Kali
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March 14, 2015
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Musings of a different nature
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annihilation, dept. of speculation, jeff vandermeer, tournament of books 2014, victor lavalle
I was going to add this as a comment to my review of Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation, but thought I’d post a quick update instead.
Annihilation beat critic fave Dept. of Speculation in the Tournament of Books yesterday, which has me chanting “Go, Annihilation, GO!” even as I know so many of my favorite other books are still in the mix. I think it is going to be hard for anything to beat Station Eleven.
I suspected Annihilation would fare well with Victor LaValle, as the only novel of his I’ve read, The Devil In Silver (his most recent), was full of the type of wild, fresh thinking that Annihilation fully embraces. But his reasoning behind his decision seemed justified, not just like an alliance with all things bizarre, and his discussion of Dept. of Speculation made me want to check it out soon.
So here’s to celebrating the new school of weird, and looking forward to the epic battles to come!
Kali
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March 4, 2015
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Book Reviews
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anthropology, Euphoria, fiction reviews, lily king, love triangles, margaret mead
But so many of my favorite books are packaged as love stories, and are then actually full of mystery and intrigue, love more lost than found: Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin, Kate Walbert’s The Gardens of Kyoto. Euphoria falls into this second group, as this is less a book of romantic longing than one of human need and human obsession, in all their brilliance and ugliness.
Kali
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February 9, 2015
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Book Reviews
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book blogging, book reviews, john scalzi, lock in, locked-in syndrome, robots, Science fiction, science fiction reviews
In John Scalzi’s novel Lock In, the near-future brings a virus which leaves millions across the U.S. locked-in. Everyone has a child, mother, brother or sister stranded in a body that won’t work, while their mind is still fully active.
Kali
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February 3, 2015
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Book Reviews
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book blogging, book reviews, Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl, Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train, thriller reviews
Comparisons to Gone Girl are coming hot and heavy, but where Gone Girl is twisty, The Girl on the Train is slow and stabbing, with Rachel desperately flailing to find answers to her own lost time.
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