looking for alaska, Green. Yes. I’m made suspicious when a character in a book is presented as a smart kid but doesn’t behave the way smart kids in my experience have behaved. Even if a person’s particular talent seems very limited in scope, part of being smart is to be curious about the things one runs across, so it strikes me as unrealistic when someone who is presented as knowing a specific thing about a vast array of people is simultaneously presented as being completely ignorant of geography. People come from places, and many people have references to those places in their names. A smart kid will have wondered “where is that?” The only conclusion I can reach, having finished the book after writing the rest of this paragraph, is that the character in question is not intended to be a smart kid. That and a couple other bits make me suspect that the author was not a smart kid, but it is at best perilous to infer much about the author from his work.
That nagging bit aside, the book did not make me wish I hadn’t read it. It’s very much a YA novel, with Consequences and Lessons, and Green does a reasonable job of it.

Spook Country, Gibson. Yes. It’s a little disappointing that Gibson has gone from being the prophet of cyberspace to being Tom Clancy, but his writing is still enjoyable enough. He has the mechanical good grace to use “whoever” when it’s called for (and when people who don’t understand the rules of the language would use “whomever”), and if his plots are adolescent fantasies (and therefore a bit masturbatory), the books themselves at least lack the technoporn quality of the actual Clancy.

Innocents Aboard, Wolfe. Yes. It’s Gene Wolfe, which is enough reason to read it. As with all collections of stories I’ve ever read, the quality is variable, but it’s all Wolfe. The best writer I personally know once said something like “Gene Wolfe scares me.” What I would mean if I were to say that is that much of the time, I’m sure he’s doing things that I’m not even aware of. Fortunately, comprehension is not a prerequisite for appreciation.

The Companions and The Margarets, Tepper. Yes. I read these two books in rapid succession, the first Tepper I had read in a long time, and there’s a reassuring consistency to her preaching. Since I am largely the choir, it doesn’t grate as much as it might, and her writing is solid enough. I was interested to note that her craft is not entirely without seam, though the primary reason I first noted the most memorable seam was that she hung a lamp on it (and a somewhat humorous lamp, at that; due credit), and exposition is always tricky. I have opted to combine the reviews, because I have trouble keeping the books separate in my head. I was thinking maybe I’d say something like, “If you only want to read one, then choose—” but, really, I expect if you enjoy Tepper, you’ll enjoy both. If you don’t, you won’t enjoy either.

The astonishing life of Octavian Nothing, traitor to the nation; v.1, The Pox Party, Anderson. No. While the writing is not painful, it never really raises itself to the level of true goodness. The most interesting aspects of the book are historical, and, as the author points out in an afterword, you should read history if you’re interested in the history.

The Rules for Hearts: a Family Drama, Ryan. Yes. While this book did not irritate me in any of the myriad ways possible, I did not find it especially moving. Maybe “family drama” is less moving than first love, maybe a whole bunch of things. The writing is solid; the story did nothing for me.

You Suck, Moore. No. I didn’t hate this so much that I stopped reading it, but I would have if I had had anything else to read. The dedication reads “For my readers, by request,” which may be why the whole thing feels rushed or forced or otherwise off-putting. Here’s a passage that struck me as particularly egregious on first reading, though it doesn’t grate so badly now (maybe I’ve just been beaten into submission):

She was enjoying teaching Tommy about the particulars of vampirism, just as she enjoyed teaching him how to do grown-up human things like how to get the power and phone turned on in the loft—it made her feel sophisticated and in charge, and after a series of boyfriends for whom she had been little more than an accoutrement, whose lifestyles she had affected, from heavy-metal anarchists to financial-district yuppies, she liked being the pacesetter for a change.

Really? There was no better way to get that information to the reader than just laying it out there all at once? And do we really care? I suspect that it’s tempting to indulge in this sort of acceleration in a sequel, where you might want to bring the new readers up to speed without boring the readers who remember the character from the previous work, but I remain unconvinced that it’s a good idea: first, it’s easier to care about the character’s motivations if we have to tease them out of the narrative than when they’re vomited in our laps; second, if the character already has that level of self-knowledge at page 30, how much development can we expect? The story was mostly harmless, though there was a weird bit of gratuitous backstory ex machina, and I found the playing of non-consensual sex for laughs to be rather distasteful.
Update: Google leads me to believe that I have invented the phrase backstory ex machina. First “Buddha attack”, now this.

Lord of Light, Zelazny. Yes. Upon re-reading, I do believe the protagonist in this work is qualitatively different from those I mentioned before, if not so much in himself (and I do believe there are substantial differences in the character, but my argument doesn’t have to rest there) as in having peers, rather than just rivals and perhaps a mentor (and I’m simplifying, but I think not over-). There was some homophobia and misogyny, though an argument could be made that they were posturing by the character to evoke a response. I don’t think Zelazny wrote many gay characters, sympathetic or otherwise. Smokers, yes, even if they have to roll their own cigarettes. I imagine he quit about the time his protagonists did, but it doesn’t seem to have been soon enough for him.
Probably not the most reliable introduction to the Hindu or Buddhist religions.

The Brief History of the Dead, Brockmeier. No. The only thing I found wrong with this book was that it failed to fulfill its promise, and its promise was so great that failure is a disqualifying defect. The first chapter was lovely (Nebula-nominated, O. Henry anthology-appearing), and the writing was lovely throughout (if a bit masturbatory in spots), but ultimately, however lovely it was, it took what should have been a big idea and did nothing with it.

The Killing of Worlds, Westerfeld. Yes. The conclusion of The Risen Empire, it’s largely indistinguishable in quality from the prior work. The overall work is somewhat disappointing in plot-related ways. Not Books of Lost Swords disappointing, but it perhaps underscores the difficulty of constructing a plot that justifies the sweep of space opera.