the Worlds, and was also cool in it's own right. The Black Dossier deviated from the original group by telling two stories; one, set in the 1960's, about a group related to the original league attempting to recover the titular Black Dossier. The other 'story' was really just the text of the Black Dossier itself, which explains a lot about where the League members came from, places them in a greater historical context, and contains a stupid amount of sex. Really. A STUPID amount of it. It made the framing story feel not only disjointed, but a bit weird, and I didn't entirely enjoy it.

This one though, seemed to just tell a single, straightforward story, and so I had high hopes. Such high hopes that I read it twice, just to be sure.

But even after a second read through, I found I really didn't like this. Mostly because this story lacks two things; engaging characters, and an interesting plot.

To the first; some of the characters are familiar (Harker and Quatermain, as well as Orlando for those who read Black Dossier). Others, like Carnacki, and the other guy, who I cannot remember at all, are new. It doesn't matter, because they are indescribably dull. This is the first story about the League where I absolutely, completely, and totally did not care about the members of said League at all.

Of course, there are plenty of other characters in the story; well, some, anyway. Unfortunately, they are all equally dull. Janni, daughter of Captain Nemo, has some potential, but her story arc is so grossly cliched as to just be somewhere between silly and dumb. I would think that someone so interested in pushing social boundaries (as Moore seems to be) would be able to come up with a story about a woman becoming strong in a way that doesn't follow such a ridiculously cliched path.

As for the plot; there isn't much of one. I gather from reading some other review that this is intended to kick of a series, so I suppose that could be forgiven, except for the fact that I don't really even know where the story is supposed to go from here. Or rather, this installment of the story was so boring as to make me not care enough to figure it out.

While I've read much worse in the graphic novel department (anything done by Rob Liefield comes to mind), this one ultimately just isn't up to the standard set by it's predecessors. It's not even close.

1776
David McCullough



Once again, I find myself not entirely sure how I ended up with this book. I know it's from the time when I worked in Waldenbooks, but beyond that, I have no clue. Up until relatively recently (the last two or three months), American Colonial History has not really been my thing. I've generally preferred periods before gunpowder.

But, as I said, this was on my shelf, and having recently listened to a series on American history courtesy of the Teaching Company, I figured I'd give it a shot.

This is a very excellent book, but a bit strange. I didn't realize until I was almost done that this was actually written as a companion piece to McCullough’s acclaimed John Adams, which I have not read, but which might make this one flow better. Not that this is bad...on the contrary, the writing is excellent. Engaging, thoughtful, and well balanced, McCullough takes the events of one of the most pivotal years in U.S. history and turns it into a fascinating story. His focus leans more heavily towards the American point of view, rather than the British one, but the British get their time in the spotlight too. Nor do the Americans come across as perfect angels fighting for all that is good and right; even "his Excellency" George Washington is shown with all of his doubts, fears, and mistakes (of which he makes a number). The British are not painted as vile villains; even king George comes off reasonably well, all things considered.

So what makes the book so odd? Mostly that it's a book that tells the story of a year with very little context, and very little follow up. McCullough simply jumps into the story at the end of 1775, tells it through to the beginning of 1777, and then stops. There is very little in the way of detail on the beforehand or afterward, which makes a certain amount of sense for a companion piece, but which I found a bit startling reading this as a stand alone work.

Still, that's a quibble about a book that is overall, engaging, fun, and interesting. For those who enjoy American colonial history, this is an excellent choice. Those looking for a simple overview of the revolution should probably look elsewhere.

I'm a bit late on this one, but...David Eddings apparently passed away about a week ago.

Eddings is one of those authors that I have weird mixed feelings about. I read the Belgariad and the Mallorean as a teenager, and really enjoyed them. Sometime in my twenties, I re-read them, and discovered that I still enjoyed them. They were popcorn fantasy, but the characters were fun and dialogue was witty, and by and large, I enjoyed it. None of it made me think very deeply, but I did enjoy it.

Everything I read of his afterwards got steadily worse. The Elenium and The Tamuli were mostly just dull. The Redemption of Althalus was just awful. I barely finished it.

Somewhere in there, I read one of his few non-fantasy works, The Losers, which actually turned out to be probably the best thing of his I've ever read. I remember being shocked, both because I kept expecting fantasy to creep in (the main characters names are Raphael and Damien, for crying out loud), and because in the end, it just turned out to be a good story about people. Nothing more, nothing less.

It's actually the book of his I'm most likely to go back and re-read, at this point.

I never picked up any of his other books; part of it was a belief that he probably wasn't turning out anything better than he more recent attempts. Part of it was reading a couple of statements of his that mocked the fantasy genre as a whole, which seemed a little crass to me (it's fine to not like it, but when you make your living writing it, it seems to me you shouldn't verbally piss on your audience...).

On the other hand, he does deserve credit for puting out some good, fun reads. And for fighting very hard to make sure that his wife eventually got the credit she deserved for helping him with his writing.

Thanks for the stories, Mr. Eddings.

The Ghost Brigades

John Scalzi

• Publisher: Tor Science Fiction (May 1, 2007)

• ISBN-10: 0765354063

When Poe Ghostal lent me Old Man's War, the first book in this series by John Scalzi, I thanked him. A few days after he lent me Ghost Brigades, I cursed him.

Ghost Brigades isn't just good; it's so good that it distracted me from the other reading I was doing. Hell, it distracted me from work. After about four chapters, it was distracting me from everything short of eating and other essential bodily functions. Fortunately, I finished it with no serious damage to myself or my upholstery.

Though set in the same universe as Old Man's War, calling Ghost Brigades a "sequel" is slightly misleading. This is not another story about John Perry (the titular "Old Man" from the first book); instead, the book focus primarily upon Jared Dirac, a recently created member of the Ghost Brigades, who was designed to be something a little different from an ordinary solider.

Specifically, he's designed to be a traitor.

I'll let the book jacket do the weight of the talking here

The Ghost Brigades are the Special Forces of the Colonial Defense Forces, elite troops created from the DNA of the dead and turned into the perfect soldiers for the CDF's toughest operations. They’re young, they’re fast and strong, and they’re totally without normal human qualms.

The universe is a dangerous place for humanity—and it's about to become far more dangerous. Three races that humans have clashed with before have allied to halt our expansion into space. Their linchpin: the turncoat military scientist Charles Boutin, who knows the CDF’s biggest military secrets. To prevail, the CDF must find out why Boutin did what he did.

Jared Dirac is the only human who can provide answers -- a superhuman hybrid, created from Boutin's DNA, Jared’s brain should be able to access Boutin's electronic memories. But when the memory transplant appears to fail, Jared is given to the Ghost Brigades.

At first, Jared is a perfect soldier, but as Boutin’s memories slowly surface, Jared begins to intuit the reason’s for Boutin’s betrayal. As Jared desperately hunts for his "father," he must also come to grips with his own choices. Time is running out: The alliance is preparing its offensive, and some of them plan worse things than humanity’s mere military defeat…

While some reviews seem to disagree, I actually found this book far more engaging than Old Man's War; I think a lot of that has to do with Dirac, who I found to be a really intersting character to read about. He goes through a very interesting evolution that is a bit different from that of John Perry, but contains a similar amount of deep introspection and thought. I also found the supporting characters in this story a lot more memorable, and even enjoyed Jane Sagan (one of the few major characters to reappear from Old Man's War) more this time around.

The plot itself is a good sci-fi military conspiracy plotline, as befits a novle that opens with a traitor faking his own death by kiling his clone, and working forward from there. The pacing is great, but very, very fast. I desperately don't want to use reviewing cliches like "it moves at warp speed", but I'm having a hard time dodging it. Once it ramps up, this plot MOVES.

In case I give the wrong impression, Ghost Brigades is not just a summer blockbuster in written form. Yes, it moves, and yes, there are fights and guns and explosions and sex...BUT, there is also a lot of introspection and thought about human beings, their motivations, and ultimately, what makes a person, well, a person.

There are apparently two or three other books in this series, and I can't wait to steal the rest from PoeGhostal.

Powers
Ursula K. Le Guin
Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books; 1 edition (September 1, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0152057706


It's been about a week since I actually finished this book...I've just been taking my sweet time in reviewing it. Which I'd apologize for, but I've been trying to work on things like my business, which sadly leaves little time for book reviewing (which, as of yet, no one pays me for).

Powers is the third novel in Ursula LeGuin's latest "Young Adult" series, The Annals of the Western Shore. I use that label rather gingerly, mostly because this series seems to be to be no more limited to young adults than it is to any other group. I've long since moved out of the age group that is considered "Young Adult", and I have found every book in this series marvelous. Powers is no exception.

Powers, like Voices and Gifts before it, is the story of a child born with abilities that somehow make him or her unique. In Powers, the child is Gavir, a slave boy with a gift for "remembering things that haven't happened." In other words, he's a precognitive, though Gavir himself never uses that word.

Powers traces Gavir's journey from childhood to adulthood, and from slavery to freedom. The story of his escape from slavery is an interesting one, and occurs in one of the most unusual (but quite believable) ways that I can think of. Once free, Gavir wanders the Western Shore, exploring and growing until, at the end, he finds himself connected with Orrec, Gry, and Memer, the protagonists of the previous books in the series.

Since it's been a week, my memories of the details of the book have become a bit fuzzy, but I can say this with certainty; it's an excellent book. Le Guin gives Gavir a lively and honest voice, that draws you into the story and keeps you reading right through to the end. The world she crafts feels very real, and very lived in...this is a fantasy "on the ground"; giant armies and world-saving quests are not the story here. This is a human story, with all of the grief, joy, confusion, pain, and delight that such stories require. Read it.

(And if you don't take my word for it, Powers also won the 2008 Nebula Award for Best Novel. So take it up with those who award such things too.)

The Black Stranger: And Other American Tales

Robert E. Howard, Steven Tompkins

• Publisher: Bison Books (April 1, 2005)
• ISBN-10: 0803273533

Robert E. Howard (REH hereafter) is probably best known in popular culture as the creator of Conan the Barbarian, in as much as he is known at all. I suspect that most people are more likely to recognize the name Conan than they are the name of the man who created him, but then, most people's vision of Conan is based of the very fun, but not very faithful, Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. Erroneous picture or not, however, it's hard to deny that in the creation of Conan, Howard gave American popular imagination a figure who has survived for nearly a century, in pastiches, comics, movies. More recently, there has be a bit of a Howard resurgence, and several companies have begun publishing not only Howard's Conan stories (which are all excellent), but a great deal of Howard's other works as well.

The Black Stranger is, for the most part, a collection of REH's stories dealing with America. I say for the most part, because the titular story is actually a Conan tale, taking place in Howard's fictional Hyborian Age, rather than on the American continent proper. The story still fits perfectly, however, with it's dark, brooding forests, savage Picts (who are essentially Hollywood Indians with the serial numbers filed off), and stranded sailors, the story certainly feels like it could be set in a colonial or pre-colonial America. It's a very dark story, with murder, mysterious spirits, bloodthirsty tribes, and of course, some pirates. One of the creepier Conan stories, but compared with the other stories in this collection, it's actually rather...well, not uplifting, I suppose, but the protagonist gets out alive, which is more than can be said for some of them in the other stories.

The rest of the stories do take place on the American continent, though not all of them are "historical" by any stretch. "Marchers of Valhalla" follows a company of Vikings who have gotten themselves severely lost in an area that will eventually become Texas. Several other stories deal with Howard's vision of pre-Colombian America, which features mysterious civilizations paying homage to alien gods, conflict between civilization and barbarism (naturally), and, not infrequently, white men messing around with things they don't understand, and possibly should know better. As I alluded to earlier, some of these stories are pretty grim, and not filled with the sort of cheery derring-do that readers might expect. Which does not make them any less fun.

As the collection moves forward, the stories begin to move into areas of recorded history, and Howard's writing moves in a more horrific vein. "Black Cannan" tells a story of conflict between white and black residents of an insular area of Texas, while "Pigeons from Hell" is, in essence, a classic haunted house story. For the record, despite the possibly goofy title, "Pigeons from Hell" was, for my money, the most frightening story in this collection. If you have trouble sleeping after reading, don't finish off your night with this one.

The collection culminates with a couple of letters from REH, which are more interesting for their insights into Howard's mind and thoughts than they are for any literary enjoyment, and a single poem, "the Grim Land", which I enjoyed, but I'm not a big poetry reader.

The blurb on the back of this book compares the stories in this collection to dark classics like "Young Goodman Brown," "Benito Cereno," and "A Rose for Emily." I confess to not actually having READ those stories, so I'm hard pressed to say if the comparison is accurate. I can say that these stories are fantastic reading, full of mystery, horror, and adventure. Howard continues to impress me not just as a fun author to read, but as an author who really should be taken much more seriously on a literary level. This stuff is pure gold.

Inside the Criminal Mind was one of the books that I pulled off of Rory Miller’s recommended reading lists. I think I found it on his website, but I’m honestly not sure. Wherever I found it, I’m glad I did.

Inside the Criminal Mind is a very interesting book, though I confess, it’s not entirely what I expected. While Samenow does get very deep into criminal psychology, he does so from a very…global…perspective.

Global is not the right adjective there. I’m having trouble finding one.

Samenow is concerned with explaining the criminal mind, not just as a way of clarifying it for the average citizen, but in a way that will help psychologists, policy makers, and society in general rethink the way that society deals with those criminals. Despite Samenow’s claims that his work is apolitical, there is clearly a political message within it: that society needs to change the way it deals with its criminals.

Not being much for politics myself (they raise my blood pressure), I’m going to ignore the political implications of Samenow’s work for this review. My purpose in reading this book was to gain a better insight into criminal psychology, so that I could be better educated, and could better educate my students about the nature of crime and violence prevention.

From that perspective, this book is excellent. Samenow presents his observations in a clear, concise manner that it is easily accessible, even to a non-psychologist. There are numerous case studies, stories, and other examples that Samenow uses to help reinforce his points, which make most of his basic tenets a lot more memorable. He reinforces his basic premise sufficiently that the reader can finish with a few simple, clear, easily remembered ideas, without turning the book into a dull, repetitious screed.

For those interested in self-defense, criminal psychology, or criminal law, even, this book is definitely worth a read.

Having read and reviewed Children of Hurin once already, I’m not sure I’ve discovered a lot new to say about it by listening to it on audio. It was awesome in one format, and it’s awesome in another.

 

Okay, one way it’s awesome in this format is that when I read it to myself, I don’t sound like Christopher Lee. The man who gave us the Voice of Saruman (with good reason), gives us the voice of everyone else in this tale, including a fantastic performance as Glaurang, the great wyrm.

 

So I take it back. There is a difference; because as much as I recognized it was a tragedy while reading it, listening to Lee read it made the book somehow that much more depressing. That’s a compliment, for the record.

 

Children of Hurin is a damn fine piece of literature, no matter what format you experience it in, but Lee’s performance makes the audio version especially worthwhile.

Seriously Marvel? Seriously?

The Navy SEAL Physical Fitness Guide
Patricia A. Deuster










This book was a gift from my father, who bought it for me knowing that I 1)am interested in fitness, and 2)that the Navy SEALs generally have a rep for being pretty fit guys. I admit that I approached the book with certain amount of skepticism, mostly based on the fact that the SEALS have been used to hype so many products that are not worth the paper they are printed on. That's not a knock on the SEALS, mind you, but rather on those who profit by making tangential associations with them. But I digress.

My initial reading of the guide didn't do much to help with my natural skepticism, but it occurred to me partway through the book that I was approaching it wrong. I had expected a book filled with drills, exercise programs, and workouts that would make me cry. What I got instead was a basic, reasonably coherent overview of various fitness principles, concepts, and exercises.

Once I realigned my thinking, I realized that this book isn't half bad. In fact, it has a decent overview of a number of different exercise methodologies, including bodyweight exercises, weight lifting, running, swimming, hiking. It has some guidelines for designing workouts, some basic nutrition information, and even a bit on first aid for common injuries.

However, where it's really short is in programming; the book doesn't have much in the way of sample workouts or programs, and a lay person trying to use it might find it a bit confusing.

I'd like to say I recommend this book, but I have hard time doing so. It's not that it's bad, but for $5 more, you could buy Ross Enamait's Never Gymless, which is a far better overview of various training methods. The only way I would choose this book over that one is if you were specifically attempting to become a SEAL, and wanted a reference for how they train.

In the end, not a bad book to add, if you're a fitness geek. If you're not, there are other better books to be had.

One of the side benefits to traveling to the PDR is that I got to catch up on some of my reading. In particular, I got to finally finish off 1491, which I had been working on for some time now.



1491 is essentially a survey of (relatively) recent archaeological research as seen through the eyes of a journalist. Charles Mann sets out to debunk the "high school" view of what the Americas were like before the arrival of Western Europeans. Along the way, he travels through parts of Central and South America, nearly crashes when his plane runs out of fuel, and eats a variety of sometimes tasty, sometimes odd, local cuisines.



There's a lot that's good about this book, though I confess that I didn't find a lot of it revelatory. That may have more to do with the five years I spent dating an aspiring archaeologist than anything wrong with the content of the book--a lot of it does seem fairly accurate, and even I learned a few new things.



I did find the structure of the book a little confusing; if Mann had a pattern that he was following in his outline of the material, I never caught onto it. He seems to meander from topic to topic, rather than focusing on either a regional or chronological view of the Americas. The latter, as I think about it, would be difficult, but the former might have worked better. Some of the chapters have explicit themes that connect the various subsections, but some of them seem a little random.



A lot of the book is focused on Central and South America; I don't know if that's because that is where the majority of the archaeological data exists, or if it's a personal bias on Mann's part. Personally, I've always been curious about the Northeastern US (or what became the Northeastern US), mostly because I grew up in a town surrounded by Indian Reservations. I was hoping to learn more than what Mann had here.



Mann's writing is clean, crisp, and flows well. His descriptions are vivid without being overwrought, and the information he provides is clear enough to be accessible without feeling as though it was "dumbed down".



Overall, the book is good, if not perfect. Definitely worth the read, for those interested in this sort of thing.

Lankhmar Book 1: Swords and Deviltry

by Fritz Leiber

Publisher: Dark Horse (January 10, 2007)

ISBN-10: 1595820795

 

Leiber, like Howard, is one of those defining figures of fantasy that I should have read in my youth, but was never able to. Like Howard, I believe his stuff was out of print for a long time, or perhaps I just never really knew much about him. I know that the notion of the “Grey Mouser and Fafhrd” as some sort of pairing of a small, sneaky, guy and a big, strong, barbarian guy was in my head by college, but beyond that, I really can’t remember.

In any case, someone over at Dark Horse (a fact which I did not realize until I started writing this review), apparently decided to reissue Leiber’s Lankhmar stories in a series of small paperbacks. Swords and Deviltry collects three stories which serve as an “origin tale”, bringing readers up to speed on the background of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, respectively, before moving into the tale of their first adventure together.

As sword and sorcery stuff goes, it’s great fun. The stories are very fast-paced, full of adventure, intrigue, excitement, and a good deal of humor. One of the things I really enjoy about them is that both of the main characters are relatively young men, which gives them a good reason to make mistakes that older, more experienced sorts of characters might not plausibly make. Indeed, the characters youthful hubris pretty much drives the plot of their first meeting together, and plays a reasonably large role in their origin stories as well.

The world that Leiber crafts is a pretty interesting one; at least, it seems to be. Like Howard, Leiber doesn’t spend a lot of time on world building, choosing to just give his reader’s snippets of information as he sees fit or necessary. If it’s not relevant to the story, it’s not included. It actually works very well as a world-building method, giving the reader a feeling of looking in on a complete world that they just can’t entirely grasp. It’s a style of storytelling that seems to have faded in the wake of Tolkien, which is unfortunate. I love Tolkien, but I think this method works well too.

Overall, I enjoyed the collection, and I’ll probably grab the next one at some point. The stories didn’t feel like they had quite as much depth as some of Howard’s work, but it is possible that I’m just not giving them their due. In any case, this is worth the read, for sword-and-sorcery buffs, or people who just like a good action story.

Period: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/f26c4046b0/lex-luthor-bailout-with-jon-hamm

Death of the Good Doctor: Lessons from the Heart of the AIDS Epidemic by Kate Scannell



I read this one as part of what is essentially and "exchange program" between myself and my girlfriend. I agreed to read this, which she marks as one of her favorite books of all time, and she agreed to read the Lord of the Rings. Frankly, I got the easier end of that bargain!



Still, I cannot find fault with her for liking this book, as it's actually a very good piece of work.



The book chronicles Dr. Scannell's experiences working in an AIDS ward starting in the early 1980's. There was little understanding of the nature of the virus, and not terribly much understanding of the people who were infected by it. In dealing with her patients, Scannell ends up confronting a lot of her beliefs about medicine, mortality, and existence as a whole.



This is not a linear narrative: instead, it's a series of short vignette's, each focusing on a different patient and Dr. Scannell's personal experiences with or of that patient and the people around them. As with all books that are collections of short stories, some of the stories are more powerful, more horrific, or more engaging than others, but they are all written in an interesting and engaging fashion. Scannell writes smoothly and honestly about her experiences, in a way that honors the suffering her patients have gone through, while at the same time not descending into melodrama. Even at the end, when Scannell finds herself faced the possibility of her own death, the writing remains clear, lucid, and engaging.



Not, perhaps, the most cheerful book on my shelves, but one definitely worth reading and thinking about.

Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth

by John Garth

Publisher: Mariner Books (June 1, 2005)

ISBN-10: 0618574816

 

As with so many books on my shelf, I am unsure how exactly I came across this one. Clearly, it isn’t hard to determine WHY I would be interested in it. Tolkien is one of my favorite authors, and despite that, I know very little about the man’s life. This book promised to offer an interesting look at a reasonably significant portion of that life, and how it was influenced by one of the most significant events of the twentieth century.

 

The book’s structure is a bit difficult to describe; part biography, part history, it focuses primarily on Tolkien’s life immediately before, during, and after the First World War (though there is a helpful (and fairly necessary) summary of his life prior to the war). In particular, it focuses in on the life of Tolkien and the Tea Club And Barrovian Society, a group which Tolkien formed with three of his friends, and which was tremendously influential on his life and experiences up until, and through, the First World War. Indeed, this book is arguably as much a biography of the TCBS (as they are primarily referred to in the book and of their own accord) as it is of Tolkien. Along the way, the book traces the development of Tolkien’s personal mythology through notes, stories, and poems that he composed during the war. Having finished chronicling the experience of Tolkien and the TCBS through the war, Garth ends the book with two chapters of reflection on the rest of Tolkien’s life, and how his experiences may have influenced the creation and development of the his mythology.

 

This is an interesting book, if you are a Tolkien fan. If you are not a Tolkien fan, I suspect this is a poor place to start. While it isn’t required reading, familiarity with the Silmarillion will make reading this book a heck of a lot easier. The mythology that Tolkien was developing largely appears in that book, and Garth does not make a great effort to explain much about the mythology aside from analyzing Tolkien’s work as it stood during the Great War.

 

While I got some good and interesting information and insights from this book, I have to confess that I found the writing a bit dense, particularly some of the battle narratives. I confess that I may not have been in the right frame of mind for some of the reading of this, but portions of the book felt like more of a struggle than I would have liked.

 

For serious Tolkien fans, this book is unquestionably worth reading, if only for some of the ideas and insights. For casual fans, it might not be worth the bother.

 

 

Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders

Neil Gaiman

Publisher: HarperAudio; Unabridged edition (September 26, 2006)

ISBN-10: 0061142379

 

The astute among you will note that I have, in fact, already reviewed Fragile Things some time ago. However, thanks to murphyslaw’s immense generosity, I got to listen to the book on audio, read by the Gaiman himself. So I thought I’d share a few thoughts about it.

 

First of all, Gaiman is a fantastic reader and storyteller. Indeed, his skill as a storyteller really comes to the fore when he reads his own work, and does a lot to enhance some of the stories in the book that I didn’t find quite as compelling the first time around. The "Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot” for example, I found a lot more compelling and memorable this time around, and found a lot more humor in “Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire “, and actually have a more solid memory now of “How Do You Think It Feels?” Granted, some of this may just be an effect of re-experiencing the stories, but I think some of it is that Gaiman’s writing style lends itself very well to storytelling, and hearing him read it just makes them that much more memorable.

 

Second, this collection contains “Goliath”, Gaimain’s Matrix-based short story. Honestly, just finding out about and getting this story made the effort worth it. While the story makes no sense in the context of the later Matrix films, it is, in fact, way more interesting than said films. Not that that’s much of a stretch, but there you go.

 

Otherwise, not much new to say about it. I still enjoy most of the stories, but not all of them. If I were to recommend this collection to someone, I’d honestly say the audio format is the better way to experience it. But reading it is okay too.

So I’ve been listening to Fragile Things on Audio, courtesy of Murpheyslaw, and discovered that it has some extra stuff on it that wasn’t in the actual book. Including a reading of “Goliath”, Gaiman’s story set in the Matrix-verse.

 

It’s awesome.

 

I’ll grant you, in the context of even the first movie, it doesn’t completely make sense, and in the context of the later movies (if I must admit they existed), it’s ridiculous, but given all that…

 

It’s AWESOME.

 

Seriously. I wish someone had taken some of the ideas in this and run with in for Matrix-sequels. They certainly couldn’t have done worse than what we got…

Or at least, mildly amusing.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2X2TB3S4O5I60/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

This Guy is awesome

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y13cES7MMd8