Book
Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire by Mike Mignola & Christopher Golden

Synopsis
On a battlefield late in World War I, allied soldier Lord Baltimore is attacked by a strange bat-like creature. Now, the war is over, but a mysterious plague has spread through all of Europe. Three of Baltimore’s friends are summoned to a tavern in a dying city, swapping stories of their own encounters with the supernatural while they wait for his arrival and an explanation of what’s causing the plague (spoiler: it’s vampires).

Pros
Inspired combination of Lovecraftian apocalyptic dread, old folk tales, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, and even Blade, which feels like it’s creating a new mythology from its disparate sources. Mignola’s illustrations are perfectly chosen and placed throughout the book, conveying a sense of portent and doom as well in prose as they do in his Hellboy comics. Uses the antiquated story-within-a-story-within-a-story structure to set the time period and mood, but still manages to incorporate a killer fight scene. Makes vampires scary again: tells a vampire story without gimmicks or attempts to make them unnecessarily contemporary.

Cons
Because it’s literally humorless, it feels like a Hellboy story arc with a layer stripped away; there’s the action, and the sense of dread, and the exhaustively-researched set of source material, but nothing to ground it or make it feel “real.” Some passages suffer from overly affected writing. Despite being short and full of illustrations, it still feels ponderous and self-important.

Verdict
A deliberately old-school vampire story that manages to be genuinely scary (and gave me several nights of weird nightmares). But I doubt I would’ve been interested were I not already a fan of Hellboy — it’s got all the same components as a Hellboy story arc told in prose, but without that spark of humor that makes it come alive.

Book
Jingo by Terry Pratchett

In a series
21st in the series of Discworld books.

Synopsis
The lost island of Leshp suddenly rises in the middle of the ocean, sparking a war between the nations of Ankh-Morpork and Klatch over ownership of the new land. Sam Vimes and the rest of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch get pulled into the war via a murder mystery surrounding the Klatchian Prince.

Pros
It’s a Discworld book: clever, funny, cynical-but-lighthearted, and astoundingly readable and entertaining, while still having enough “meat” in its social commentary and satire that it doesn’t feel like empty, disposable entertainment.

Cons
The Discworld books are so consistently entertaining, it feels like cheating to include one in a New Year’s resolution list. Has occasional, brief passages that suffer from the Impenetrable Wall of Cleverness syndrome: where the story gets pushed to the background in favor of an extended gag or pun. Very much a middle book in the series; gives enough introduction to the characters so you can follow what’s going on, but leaves it to the other books to establish their depth.

Verdict
Terry Pratchett is simply one of the best living writers, and it’s a shame that the Discworld books’ origins as fantasy parodies keeps them just shy of being recognized as “Great Literature.” Jingo would be a bad choice for your first Discworld book (I’d recommend either Mort, Small Gods, or my favorite, Night Watch), but it’s a very solid entry in the series.

Edit: I forgot to mention my favorite thing about this book. Instead of just relying on the valid but obvious statement “racism, prejudice, and jingoism are bad,” Pratchett is careful to show both sides of the brewing war, and makes a profound statement about our potential to over-compensate. We can get so locked into the idea of “Them” as innocent victims of the failings of “Us,” that we forget that “They” have just as much capacity for both evil and goodness as “We” do. No matter how well-intentioned it may be, seeing any group of people as nothing more than “the good guys” or “the victims” does as much to rob them of their humanity as overt racism does.

Book
Old Man’s War by John Scalzi

Recommended by
Wil Wheaton, plus dozens of commenters on half the blogs I read (including John Scalzi’s own blog).

Disclaimer
I have read very little science fiction (Douglas Adams and Star Wars novelizations don’t count). I’ve read none of Robert Heinlein, who is mentioned in almost every review of this book, and in the author’s own acknowledgements. So I might be missing out on a lot of context, homage, invention, deconstruction and/or re-invention here.

Synopsis
Humanity has begun colonizing planets outside our solar system, but the technology to do so is kept under tight control by the Colonial Defense Force. Anyone at the age of 75 can enlist in the CDF, where he’ll be restored to fighting condition and given a chance at a second life, in return for a few years of service in a war that no one on Earth knows anything about.

Highs
Clear, straightforward writing throughout; the book reads less like hard science fiction and more like a series of well-written blog posts from the future. Various “hard” science fiction concepts are introduced and quickly given a rational, plausible explanation. Good pacing, where the next key moment is always just over the horizon, and you want to keep reading past the chapter breaks.

Lows
The book reads less like science fiction and more like a series of blog posts. The “and then that happened” style and the quick explanations of concepts do keep the book straightforward, but also rob it of any real suspense or sense of wonder. Has frequent passages of Michael Crichton-esque exposition, where a squad of people from each relevant school of expertise happens to be on-hand to give a short speech explaining the next topic. Frequently feels like fan fiction, where the author hasn’t created characters so much as inserted himself and people he knows into the book; anyone with any real distinguishable personality becomes a “villain” of sorts, and is quickly dealt with.

Verdict
Does exactly what (I imagine) it sets out to do: tell a military science fiction story that’s rational, plausible, personal, relatable, and above all, readable. It’s opinionated without being overbearing, light without being silly, intelligent without being tedious, and understandable without being too condescending. Unfortunately, it’s also engaging without being fascinating. I can imagine it’d be welcome to science fiction fans who’ve been overrun with fantastic space operas and ponderous analyses of theoretical physics, and want something in the middle. I’m not a big fan of the genre, and I was ultimately underwhelmed by this book, but I can still see myself giving the other two books in the series a try.

Book
The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Selling Points
Oprah liked it! (And it won a Pulitzer Prize, too.) But look! Oprah!

Disclaimer
I tried to be open-minded and objective while I was reading this book, but I was definitely prejudiced against it from the start, because of all the hype and because of how much I disliked the No Country for Old Men movie. Also, I don’t like post-apocalyptic stories in general.

Synopsis
Ash cold gray ashes the man the boy dark scared okay fire. Repeat for 300 pages.

Highs
Quick and pretty easy to read. Excellent pacing, conveying long stretches of unchanging tedium punctuated by unexpected terror. Dialogue between the boy and his father seems genuine. Aggressively literate, with occasional descriptions that are surprisingly vivid. Subtly flows between gray reality and the dreams and memories of the main character using stylistic changes from terse and straightforward to nightmarish and verbose.

Lows
By “verbose” I mean it’s often self-consciously over-written. Sometimes feels sabotaged by passages of vapid nihilism, or a wordy but empty description. As a result, it often feels like someone writing with a thesaurus open, as if the author didn’t trust his honest, genuine message not to come across as trite or maudlin unless it were padded with “edge” or “literary merit.” As much as I liked the book’s ending, it was like a stunt pilot pulling out of a 270-page nose dive right before the moment of impact. I still can’t tell if the sections that struck me as pointlessly cynical were momentary lapses of the narrator’s character, or if they’re the author’s genuine attempts to make a point.

Verdict
Ultimately a masterfully written, honest story of fatherhood and allegory about morality. It creates a powerful image of “goodness” as a force that simply exists — independent of religion, society, privilege, or even sustenance — and survives, despite any attempts to extinguish it. I just wish it didn’t keep making me think, “So this is what it would be like if Larry McMurtry had grown up as a goth kid.”

I’m not including comic books in my meager 26-book challenge for the year — not because they’re not art or they’re not as worthy, but simply because I already read 26 comic books a year. But I still like spouting off my opinions about things, so they’ll go into the exhibition rounds.

Book
Fox Bunny Funny by Andy Hartzell

Selling Points
Indie comic! Cartoon animals! No words!

Apparent Audience
Illiterate LGBT people.

Actual Audience
Everyone.

Synopsis
The world is rigidly divided into foxes, the oppressors; and bunnies, the victims. This book tells the first half of the life story of a fox who empathizes a little too much with the bunnies.

Disclaimer
I am 100% genuinely and sincerely behind the idea of indie comics. Being a bad artist myself, I’m envious of and impressed by the people who aren’t. When someone can take his artistic talent and expand it into a full story, that’s even more impressive. Having the courage to make it personal and meaningful is even more impressive than that.

All that said, 99% of indie comics just leave me cold. I’m just too much of a cynic to remember the beauty of personal expression, when they so often are nothing more than variations on the theme of “life is hard for me because I’m different.” They never seem to appreciate that life is hard for everyone, because everyone is different, and the paradox that feeling alienated is the one thing everyone has in common.

Highs
The book takes what could’ve been another trite, self-absorbed “journey of self-discovery,” or passive-aggressive complaint about being excluded, and instead shows the universality of alienation and societal oppression. The lack of words and the use of cartoon animals avoids making the theme too narrow in focus — the characters become symbols, the scenes become reminders of events we’ve all experienced.

And it’s much deeper than its title or a first glance at the characters suggests, but also much much lighter, darkly humorous, and more accessible than you’d think from reading reviews that mention symbolism and allegory and sociopolitical commentary. The pacing is inspired, the characters’ expressions are perfect, and there are clever design touches throughout, ranging in subtlety from obvious jokes and funny-animal parody to something as simple as the use of negative and positive space. There’s an attention to detail and world-building that goes all the way to developing what seems like a passive-aggressive religion for the bunnies, where their victimization in this world is rewarded with dominance in the next.

Lows
Occasional lapses in the universality of it, where it’s too easy to just say that it’s an allegory for growing up gay. Which is a shame, because the potential audience for the book is so much wider than that, and there’s a lot in it that invites all kinds of different interpretations. The entire last chapter is extremely interesting visually, but also seems to lose direction somewhat — I’ve got my own interpretation of what the book is saying, but I don’t feel extremely confident that what I’m seeing is what’s really there. And the very end of the book struck me as being sincere and genuine, but also a little trite, when compared to what precedes it.

Verdict
More wisdom and insight than I’d ever have expected from a comic book like this, told with confidence, sincerity, and good humor. It’d be an outstanding book even if the art weren’t excellent.

(I read this book over the Christmas break, so it doesn’t count towards the 26 books I’ve resolved to read in 2008. But I have a corollary resolution to post something on this blog every day this year, no matter how short or irrelevant, so I’m cheating and rolling back the date.)

(Okay, the real post starts right now.)

Book
Lost Horizon by James Hilton

Selling Points
The First Paperback Ever Published!

Recommended By
A list of “If you like ‘Lost’, you’ll love these books that inspired it!”

Synopsis
A plane carrying four people escaping from a civil war is hijacked, taking them to the utopian lamasery of Shangri-La.

Highs
The main character of Conway is so well-developed, it’s a surprising jolt to those of us whose only exposure to the 1930s is Hays Code-era movies. “Oh yeah,” you’ll realize, “I guess people back then were capable of intelligence and subtlety after all.” He starts out as a comically heroic stereotype, almost a mythic hero to his former schoolmates. Over the course of the book, you learn that he’s got no interest in being a hero, or in any of the trappings of the west of WWI or the British Empire. And you discover along with him that he’s mastered zen without realizing it.

Lows
Every other character starts out as a stereotype, and remains so. For every passage that challenges your condescending attitude towards popular literature and entertainment of the 30s, there’s another passage that just reaffirms it. And it’s impossible to gauge how impressive the climactic reveal of the secret of Shangri-La would have been when the book was written, since it’s such common knowledge now.

Verdict
Kind of like if Jurassic Park had been written in 1933: An easy but not insulting read, there are plenty of moments of depth, and you’ll probably learn something new. But you can totally tell it was written to be turned into a movie.