We have a discussion titled “Discovery of New Drug Targets for the Treatment of Disease in the 21st Century,” a novel about many generations of a Korean family, and much more tonight.
William T Vollmann reads at Third Place Books tonight. Kissing the Mask is the newest non-fiction book from Vollmann, who is a smart, prolific writer. The book, which actually has a 34-word title, is about muses, the rights of women around the globe, Kabuki, and many other topics.
Barry Lopez reads at Benaroya Hall. Lopez is an environmentalist whose writing has been celebrated just about everywhere.
University Village Barnes & Noble hosts Karl Marlantes tonight. Matterhorn is a huge, thick novel about the Vietnam War. Dan Rather lavished it with blurb-praise. I’ve heard good things from booksellers about this one, mostly saying that the language, while not pretty, is not offensive, either, and that the book is a pretty fast read. If you’re in the mood for a big book, you might want to check this out.
And Jim Butcher reads at Kane Hall in the University District. Changes is the newest book in the Dresden Files series, which has something to do with trench coats and vampires.
The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here. And if you’re planning on staying in and you’re looking for personalized book recommendations, feel free to tell me the books you like and ask me what to read next over at Questionland.
I’m about 100 pages into Matterhorn right now. It’s good so far. Marlantes is local and will be reading at a few more places around town in the next month or two.
The Jim Butcher book is part of a surprisingly good series about a Wizard-slash-private eye. Yeah, I mocked it at first; but it’s a bit like hearing about a TV show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer and then watching a show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
The Dresden Books are surprisingly addictive and fun, and the deeper you get they do in fact get surprisingly deep. They’re a weird bag–a frightening deep but simple mythology that you can just “go with” and enjoy that implies it’s depth, ala the original Star Wars trilogy. You don’t need to get bogged down, you just enjoy it.
Why do each of the thirty pieces of silver house a fallen angel? Because they were Judas’s thirty pieces of silver. But why do they hold angels? Who fucking cares, they’re fantastic villains. Why are the vampires total douches? Because they’re vampires. Why do humans act so oblivious about all the weird crap around them? Because like in real life, we ignore the terrible things out there as long as possible, but stand up when we need to (I’m thinking of the massive Chicago police department firefight in volume #3 or #4 here where the cops are like, shit, we gotta deal with it, and then are at least vaguely grudgingly willing to acknowledge the stuff from that point forward. But only rarely. And in private). My favorite: why do werewolves play Dungeons and Dragons?
The other odd thing is they’re heavily character-driven, so much so that the plots are actually a bit light at times. Great mysteries, but straightforward. The real fun is how all the personalities play out. Butcher crafts fantastic mysteries, OK plots, but amazing living characters. The bit where Harry got dragged as a “date” by Murphy to her police-family barbeque still cracks me up, along with just about every bit involving the werewolves.
Yeah, and Moby Dick is about a whale. The Dresden Files pretty much define good urban fantasy. Butcher started out with a quirky paperback page turner 10 years ago with decent writing and a clever gimmick of putting a gumshoe wizard in a noiresque Chicago full of material and supernatural threats, shaking things up with a typical mystery formula, and watching what happens. Now he’s getting prestige hard-cover releases for a deep bench of beautifully crafted characters who qualify as beloved.
Instead of getting lazy and resting on his laurels (or trying to shoehorn where the series grew onto the small stage he started with), Butcher’s gotten better at writing with every book, and he’s put the characters fans came to love through hell and back. Anyone who’s read the series (and you don’t want to start with this one–grab number 4 Summer Knight and number 10 Small Favor if you want the quick overview), has been waiting anxiously for this one.
Butcher manages to do something rather remarkable in the current media environment–his vampires are scary. They’re monsters. They’re predators. They’re smart. And they’ve got the daughter Harry didn’t know existed (doesn’t count as a spoiler since it’s on the first page). Anyone who’s read even one of the other books realizes this means things are going to get very, very ugly. There is quite literally nothing Harry wouldn’t do to protect her.
Oh, and the audiobooks are excellent as well (thank you, James Marsters).