Tag Archives: book review

The Joy of Recommending Books

Posted on by Henry

There’s something magical about recommending books to people.

I think the same magic can be found with recommending TV shows or movies or what have you, but there’s something weirdly distinct about books. Reading books requires us to be active. Unlike with a TV show or movie, and unlike with a comic book, books expect us to provide the vistas ourselves. We have to conjure up our own vision of the story and setting, and every reader will engage just a little (or very) differently with the text. Everyone creates their own version of the book, even more so than with a more visual medium.

Those differences each reader creates for themselves, and the similarities that remain, are where the magic lies.

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Over the Woodward Wall, by A. Deborah Baker

Posted on by Henry

Over the Woodward Wall (written by Seanan McGuire under her pen name A. Deborah Baker) is the first in a series of middle grade adventure stories in a mixed up sometimes-lovely sometimes-scary fairytale land. In many ways, it evokes Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The setting’s surreality contrasts perfectly with the very real-feeling children who are this story’s stars, and the book does an excellent job of conveying earnestly true human experiences and life lessons while taking us on a dreamy-and-nightmarish impossible (sorry, I mean improbable) journey.

This should be a guaranteed home run for me. However, my fondness for this book ebbs and flows, a cycle driven by my mixed opinions about the narrator. It is my fondness that shifts though—I like it, I just like it by varying amounts depending on my mood. So what do I simultaneously admire and want to complain about?

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Fog & Fireflies, by T.H. Lehnen

Posted on by Henry

I want to see this animated.

In so many ways this made me think of something from Hayao Miyazaki. There’s a certain blend of wonder and fright within a gradually accelerating story that feels so distinctively Miyazaki-esque to me. This story captures that.

It has the meditative pacing. It has the gentleness over slowly growing undertones of threat that I associate with Studio Ghibli’s work. And it has Ogma, a classic Miyazaki-heroine; as the pressure mounts and Ogma’s world slips out from under her feet, her understanding of the world is transformed while her stubborn and hopeful nature remains.

Like I said, Fog & Fireflies feels extremely Miyazaki. I think it would thrive as a Studio Ghibli creation.

This doesn’t surprise me, as I’ve known T.H. Lehnen for years. We’ve been friends since we were in college and have played many hours of roleplaying games together, particularly Call of Cthulhu. I can see some of the horror that I know T.H. Lehnen enjoys creeping around inside this story. It’s that horror which I think completes the Miyazaki comparison.

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Cascade Failure (on GeeklyInc)

Posted on by Henry

I promised to link my review of L.M. Sagas’ Cascade Failure when it posted on GeeklyInc, but that entirely slipped my mind. The review is up! It’s been up for almost a month. My apologies.

In case you are deathly allergic to clicking external links, here’s the tl;dr…

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