Cats Cats Cats: A Collection of Great Cat Cartoons
S. Gross, editor
Perennial Library (Harper & Row)
Fiction, Humor/Comics
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: A collection of cat cartoons from many sources.
REVIEW: This is an older book, but even considering that, the humor is dated. Lots of unfixed pets with unwanted kittens/throwing shoes at strays/kicking the cat outside all night type of jokes that might have been funny in the 1950's; I'm delusional enough to hope that spaying and neutering are more mainstream these days, as is keeping cats safely indoors. Some of the cartoonists treat cats with such contempt that I wonder why they bother drawing them at all, or why Gross thought they'd be worth including in an anthology of cartoons aimed at cat-lovers. A few others take way too many panels to get absolutely nowhere. For all that, there are a few fun cartoons here. Overall, the dross outweighs the gold. It didn't hack me off enough for a Bad rating, but the general blandness and dated humor place it firmly in Okay territory.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Site Updated, Reviews Archived
Brightdreamer Books has been updated again. The previous reviews have been archived. I also rotated the Random Recommendations, and I cross-linked more book reviews.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
The Inscription (Pam Binder)
The Inscription
Pam Binder
Sonnet Books
Fiction, Romance
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: In many corners of the world, a legend is whispered of a secretive race of immortals. In the fifteenth-century Scottish Highlands, where myths grow thicker than heather on the hills, these stories find flesh in the MacAlpins and their castle on the shores of Loch Ness. The MacAlpin laird, the handsome Lachlan, is strong and wise, an arbiter of justice and reason. He is also cursed, as his father was before him, with a terrible bloodlust, a savage thirst for death that fills him more and more whenever he bares his blade in battle. Though he may try to avoid combat, sometimes it comes seeking him out. As an immortal Mongolian enemy makes his way to MacAlpin territory, bent on revenge, Lachlan feels the shadow of his curse growing darker across his destiny, a doom as inevitable as the coming confrontation... but there may be hope, in an old legend which even his own immortal kin hardly believe, a legend about a woman whose healing love will transcend time...
Amber MacPhee, visiting her Aunt Dora in Inverness, was driving past Loch Ness when a freak lightning storm drove her car into the icy waters. She woke in the arms of a tartaned man, in a place that seems to be taking medieval reenactment far too seriously. She has spent her life as many in the twentieth century do, flooding her schedule with a constant flurry of external activity to hide a deep internal void. Her Scottish hero may fill that void, but he hides his heart as well as she hides hers. Can a love out of legend redeem them both, or is Lachlan doomed to lose his heart and his life to the monster that dwells within?
REVIEW: No, I don't normally read romances. They usually put plot on the back burner, playing out as an overlong seduction scene with fairly predictable endings. This book is no exception. Amber and Lachlan waver back and forth over their feelings and motivations depending on whether the author wanted to heat up a scene or cool it down. The story of Lachlan's enemy seeking vengeance on his doorstep lacked bite, and his face-to-face meeting with his nemesis is practically over before it begins; his real enemy, I suppose, is supposed to be his curse of blood-fury, but I still expected more out of a nemesis who spent years honing his blade and his sadism under the nefarious Genghis Khan. The climax felt tacked on, ending abruptly. Binder's descriptons of life in the medieval Highlands were decent, though I'm not sure how many Irish Wolfhounds (as opposed to Scottish Deerhounds) were running around on the shores of Loch Ness in the 1400's. (I also dispute the idea that the Loch Ness Monster could be a creature resembling a Brachiosaurus, as is implied here - the "aquatic brachiosaur" idea was debunked when it was shown that their lungs would collapse under that much water - but I digress.)
Overall, considering that I only picked this book up to kill time, I can't say I hated it. I can say that I preferred it to Diana Gabaldon's The Outlander, which uses the vaguely similar plot of a (nearly) modern woman plunging backwards in time to warm the bed of a Highlander; Binder, at least, didn't derail the minimal plot to delve into the downright sick territory Gabaldon explored at the end. I suppose I'm just not a fan of romance novels, even romance novels with the sci-fi twist of time travel.
Pam Binder
Sonnet Books
Fiction, Romance
*** (Okay)
DESCRIPTION: In many corners of the world, a legend is whispered of a secretive race of immortals. In the fifteenth-century Scottish Highlands, where myths grow thicker than heather on the hills, these stories find flesh in the MacAlpins and their castle on the shores of Loch Ness. The MacAlpin laird, the handsome Lachlan, is strong and wise, an arbiter of justice and reason. He is also cursed, as his father was before him, with a terrible bloodlust, a savage thirst for death that fills him more and more whenever he bares his blade in battle. Though he may try to avoid combat, sometimes it comes seeking him out. As an immortal Mongolian enemy makes his way to MacAlpin territory, bent on revenge, Lachlan feels the shadow of his curse growing darker across his destiny, a doom as inevitable as the coming confrontation... but there may be hope, in an old legend which even his own immortal kin hardly believe, a legend about a woman whose healing love will transcend time...
Amber MacPhee, visiting her Aunt Dora in Inverness, was driving past Loch Ness when a freak lightning storm drove her car into the icy waters. She woke in the arms of a tartaned man, in a place that seems to be taking medieval reenactment far too seriously. She has spent her life as many in the twentieth century do, flooding her schedule with a constant flurry of external activity to hide a deep internal void. Her Scottish hero may fill that void, but he hides his heart as well as she hides hers. Can a love out of legend redeem them both, or is Lachlan doomed to lose his heart and his life to the monster that dwells within?
REVIEW: No, I don't normally read romances. They usually put plot on the back burner, playing out as an overlong seduction scene with fairly predictable endings. This book is no exception. Amber and Lachlan waver back and forth over their feelings and motivations depending on whether the author wanted to heat up a scene or cool it down. The story of Lachlan's enemy seeking vengeance on his doorstep lacked bite, and his face-to-face meeting with his nemesis is practically over before it begins; his real enemy, I suppose, is supposed to be his curse of blood-fury, but I still expected more out of a nemesis who spent years honing his blade and his sadism under the nefarious Genghis Khan. The climax felt tacked on, ending abruptly. Binder's descriptons of life in the medieval Highlands were decent, though I'm not sure how many Irish Wolfhounds (as opposed to Scottish Deerhounds) were running around on the shores of Loch Ness in the 1400's. (I also dispute the idea that the Loch Ness Monster could be a creature resembling a Brachiosaurus, as is implied here - the "aquatic brachiosaur" idea was debunked when it was shown that their lungs would collapse under that much water - but I digress.)
Overall, considering that I only picked this book up to kill time, I can't say I hated it. I can say that I preferred it to Diana Gabaldon's The Outlander, which uses the vaguely similar plot of a (nearly) modern woman plunging backwards in time to warm the bed of a Highlander; Binder, at least, didn't derail the minimal plot to delve into the downright sick territory Gabaldon explored at the end. I suppose I'm just not a fan of romance novels, even romance novels with the sci-fi twist of time travel.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Kiln People (David Brin)
Kiln People
David Brin
Tor
Fiction, Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Two generations ago, scientists finally cracked the secret of the Standing Wave, the individual resonant frequency that was once quaintly referred to as the "soul." Now, copying one's soul into clay "dittos" is a mundane part of everyday life. Sure, they only last 24 hours, but that's plenty of time to go to work or indulge other interests... and, if you don't like the day they've had, you don't even have to upload their memories. Guilt-free extra lives, fully recyclable, cheap enough for the masses... and, of course, the criminal element.
Albert Morris, a first-rate copier and a talented investigator, has been pursuing the counterfeit-ditto manufacturer Beta for years. Countless clay Morrises have crossed proverbial swords with Beta's forces, many of whom never came home to inload their findings. After striking another blow to the mysterious man's criminal empire, Morris finds himself entangled in a plot that cuts to the very heart of ditto technology and may bring the modern world as a whole to its knees.
REVIEW: This is why I read sci-fi. Brin takes a fascinating idea - the ability to create copies of oneself, self-aware and identical in thoughts and memories yet inherently considered disposable property - and fully explores the technological, legal, social, and moral implications while still delivering a good story. Brin's future is full of both optimism (a cleaner planet and an end to "realwar," as staged battles between ditto-soldiers settle international disputes) and cynicism (massive unemployment, a new breed of discrimination, and skyrocketing interest in violence and other perverse pleasures, made "safe" and socially acceptable so long as only clay bodies are involved), instead of the clear-cut utopia or dystopia some people prefer. A nice sense of humor underlies Albert's narration, and the plot moves along nicely with plenty of action. The tale splits into multiple threads as Morris and his clay dittos head out on their own investigations, each learning pieces of information which contribute to the whole puzzle. I clipped it a point because some of the ending felt a little out of the blue, and the climax felt drawn out. Otherwise, an enjoyable and thought-provoking tale that read surprisingly fast. If this is typical of Brin's efforts, I'll have to read more of his books.
David Brin
Tor
Fiction, Sci-Fi
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: Two generations ago, scientists finally cracked the secret of the Standing Wave, the individual resonant frequency that was once quaintly referred to as the "soul." Now, copying one's soul into clay "dittos" is a mundane part of everyday life. Sure, they only last 24 hours, but that's plenty of time to go to work or indulge other interests... and, if you don't like the day they've had, you don't even have to upload their memories. Guilt-free extra lives, fully recyclable, cheap enough for the masses... and, of course, the criminal element.
Albert Morris, a first-rate copier and a talented investigator, has been pursuing the counterfeit-ditto manufacturer Beta for years. Countless clay Morrises have crossed proverbial swords with Beta's forces, many of whom never came home to inload their findings. After striking another blow to the mysterious man's criminal empire, Morris finds himself entangled in a plot that cuts to the very heart of ditto technology and may bring the modern world as a whole to its knees.
REVIEW: This is why I read sci-fi. Brin takes a fascinating idea - the ability to create copies of oneself, self-aware and identical in thoughts and memories yet inherently considered disposable property - and fully explores the technological, legal, social, and moral implications while still delivering a good story. Brin's future is full of both optimism (a cleaner planet and an end to "realwar," as staged battles between ditto-soldiers settle international disputes) and cynicism (massive unemployment, a new breed of discrimination, and skyrocketing interest in violence and other perverse pleasures, made "safe" and socially acceptable so long as only clay bodies are involved), instead of the clear-cut utopia or dystopia some people prefer. A nice sense of humor underlies Albert's narration, and the plot moves along nicely with plenty of action. The tale splits into multiple threads as Morris and his clay dittos head out on their own investigations, each learning pieces of information which contribute to the whole puzzle. I clipped it a point because some of the ending felt a little out of the blue, and the climax felt drawn out. Otherwise, an enjoyable and thought-provoking tale that read surprisingly fast. If this is typical of Brin's efforts, I'll have to read more of his books.
Monday, May 3, 2010
The Dragon of Never-Was (Ann Downer)
The Dragon of Never-Was
(Sequel to Hatching Magic)
Ann Downer
Aladdin
Fiction, YA Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: How do you return to a normal life after you've met a hatchling wyvern, talked to magicians from another time, fought an evil wizard, and tapped into terrifyingly potent powers within your own mind? Twelve-year-old Theodora Oglethorpe, a modern Boston girl, did all that, and more, in the Events of Last Summer, and try as she might she can't seem to go back to being the ordinary kid she used to be. Her former best friends have drifted away, her faithful nanny Mikko - whom she had hoped would become her new mother - has left... even the wizard who introduced her to her own powers hasn't talked to her since then. At least she still has her father, even if he doesn't remember a thing about the Events... though his write-up of a wyvern's scale finally got him the professorship he had long deserved. When he gets a letter from the Scottish island of Scornsay about another mysterious scale, he heads off to investigate - and, for once, he takes Theodora with him. If she thought she'd get a break from magic and wyverns in Scotland, she's sadly mistaken, for that scale ties in to a mystery steeped in superstition, wizard conspiracies, forbidden prophecies, and that most peculiar magical dimension of Never-Was.
REVIEW: I enjoyed Theodora's first adventure enough to grab this book when I saw it at Half Price Books. I think I liked this book a little more. Not so much of the plot relies on conveniently missed meetings and people taking too long to figure things out; Theodora already knows about magic this time round, and isn't quite so slow on the uptake about things. She struggles over whether or not she can come to terms with her gifts, gifts which will alienate her from many people, including her own father. The magical "technobabble" slows things down now and again, but overall it reads quickly. Downer does a good job recapping events from the first book, Hatching Magic, so newcomers won't be completely thrown (though there is a reference at the very end that they might not get if they didn't read Theodora's first adventure.) I enjoyed this story. There is, of course, every hint of a third book, with new enemies and allies awaiting Theodora; I expect I'll read it, should I find it cheap enough someday.
(Sequel to Hatching Magic)
Ann Downer
Aladdin
Fiction, YA Fantasy
**** (Good)
DESCRIPTION: How do you return to a normal life after you've met a hatchling wyvern, talked to magicians from another time, fought an evil wizard, and tapped into terrifyingly potent powers within your own mind? Twelve-year-old Theodora Oglethorpe, a modern Boston girl, did all that, and more, in the Events of Last Summer, and try as she might she can't seem to go back to being the ordinary kid she used to be. Her former best friends have drifted away, her faithful nanny Mikko - whom she had hoped would become her new mother - has left... even the wizard who introduced her to her own powers hasn't talked to her since then. At least she still has her father, even if he doesn't remember a thing about the Events... though his write-up of a wyvern's scale finally got him the professorship he had long deserved. When he gets a letter from the Scottish island of Scornsay about another mysterious scale, he heads off to investigate - and, for once, he takes Theodora with him. If she thought she'd get a break from magic and wyverns in Scotland, she's sadly mistaken, for that scale ties in to a mystery steeped in superstition, wizard conspiracies, forbidden prophecies, and that most peculiar magical dimension of Never-Was.
REVIEW: I enjoyed Theodora's first adventure enough to grab this book when I saw it at Half Price Books. I think I liked this book a little more. Not so much of the plot relies on conveniently missed meetings and people taking too long to figure things out; Theodora already knows about magic this time round, and isn't quite so slow on the uptake about things. She struggles over whether or not she can come to terms with her gifts, gifts which will alienate her from many people, including her own father. The magical "technobabble" slows things down now and again, but overall it reads quickly. Downer does a good job recapping events from the first book, Hatching Magic, so newcomers won't be completely thrown (though there is a reference at the very end that they might not get if they didn't read Theodora's first adventure.) I enjoyed this story. There is, of course, every hint of a third book, with new enemies and allies awaiting Theodora; I expect I'll read it, should I find it cheap enough someday.
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