Japan Sinks - Sakyo Komatsu (or is that Komatsu Sakyo?)



Morris read this and said, "oh yeah, shit like this happened when the dinosaurs were wiped out, YOU'RE SCREWED." I'm inclined to agree with him, from the safety of Australia.

You'll never believe where I found this book. In a second hand book shop in Gardner, the small two saloon town at the entrance of Yellowstone while I was doing my trek last year. It was one of those moments of "o rly? YA RLY!" I wasn't looking for it, and yet there it was.

You can't really go past the title as far as story summaries go. It's about Japan, which sinks into the ocean. YA RLY. Well, no. It's about looking at the possibility of something that catastrophic occurring, and what to do about it. Would you believe it, given all the facts? I can't say I would. Say you accept the inevitability, what then? How do you prepare for the physical loss of a nation, the displacement of millions and millions of people?

How do you deal with the disappearance of your entire civilisation?

That is what the book is really about. It's crushing and devastating. There isn't an enemy to be angry at, it is just the Earth, doing its thing. Unstoppable continental drift, which won't be intimidated or reasoned with. It comes down to getting the population off the islands before its too late.

Australia makes an embarassing appearance, with the Prime Minister being approached by the Japanese ambassador, requesting the immigration of five million japanese workers. About a third of the Australian population at the time, a time which comes shortly after the abolition of the White Australia Policy. I cringed.

One scene that stood out vividly in my mind was a collection of international diplomats leaving a conference to check out the TV, a broadcast of the beginning of Japan's destruction on the tube, and of one man looking back to see the Japanese ambassador remove his glasses, and wipe his eyes, before putting them back on.

Even abridged as it is, this book was a punch in the guts.

Verdict: Depressing and upseting and very, very powerful.

Arthur & George - Julian Barnes



Rav Deeves (that's his name, serious, it was on the box) is all "eh, whatever," about this book. I wouldn't put it like that, but the sentiment is the same.

I first read Barnes in university, and there was much love involved. For years, I'd intended to eat more of his books, but only now got around to it, and I have to confess that the physical beauty of the book was a fair chunk of the motivation. Cloth-bound books are just nice to stroke. No, stroking books is not weird. Shut up. Stop looking at me like that.

This book, well, it didn't trigger the big love boom I was hoping. It is very well written, and an intriguing look at the vastly different lives of Arthur (that's Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to you) and George, who probably would have never met had it not been for whim. Life, you know, she's a whimsical creature. But meet they do, and Arthur is not the gallant knight he wishes to be, although he almost convinces the reader otherwise. George is not a helpless victim of hate, although it is tempting to paint him so.

The England of fiction remains a strange soggy place, and I find that the mental landscape it creates in my head tends to be dreary, bleak, and colourless, and as much as I wanted to enjoy the book, that sort of saturation is a downer.

I guess I'm not academic or intellectual enough, because I reached the end, and after their lives were spent and all had failed and been achieved, I thought to myself, "yes, and?" Perhaps the fact that it reads in a somewhat autobiographical manner brought that on - lives don't have a point, they just happen, and then they end. The last three lines;


What does he see?
What did he see?
What will he see?

and in fact the last scene of Arthur's funeral knocked down the interesting structure of thought I'd built on this story. Perhaps that is the point. What you want to know, what you think you know, all of these things are-

Verdict: Eh. A lot of people loved it, but it didn't rock my world.

Kamakazi Girls - Novala Takemoto



Leonardo totally approves of this book, because Leonardo is in touch with his feminine side.

I agree with Leonardo. I don't remember exactly why I picked up this book, but I'm glad I did. I went through a brief, three book stint of not particularly wanting to read any speculative genres, and I think this was the most fun of those books, and the most surprisingly awesome bestest.

(Disclaimer: I've just come off nightshift and I'm doing my staying up through the day to crash my sleep pattern back to normal. I'm not responsible for anything. At all. Ever. Not even my sentences.)

It is the story of two girls, one a Yanki and the other a Lolita, practically polar opposites when it comes to subcultures. Of course they fall in with each other, they're doomed to from the very beginning.

This is not the story of their growing friendship. Ichigo's impassioned speech at the end summarises precisely why they're not friends, and exactly why they'll always be there for each other. It is a story of being true to yourself, no matter what the cost.

At first, I was appalled at Momoko's first person narration. A Lolita consumed by an intense pursuit for a Rococo spirit and lifestyle, she came across as gobsmackingly selfish, self-aborbed, shallow and callous. It isn't a large book, but after the first chapter I did wonder if I wanted to put up with her the whole way. This wondering happened while I read, and read, and found myself deep in the book. First impressions, you know, they really aren't everything. The selfishness and callousness were the symptoms of a breath-stealing determination to pursue her dream, no matter what the cost. No matter what thet cost. She discard practicality and comfort and friends and company for this dream ofa Rococo lifestyle. Beneath the frills and lace, she's fucking hardcore.

Ichigo initially comes across as a naive fool, striving to be fulfill that Yanki dream of riding around in a biker gang until getting knocked up and having a shotgun wedding and 'graduating', although she failed her motorcycle licence test and only rides a scooter. It's easy to assume she's yet another dumb girl being led astray by falling in with the wrong crowd, but like Momoko, it's a first impression, and like Momoko, she's chasing her dream down, damn the consequences.

"Because Yanki are so uncool."
"Did you just dis my entire life?"
"Well, yeah."
"I'll fucking kick your ass."
"Go ahead, if you want to."
"You ask me, you're the one who's uncool, wearing those frilly-ass outfits when you're in high school already."
"They're not 'frilly-ass', they're Lolita."
"What's the fucking difference?"
"There's a world of difference."
"I'll kill you, I swear."
"Go ahead."

I love it. The book is full of clashes just like that. Neither grasps the other's choice, both thinks the other is just fucking ridiculous, and I want to reach in and tell them they're both daft and brillant.

This book is very well written, and exceptionally well translated. At no point did I feel that I was reading a translation, real care has be put into the english version. It isn't translated, it's written.

I want to say it isn't a girly book, because it isn't...but I think that maybe only girls will really get it.

Verdict: This is not a "heart-warming tale of two girls growing up in the country", it is a brilliant, brilliant, brillant piece of writing about knowing who you are.

That Camera Is Not Neenja

The train pulled into the station, the door opened, he set up his tripod, pointed and clicked.

Apparently he wasn't entirely satisfied with whatever showed up on the screen of his enormous DSLR, because he went for a second shot, and when he looked up, noticed that I'd noticed him photographing me, and was leering in an entirely "Haha, caught ya!" manner.

His smile wasn't entirely comfortable. I think I busted my chance of appearing in a photography exhibition with a caption along the lines of "Unknown Commuter Zombie, 7:08 Glen Waverley, Southern Cross on Spencer Street".

FUCK

I've lost my white hair. It's gone. Almost, ALMOST a year, and it just had to fall out. Now it'll take me another 25 years to grow another.

and the world just happens

A couple of family members who I happen to live with forgot my birthday was imminent. One them only remembered 8 hours before the clock ticked over midnight because the one family member that did remember asked if they remembered.

The fact that I forgot my birthday was coming too is quite irrelevent.

The only way to sing in such a birthday is to go and harass online roleplayers while in a mildly intoxicated state until 3 in the morning. Far more entertaining than it sounds.

Last year, I was proud to turn 25. It's a nice shiny number, 25, and a big number at that. Look how long I've hung around this Earth, 25 years, remarkable!

This year, not so much.

I am 26 years old and I still live with my parents, in the same room I spent the first 18 years of my life. I have a university degree that is useless, and a job that does nothing, goes nowhere, provides me with no skills I can apply elsewhere, and is neither challenging or stimulating. I don't have a significant other of any description, or children, or the potential for either on the horizon. I haven't seen the world, I haven't changed the world, I have achieved nothing of significance and I STILL HAVEN'T FINISHED WRITING A BOOK. ANY FUCKING BOOK.

The cake was nice though.

Warm-blooded Sunshine Batteries

I don't think I get much physical contact. The other day, someone put their hand on my arm, and my brain went "Oh!" It was the sort of "Oh!" that happens when you rediscover something that you hadn't realised you'd forgotten, like the smell of pine trees, or the taste really good cheese.

Wow. Other people are so warm.

It was exactly like sunshine, that perfect snuggly sunshine in Spring that I go nuts about. And I'm going nuts now. It isn't about sex, or affection, or raffirming my existence as a human being, but just how deliciously warm it was. I need to find someone who won't be freaked out if I say, "er, can I, like, maybe, sorta hold your hand for a bit?"

(I daresay this has been brought on by the fact that Melbourne just faceplanted into Winter in true Melbourne fashion, and I'm cold all the time. That said, if you can't find another human being to warm your bed for you, I can confirm that two dogs and a hot water bottle do an adequate job.)

Trailers - Mark Kneece & Julie Collins-Rousseau



The Other Alien is all messiah about this book. I agree with the Other Alien.

This was an impulse buy. I went shopping looking specifically for a one shot comic that wasn't about superheros, or great epic battles, or anything that wasn't the norm of life. I wanted a story that might have mabye reflected this pointless struggle I have with the mediocre humdrum of life, a story that wouldn't patronise me and wouldn't offer false hope or comfort, an ordinary story about ordinary people who don't have happy endings.

This isn't quite what I was looking for, it was better.

Josh has a shit life. He lives in a trailer with his no-good mother and three younger siblings of different fathers, and does most of the parenting, and has to deal with school, you know, school...and then his mother goes and kills her current squeeze, and he's left to deal with the body. Unfortunately, the body just won't stay buried, neither will any of the secrets, and what little control he had over his life is slipping away.

And Josh is just a teenage kid in over his head, and he doesn't have special friends, lucky breaks, convenient powers, a place to retreat to, and he isn't coping, it isn't fair, and he's angry.

And that was refreshing.

Maybe I'm looking in all the wrong places, listening to the wrong conversations, but lately, all I've seen is people doing their best to cheer others up, insist that the person in strife look on the bright side, and be grateful for what they have. Perhaps. In time, maybe.

It's not my approach, mostly because it shits me to tears when someone tries that on me. It's as though there is some unspoken rule that anger is bad. It is, but it isn't wrong. None of us like being powerless, and most of us don't accept that politely. If you want to be angry, then go, be angry. And when you've ranted and yelled and spent it all, then you can go on with life, pick up the pieces, and start again.

This is a very well written book. It's solid, full of real people who say real and stupid things, do real and stupid things, and don't cope with life. There are no clever answers, easy solutions and neat resolutions. There isn't a happy ending. But, the end is a better place than the beginning, and I think that's all we can really hope for.

Verdict: Excellent. Good, good stuff. Well crafted, in terms of writing and art. Muchly worth your time.

The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion - Loren D. Estleman



The Alien is trying to eat this lump of dead tree matter. I agree with the Alien.

This isn't a book trying to be a movie. This isn't a movie pretending to be a book. This IS a movie. It doesn't want to be a book, and it's thrashing and screaming and in rank bloody denial about the fact that there are no moving pictures involved.

You've seen it before: a succession of stoked boilers streaking towards the screen, intercut with close-ups of charging wheels and plunging drive rods. On the soundtrack, short cello strokes imitate the chomping of pistons and steam whistles blast from the brass. Depot signs loom at us from the far perspective...

And so on. And so forth. That is one of the tamer passages. I stopped before it got to the montage of robberies. There's even a travel montage in this book, you know, when there's an overlay of the map with a line moving across it to indicate the movement of characters from one place to another. Yeah. One of them. In a book.

I know I've harped on about respecting the medium you use and all that, but this just stumped me. I think I was too shocked at just how brazenly "THIS IS A MOVIE" the book was to be affronted. If you're going to do something, then do it properly, and this is a movie in an all balls out sort of way.

Still. It's a book. Not a great one at that. The title indicates that Johnny Vermillion is the centre role, but he isn't. Far more POV time is spent on his accomplices, who are far more interesting than he is. Vermillion has Mary Sue stamped all over his face. The others, while skirting the realms of cliche, are quite well drawn and the dynamic between them is terribly amusing. Together, they form a travelling theatre troupe which is really just a cover for the fact that they're bank robbers, and good at being both.

The story isn't much to speak of; they're criminals, they're in danger of getting caught by either the law or the other criminals whose toes they're stepping on. Nothing particularly new is attempted with the story, or the characters, and it rolls on pretending to be a movie so there's pretty much sweet fanny all in terms of proper climax and resolution. Mildly intriguing character conflicts are seeded, and then entirely ignored and forgotten.

It could be said that Estleman is deliberately playing with the great many cliches that Westerns are open to, but he fails to then do anything new with them. He fails to do anything with them at all. The story just...stops. There are plenty of nice elements, but they don't gel together as a whole.

Which isn't to say it wasn't fun, but...fuck. It isn't a movie, it's a book.

Verdict: You know, I can't recommend this as fluff, because it's just...wrong.

Music = Mountains

I went to the Nine Inch Nails concert alone. Some people flip out when they discover that I willingly go to movies on my own, so I didn't advertise this. It doesn't faze me, and I've never been able to explain how experiencing something alone makes it purer.

It was brilliant. I stood in a crowd of total strangers, strangers who ignored me and expected nothing from me, totally incognito, and loved it. There was nothing for me to do, nothing to fill up my head except a gazillion decibles of industrial rage.

For some people, music is a social thing. They get together over it, talk about it, share it.

For me, it's ridiculously intensely personal, and I don't want to share it with anyone, because if they judge it, they're judging me.

Being swallowed up and made insignificant by loud music had the same calming, clensing, euphoric affect as standing alone in the mountains. I'm at my highest when the world around me makes me so small, I cease to exist, even to myself.

Curse of the Golden Flower

Pretty, and lacking a point. The lessons I took away from the cinema were: "when families go bad, they go BAD" and "it's GOOD to be king".

Overwhelming colour though. That palace! In the first five minutes I was saturated. How can you live in such a palace and not go insane?

Also: asian women have boobs. This film is proof.

See Trumpet, Blow Trumpet

I have sold Bitter Elsie Mae to Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. Bitter Elsie Mae was my week three Clarion South story, so a big shout out to my class mates and Ellen Datlow for helping me fix it. The story (containing pirates and ghost ships and bad grammar), will be in issue #34, due February 2008.

I have also received word that One Night on Tidal Rig #13, which was originally slated to be released this coming June in one of the Daikaiju! sequels, has been delayed till October. Le sigh. I won't be in the country, alas. Oh well. I've already waited over two years, I can wait a bit longer.

Finally, that fine young lady Deb just announced that she sold a story to POSTSCRIPTS, and that, my friends, is AWESOME with a capital HELL YEAH. Go over and tell her to write the sequel congratulate her.

When our powers combine, we are Captain Planet. No wait, Voltron. Voltron is much cooler.

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence 'After The Long Goodbye' - by Masaki Yamada, trans by Yuji Oniki and Carl Custav Horn



ANIME TIE-IN! ANIME TIE-IN!

Summary: Batou lost his dog. Batou looks for his dog.

I picked this up because it was by a different author than this tie-in, the amazon reviews actually sounded interesting, and, er, it was a pretty book. Shuddup.

And this book blindsided me. It's heart-breaking and thought-provoking and well-written, and not at all what I was expecting. The translation was excellent. Everything was good quality. Whe the...?

There was a bit of character suicide going on - Batou is a mopey bastard through the whole thing. He has his emo ON. This is not a happy, chipper, feel good sort of book. It's what you read when you're feeling lonely and miserable, so you can be lonely and miserable with a lonely and miserable book. Part of me wanted to mock him for having his whole life revolve around his dog, but then, pot, kettle, black.

The dog, the absence of dog, is almost incidental to what the book is actually about, which is consciousness. Memories. What it is to be aware. Aware, within a synthetic environment, and everything that is gained and lost. That he can program himself to release endorphins when accessing a certain memory - does that mean the memory makes him happy, or he makes the memory happy? What is happy?

There is a fair whack of giant tanks and super-cyborg gun fight spectacular-a-rama, but such things in no way subtract from the gravitas of the underlying themes.

I was surprised, and lonely and miserable, and this book rang true.

Strange thing, fiction.

Verdict: knowledge of the GIS universe will help, but this remains a startlingly good book regardless.

Snake Agent & The Demon & The City - Liz Williams



This might be cheating, lumping the two books together, but my thoughts on each are pretty much the same.

Williams has created a very tasty work, set in future Singapore Three, in which technology has eased the communication between Hell and Heaven, and people such as Detective Inspector Chen exist to investigate crimes of the celestial sort. It's a textured world, full of flavour, and left me with severe cravings for congee and noodles.

In Snake Agent, Chen is called in to investigate some soul-smuggling, runs into the demon Zhu Izrh (who is terribly easy to crush on), and generally discovers that Terrible Things Are Afoot In Hell, and must save the day.

In The Demon and The City, Zhu Irzh is not requested to investigate the murder of a socialite, but does so anyway, and eventually he and Chen uncover a plot that will shake the earth, Heaven and Hell, and must save the day. Again. Clearly they don't get paid enough.

Both books are brilliant, juicy, cop stories, with characters that I just adore (I have a great fondness for the badger-teakettle), and I can't help feel sorry for everything Singapore gets put through.

That said, I found that both books started as one thing, and transformed greatly, ending as an almost entirely different book. This in itself wasn't a problem, except that I didn't get a feel that the transition was acknowledged, when reading the final pages. What happened to so and so, and what about such and such? Life doesn't tend to tie itself up in neat little packages, but I like some balance in my books.

Also....damn, most beautiful covers EVAH.

There's a third book in the works, and I will most definitely be acquiring it. You know how it is. Find a food you like; eat it.

Verdict: Well worth checking out, especially if you'd like a taste of something different.

(I know these write ups are short and crappy. I am hungover and have a sore throat. Just think of all the whinging I'm NOT doing.)

The Ticking - Reneé French



Just look at how beautiful that book is. Cloth-bound and embossed. I'm a shallow, shallow person, and I admit, I bought it just because it was lovely. I pick it up every now and then, just to hold it, and touch the cover.

This is not a graphic novel.



It's a picture book.

Edison Steelhead was born looking like his father, and so his father takes him away to live on an island, where no one can see them. Edison grows up as all children do, curious and questioning, and not entirely accepting of his father's own issues. Their ability and inability to be ashamed, unashamed of their appearance draws them further apart, in this quiet, soft, greylead world.

There is so much space on the pages, each picture a little window surrounded by white, as if I was only getting the slightest, cropped glimpse of the world they inhabit. I couldn't help feeling each picture was being forced to sit in the corner, ashamed of the attention it gained by being present.

All that soft pencil is marvellously printed, to the point I was afraid of brushing my fingers across each page, lest I accidently smudge the art.

I understand Edison. I understand Edison's father too. The story should make you cringe, want to turn away, but you won't.

Verdict: Yes.

Ribofunk - Paul Di Filippo



I have had this sitting on my shelf for years. You see what treasure I have just lying around in my room, and I don't even know it? Who's the ijit? ME.

I chose it as I'm still on this run of "small and easy to carry", which isn't the greatest reason to pick up a book, but didn't fail me this time.

Ribofunk is awesome. AWE-SOME. It isn't cyberpunk, not in the traditional sense. There's a lot more funk, for starters. Oodles more funk. So much funk it's off the funkitude scale.

While there is a sort-of over-arching story to the book, it presents as a collection of short stories, sometimes related, sometimes not. I suppose you could read them at random, but the information presented in one lays the groundwork for the next, so perhaps it would be better to treat them as chapters that aren't closely related. Sort of second-cousins meeting at the family christmas dinner.

Di Filippo has created a world which...

...kinda defies summary.

It's a future in which the focus is less on computers, and more on body manipulation. Tropes and splices, anything can be injected now, from moods to knowledge to horns. I didn't pick up much body horror, but some of the modifications were confronting, to say the least. People chosing to augment their bodies to become more like cockroaches, or cliched chain-mail bikini-clad barbarian women, and splices themselves, part human, part anything else you want DNA. What does it mean to be human? Does it matter?

But Di Filippo doesn't just create a funkified future, or rewrite the syntax of science-fiction (I can't say that without cackling), he makes his own genre and language, and leaves the rest of us staring in puzzlement at his frollicks. I admit, I read the first page about five times before giving up trying to decipher the lingo and just running with it. It's a great, great language. Read it, and learn.

My favourite chapter/story has to be Big Eater, a story told entirely from the point of view of a man who had a broadcasting accident, and when stressed, sick, or having just woken up, can only express himself in rhymes.

The wordbird woke me at seven out of my heaven. Not at all synthetic, just the old deltawave-syncretic. Rem-memories hazed my gaze. Just like a screamcurse, I seemed stuck in my dreamverse. Though it wasn't so bad, maybe even triple-gonad. Something about drifting forever down a river of feathers. On my back, I was catching up on my slack. Coasting along just humming a song. Mighty nice change from my strife-life brain-drain. Which the nerdbird was still harp-harp-hopping on.

You know. The sort of thing that makes me grin because it's silly and awesome.

Verdict: If you're serious about writing, and the techniques of writing, you don't have an excuse not to read this. If you like reading good books, you have even less excuse not to read this. Does not make a good hat. Wrong shape. Great cover though.

Company - Max Barry



Read this a couple of months ago. Yeah, you'd think I'd have learned not to leave it so long by now.

Jennifer Government had me in stitches with it's bleak, absurd and dark humour, and so I had the same expectations of Company. I wasn't disappointed.

This book follows Jones, a graduate just starting a job in Zephyr, and the differences encountered between what is taught in business school, and what actually goes on in the work place, among a myraid of other things. It focuses on the mundane, ordinary, trivial things that nevertheless become great drama in the work place. If you've worked in an office, you know what I mean. I consider my own office pretty tame, and still this book resonated strongly.

Despite being pretty much non-stop giggles, it is a disturbing book, precisely because it resonates. You know, truth, and all that. The potrayal of Senior Management in particular (being representative for all upper echelons of management in every company anywhere) was frighteningly close to the bone, and highlights, quite starkly, the distance between those who make the decisions, and those who do the work.

I would love to go into more detail, as Company provided all sorts of food for pondering, but there are things that I just don't want to spoil.

That said, this book won't be a laugh for everyone. I pushed this on mum, as her office is being 'reorganised', figuring she'd need to laugh at the situation. Unfortunately, her reaction was the opposite; she couldn't read it because it was ridiculous and unfunnily true. Art mirroring life mirroring stupidity.

Verdict: Terribly funny stuff. If you are in a management position of any sort, you should read this. It will make your staff like you more. Also, it makes a good hat.

When I woke up half-way through the afternoon, I was crying. I can't remember the dream, but I know it wasn't the cause.

NIGHTSHIFT.

JUST SAY NO.

Aiiiiyaaaah. If you're going to leave narky comments, at least have the decency to wear your name. Don't be ashamed of your narkiness, revel in it! Be grown-up about being a bitch! It's too fucking early in the morning for me not to get my nark on. Get me some fucking orange juice.

Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town - Cory Doctorow



I read this cover to cover. Got terrible involved in it. I can tell you what happens, but I can't tell you what it's about.

What happens is a couple of guys start up free wireless for the community/the son of a mountain and a washing machine has some serious family issues, and deals with them. Somewhere between those two plot lines is what this book is about, and I haven't quite pinned it down yet.

It is something, my gut has decided, to do with freedom. Not necessarily freedom of speech, with all the politics the phrase is loaded with. Possibly just the freedom to be what and who you are, which is something you can only decide for yourself.

Which of course can only be done after you've finished your family feud in a violent and bloody manner, but oh well.

But that doesn't seem quite satisfactory, and I think I'll have to muddle this book over some more before I come to a conclusion that I am happy with.

It is about peculiar people. They're called 'monsters' at various points in the narrative, but that's just a word to mean 'other'. They're not human in the biological sense of the word, but they have minds and hearts that seem perfect capable of fucking things up like the rest of us. They are not, or feel they are not, free to say what they think.

Mimi, part-time heroin of the story, sporting a very fetching set of functional bat wings, is perhaps the most sympathetic of this motely cast. Her thought process and her emotional reactions are nothing but raw human, and her wings a physical manifestation of that wall we all carry within us. That which renders us incapable of expressing ourselves to others, that which disconnects us from the world around us. Her moment of battered house wife syndrome cut me, and her decision to run elevated me. I've read too many family violence reports where that last decision never happens.

Adam, Alan, Andy, the main protagonist, is an odd bird. Human, and passing for human, and going so human he's popped out the otherside into oddness. His carefully moulded house, full of the trophies that signify what it is to be human, the book he never writes, his endless fascination with other people...and his family.

The war between his brothers fuels the larger part of the story, and I admit I haven't sorted it out in my head yet. There was a twist at the end that I didn't see, and while it didn't throw me, it hasn't settled comfortably either. Families are strange creatures. Strange, strange creatures. I think it might be better if I accepted, without attempting to understand. Somethings aren't meant to be understood; family is one of them.

(Especially given the conversation I just had with my brother.)

It's also a really nice book to hold. I nabbed the hardcover at worldcon, and it's just a nice size, with nice heft, and nice paper, and a really nice cover. Ahh. Purdy.

A strange book that curls and meanders and drinks too much coffee and geeks out and gets brutal and bloody. A book that you will have to chew over and take what you choose from it, because it won't tell you want to think.

Verdict: Challenging, bizarrely so. Dangerous for trains.