![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
An Fraternal Ephemera of a Review
Oct. 7th, 2014 08:46 pmHi,
In my last couple of reviews the books have been sort of so-so, but oh man, my luck has turned.
First up The Brothers Cabal by Jonathan L. Howard. This is the fourth book in the Johannes Cabal series and although it loses a letter grade for not cleanly coming to a stop it more than makes up for it with the effort that goes into it.
So Johannes Cabal is a curmudgeonly necromancer who's managed to save the world a couple of times. In his last book, he managed to escape the Dreamlands only to collapse at the front gate to his house. He wakes up to discover he's been rescued by his younger brother Horst. Horst is a vampire (a fact Cabal has some small hand in) and he was killed off in the first book (a fact Cabal definitely had a hand in).
In this book we get Horst's story. Horst was resurrected and taken back to a castle where he was inducted into the Society of Monsters. Their plan is to use magical and mundane means to raise an unstoppable army of monsters and take over...well, a large part of Europe. Horst was brought back to the...uh...unliving to be the general of a vampire army -- which he would personally recruit.
Sadly for them, Horst is really more interested in getting up to speed on the latest fashion trends rather than working for the forces of evil. So he promptly bails on the Society and asks for Johannes help in stopping them. Together, the Brother's Cabal hatch a plan.
As always the writing is just top-notch. All the characters are interesting and well-drawn and they're genuinely funny. The book never strains to be funny it just is and so you merrily roll through the book and boom! you're at the end and waiting for the next installment to come out. It's well worth starting from the beginning because the books are seriously calling back to previous installments and even referring to some of the short stories involving Johannes. Honestly, the whole series has been good so there's no reason not to get stuck in.
I have also been making my way through S. conceived by J. J. Abrams and written by Doug Dorst. This book...it's super good and hard to explain.
OK, so this book is really an extended love letter to books and writing and reading and love. You get this physical book (you'll see why in a minute). The book is a clothbound hardcover and is called The Ship of Theseus (I know, I said it was called S. and it is, bear with me). The book purports to have been published in the late 40's and it looks like it was taken from a library. It's got a catalog sticker on the spine, the back has a loan record so you can see when it's been checked out and it's slightly distressed. A very convincing artifact.
On top of this, the book has wide margins and there are notes in the margins. A young man leaves the book at his college library. A young librarian picks it up and reads the book and then returns it, leaving a few notes in the margin. The guy re-reads the book, makes his own notes and drops the book off. So they go back and forth exchanging the book and leaving notes to one another. And there are distinct phases where they switch pens to write notes in different colored ink. So on the same page you could have notes from several different time periods with later notes building on what came before or discussing something that only becomes obvious later.
On top of *that* there are letters, postcards, newspaper clippings and more jammed into the book. If you're not careful it'll all come spilling out so you have to read it carefully. The ephemera is stuff gathered by the two readers as they try to work out a puzzle -- who, exactly, is the author of the book their reading?
This book is dense. I had to read each chapter twice. Once just plowing through and reading the text and a second time to take in all the marginalia. Even then you had to juggle a lot of stuff because of the way the notes would refer to things you didn't know yet.
Anyway, I loved this book. Is the core story actually any good? Ah...it's interesting. On it's own I probably wouldn't have been super-excited about it. But throw in the margin notes and the extra goodies in the book and as a whole it's wonderful. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea but if you love books as physical things, I think you'll really enjoy this.
later
Tom
In my last couple of reviews the books have been sort of so-so, but oh man, my luck has turned.
First up The Brothers Cabal by Jonathan L. Howard. This is the fourth book in the Johannes Cabal series and although it loses a letter grade for not cleanly coming to a stop it more than makes up for it with the effort that goes into it.
So Johannes Cabal is a curmudgeonly necromancer who's managed to save the world a couple of times. In his last book, he managed to escape the Dreamlands only to collapse at the front gate to his house. He wakes up to discover he's been rescued by his younger brother Horst. Horst is a vampire (a fact Cabal has some small hand in) and he was killed off in the first book (a fact Cabal definitely had a hand in).
In this book we get Horst's story. Horst was resurrected and taken back to a castle where he was inducted into the Society of Monsters. Their plan is to use magical and mundane means to raise an unstoppable army of monsters and take over...well, a large part of Europe. Horst was brought back to the...uh...unliving to be the general of a vampire army -- which he would personally recruit.
Sadly for them, Horst is really more interested in getting up to speed on the latest fashion trends rather than working for the forces of evil. So he promptly bails on the Society and asks for Johannes help in stopping them. Together, the Brother's Cabal hatch a plan.
As always the writing is just top-notch. All the characters are interesting and well-drawn and they're genuinely funny. The book never strains to be funny it just is and so you merrily roll through the book and boom! you're at the end and waiting for the next installment to come out. It's well worth starting from the beginning because the books are seriously calling back to previous installments and even referring to some of the short stories involving Johannes. Honestly, the whole series has been good so there's no reason not to get stuck in.
I have also been making my way through S. conceived by J. J. Abrams and written by Doug Dorst. This book...it's super good and hard to explain.
OK, so this book is really an extended love letter to books and writing and reading and love. You get this physical book (you'll see why in a minute). The book is a clothbound hardcover and is called The Ship of Theseus (I know, I said it was called S. and it is, bear with me). The book purports to have been published in the late 40's and it looks like it was taken from a library. It's got a catalog sticker on the spine, the back has a loan record so you can see when it's been checked out and it's slightly distressed. A very convincing artifact.
On top of this, the book has wide margins and there are notes in the margins. A young man leaves the book at his college library. A young librarian picks it up and reads the book and then returns it, leaving a few notes in the margin. The guy re-reads the book, makes his own notes and drops the book off. So they go back and forth exchanging the book and leaving notes to one another. And there are distinct phases where they switch pens to write notes in different colored ink. So on the same page you could have notes from several different time periods with later notes building on what came before or discussing something that only becomes obvious later.
On top of *that* there are letters, postcards, newspaper clippings and more jammed into the book. If you're not careful it'll all come spilling out so you have to read it carefully. The ephemera is stuff gathered by the two readers as they try to work out a puzzle -- who, exactly, is the author of the book their reading?
This book is dense. I had to read each chapter twice. Once just plowing through and reading the text and a second time to take in all the marginalia. Even then you had to juggle a lot of stuff because of the way the notes would refer to things you didn't know yet.
Anyway, I loved this book. Is the core story actually any good? Ah...it's interesting. On it's own I probably wouldn't have been super-excited about it. But throw in the margin notes and the extra goodies in the book and as a whole it's wonderful. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea but if you love books as physical things, I think you'll really enjoy this.
later
Tom
