Books

[dsrtao]

Three Days to Never / Tim Powers.
The Machine's Child / Kage Baker.
The Jennifer Morgue / Charles Stross
Taltos, Phoenix, Athyra, Orca, Dragon / Steven Brust (rereads)

Are there really people who never decide to reread a series as a retrospective? Probably, but I don't think I know many of them. The most intriguing thing about Brust's work on Vlad Taltos is the artistic interconnectedness of all things, while writing the series out of order. The most irritating thing is the way that in _Dragon_ he skips seamlessly among three or four different timelines and merges them.

Baker is still taking many, many books to finish off the Company series. If it weren't the case that she can write so well, I would have tossed her aside several volumes ago. As it is, I'm glad she's occasionally writing non-Company standalone novels.

Powers does occult timetravel. Hardly anything is explained. The good guys win. This is not his best work.

Charlie brings my favorite computational demonologist back in what might be his fastest reading novel to date. A large part of this is due to the intentional emulation of James Bond novels and movies in _The Jennifer Morgue_, which zips along with just a few complications and the perfect mix of cool occultech and stupid-but-physically-plausible gadgets. You'll never see a PowerPoint presentation the same way again... you may never see another PowerPoint slide, in fact. Muahahaha! Highly recommended for the IT-literate.

Comments

[mangosteen]

I don't re-read non-reference fiction books in general, as I'm a slow reader and there's too much out there to read.

Besides, you already know what's going to happen. I'm still mystified as to why I like to re-watch movies. I'm also confused as why I like listening to songs over and over, but at least the time commitment on that is pretty minimal, and I can do other things while listening, so it's not a big deal.

[dsrtao]

I read while commuting and I read while walking. That's most of my fiction time budget, really.

I like the idea of rewatching movies more than I like the experience... on the other hand, buying a DVD is cheaper than going to the theater. Might as well have it around if you get the itch.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I re-read fiction, the ones I liked immensely the first time around.

I do it for several reasons. One is to notice details, turns of phrase, or plot, that I didn't get in the headlong rush toward the end of the book the first time. Another is to revisit the familiar, which is a useful thing to do in the 10 minutes before I go to sleep. And the last one is to refamiliarize myself with the storyline of a series because I've forgotten bits of it and there is a new book out which I want to understand better.

I'm hoping that Kage Baker fulfills the promise of all this buildup. It will be very difficult for her to do so, but she might pull it off. I feel rather on tenterhooks about it!