August 2017 Reads Part 2

(continued from Part 1 and delayed due to travel, oops!)

I've been reading Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels in chronological sub-series order. While technically the books can can be read in any order, following the storylines is helpful. That said, there's a lot of different thoughts and recommendations on where to start in the vastness of Discworld, and my overall recommendation is to just start anywhere, as long as you start!

I'm leaving out the "Recommended Reads" sections for this grouping, as there's a lot of overlap and things I've previously recommended for Pratchett reads.

Lords and Ladies - Terry Pratchett (1992)
"If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are."

Lords and Ladies continues the Witches storyline, which I started earlier this year. This particular book involves Elves - which, in this world, are unconcernedly cruel - and veers a little darker than previously-read novels. I appreciated the elements of old/folk magic that were tied in (iron horseshoes, etc). I felt it had a good mix of humor and peril-seriousness.

The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett (1983)
"Either dragons should exist completely or fail to exist at all, he felt. A dragon only half-existing was worse than the extremes."

This is Pratchett's first Discworld novel and the first in the Wizards (Rincewind) storyline. It's different in tone than the Witches storyline; it feels a little more like true-fantasy and a little heavier and more world-building . I think it's a good place to start for anyone wanting to get into the Discworld series - although I'm happy with where I started (Equal Rites). It's also divided up into several short books, which is a different format than all the following novels.

The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett (1986)
"Not for the first time she reflected that there were many drawbacks to being a swordswoman, not least of which was that men didn't take you seriously until you'd actually killed them, by which time it didn't really matter anyway."

Pratchett's second novel continues the Wizard storyline adventures; the end here feels fairly "neat" (not a cliffhanger), though still left open for the further adventures. I have to say that I particularly enjoyed the "computer programmer" druids in this offering. As always, Pratchett is unendingly clever.

Maskerade - Terry Pratchett (1995)
"Granny Weatherwax was firmly against fiction. Life was hard enough without lies floating around and changing the way people thought. And because the theater was fiction made flesh, she hated the theater most of all. But that was it - hate was exactly the right word. Hate is a force of attraction. Hate is just love with its back turned."

I switched back to the Witches storyline with Maskerade, the 5th book in this sub-series. This is a riff on Phantom of the Opera, and felt a little Dr. Who-esque to me. Coming back to the Witches series after reading the first few Wizard books, I realized just how much I had been appreciating the woman-heavy cast. I liked the further development of Agnes/Perdita, who's a very different character than her predecessor Magrat, but very likable (and frustratingly realistic) in her own way.

Carpe Jugulum - Terry Pratchett (1998)
"All witches who'd lived in her cottage were bookish types. They thought you could see life through books but you couldn't, the reason being that the words got in the way."

This, the 6th and final novel in the Witches storyline, brings vampires into the mix. It veers a bit more serious (while still retaining Pratchett's signature humor). I was sad to have this storyline end.

Sourcery - Terry Pratchett (1989)
"In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find..."

Switching back to the 3rd Wizard novel with this one - it's somewhat darker in storyline and tone. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the other Discworld novels I've read so far, but that's not to say I disliked it as a whole. It seemed to me to be a more conventional, serious take on the plot thesis of Equal Rites, its predecessor by a few years.

Faust Eric - Terry Pratchett (1990)
“Multiple exclamation marks," he went on, shaking his head, 'Are a sure sign of a diseased mind."

This book is a kind of in-between novel for the Wizards timeline - sort of a "what happened to Rincewind while he was away" tale. It has a fairly clever rendition of Hell, which Rincewind finds himself venturing into after a beginner-conjurer mistakes him for a demon. I felt the characters weren't as strong here, but it's more forgivable in this more simplistic side-story. It was a bit of a light relief after the more serious Sourcery. 

August 2017 Reads Part 1

I got through another interesting mix of books this past month. Half were Terry Pratchett novels (see part 2), and half were more serious books - a mix of fiction and non-fiction.

You Are A Badass - Jen Sincero (2013)
"We only get to be in our bodies for a limited time; why not celebrate the journey instead of merely riding it out until it’s over?"

I actually had a hard time getting through this book my first read-through. It starts out (and continues the trend) encouraging readers to "manifest" things and believe in the good of the Universe, and veers too close to Prosperity Gospel type stuff for my taste. Also, the author is dismissive of anxiety and depression.

But, to be fair, on my second reading (the one where I decided to go through and take notes), I found some actually helpful things I could glean. Overall, then, my caution is that the reader should know that there's a fair helping of "the Universe wants to bless you"  "all you have to do is believe" and "just do it" lines - all phrases that I find excessively cringey. But there's still some helpful and go-get--'em and even practical advice that even I found helpful.

Related Reads:
The Happiness Project (Rubin)

Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel - Tom Wainwright (2016)
"Buy cocaine in Europe or the United States and it is an uncomfortable certainty that you have helped pay for someone to be tortured to death in a place like Reynosa. People ought to know this. It is a testament to the success of cartels in laundering their images that millions of customers buy drugs each year without giving a moment's thought to the fact that they are funding unimaginable suffering."

I thought this book was well-written and engaging, a happy surprise for me as I don't always mesh well with the writing styles of journalists/reporters/editors. The weaknesses for me were that the statistics given become dated quickly (through no fault of the author) - for instance, more states have legalized marijuana since the book's publication - and sometimes the author's parallels to business were a bit of a stretch. But I'd widely recommend the book for, among other things, its genuinely fascinating look into the facets of drug cartels and discussion of the impact of legalization.


The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick (1962)
"They want to be the agents, not the victims, of history. They identify with God's power and believe they are godlike. That is their basic madness. They are overcome by some archetype; their egos have expanded psychotically so that they cannot tell where they begin and the godhead leaves off. It is not hubris, not pride; it is inflation of the ego to its ultimate - confusion between him who worships and that which is worshiped."

(Quick note: I haven't seen the Amazon Prime series, although I've heard it's fairly divergent from the book, in the general tradition of PKD adaptations) I found this an interesting, though strangely short-feeling, read. It's a blend of the things I've come to associate with PKD - clever, uncomfortable, terse, and depressingly realistic.

Related Reads:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Dick)

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami (1991)
(Translated from Japanese to English by Alfred Birnbaum)
"Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope."

Hard-Boiled Wonderland is a curious mix of fantasy and speculative fiction, and (by all accounts) quite different even (or perhaps especially) among other contemporary Japanese novels. The nameless characters, the unicorn skulls, the subterranean fish-god worshipers... it's a reality-bending journey that somehow carries a pragmatic thread throughout.

I've only read one other Murakami book, but I found this to be (perhaps strangely) the more straightforward of the two. This one seems to be a good starter book for those interested in Murakami/modern Japanese fiction.

Related Reads:
Neuromancer (Gibson)
The Three-Body Problem (Liu)
The Giver (Lowry)

(to be continued in Part 2)