Reviews by rsilva

rsilva says "Three tales from the Zen tradition." about Zen Shorts

rsilva — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 14:40:19 GMT

Comic book artist and fantasy illustrator Jon J. Muth goes for something a bit different here with a childrens picture book of stories based on Zen Buddhism.

The framing story involves three siblings who wake up one morning to discover a talking panda named Stillwater in their back yard. Stillwater, who the author based on the 19th century zen teacher Sengai Gibbon, teaches valuable lessons to each of the children in the form of stories.

Addy learns about the value of beauty and the transience of possessions in the story of "Uncle Ry and the Moon".

Karl shows up at Stillwater's home angry about his older brother always bossing him around. Stillwater's story of "A Heavy Load" teaches him a lesson about what can happen when one holds onto bad feelings.

And Michael learns about how luck is in the eye of the beholder through the story of "The Farmer's Luck", which is a traditional story from the Taoist tradition.

The scenes involving Stillwater and the children are gorgeously illustrated in...

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rsilva says "Creepy tales with memorable characters and great descriptions." about Setting Suns

rsilva — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:56:28 GMT

This collection of horror and SF short stories opens with a bang: "Sisyphus" is a time travel story that manages to be horrifying and brilliantly clever at the same time. It delivers a Twilight-Zone style punch that grabs the reader immediately, and it's a nice lead-in to the claustrophobia of "Deep Breathing" and the suburban creepiness of "Silent" and "Jesus Loves Me".

Elizabeth Donald delivers very strong characters and realistic situations, and plays to a wide range of fears from the moment-by-moment terror of a campus sniper attack to the global apocalypse of the stories from her alien-invasion series, "Sanctuary".

There are three Sanctuary stories here. "Our Turn" is a twist on Shirley Jackson's classic "The Lottery" involving a rather nasty arrangement that one village has made with the alien conquerors. "Gauntlet" is basically a running gunbattle and brawl that's good old-fashioned fun to read. My favorite of these, though, was "Memoir", which features a fascinating AI character...

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rsilva says "Beautiful maps and photos." about Eyewitness Travel Guides: China

rsilva — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:12:41 GMT

The Eyewitness series started out with brightly-illustrated children's books on science, nature, technology, and history, and expanded to include a variety of nonfiction books including their travel series.

Full disclosure: I didn't read this book cover-to-cover. That is not the intended use, and I doubt many readers approach a travel guide that way.

I did, however, use the book in its intended manner: to prepare for and take with me on a three-week trip to China . As such, I read the introductory chapter on the history and culture of China , as well as the "Traveler's Needs" and "Survival Guide" sections at the end of the book. From there, I read the chapters on the provinces that I would be visiting, as well as the sections on some areas that were not on my itinerary, but were relevant to the trip. My wife and I were traveling to China to adopt our son, and we were not able to visit his home town on this trip, so I was definitely in reading about that city and the major nearby cities,...

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rsilva says "Rhyming Halloween Fun" about Kevin Lewis - The Runaway Pumpkin

rsilva — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 05:40:06 GMT

This adorable rhyming Halloween tale has been a runaway hit with my 18-month-old son at storytime.

When the Baxter children find an enormous pumpkin growing on a hillside above their farm, Little Lil knows they're in for trouble. And sure enough, her brothers twist the pumpkin loose from its vine and set it careening toward the farm and on a path of mayhem.

It's up to Papa Baxter to stop the Halloween avalanche in time for Granny to fix up all of the family's favorite pumpkin dishes for dinner.

With its clever rhyme scheme and tongue-twisting chorus, Kevin Lewis' story is perfect for reading aloud on a chilly autumn night. Illustrator S. D. Schindler loads the story with comical detail as the pumpkin wreaks havoc on the farm and scatters chickens, pigs, and family members. The family Halloween costumes in the final scenes are also a clever touch.

This is a fun seasonal story that doesn't need to rely on ghosts, goblins, or scares. It's just good old fashioned Halloween fun.

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rsilva says "Love, lust, and revenge." about Strangers in Paradise Pocket Edition 1

rsilva — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:07:33 GMT

This is the first collected volume of Terry Moore's love/crime story about two women living in Houston who become involved in mafia intrigue even as they are dealing with their feeling for each other and for a young man with a mysterious past.

Terry Moore ratchets up the melodrama to some pretty extreme levels here. The characters and situations are way over the top, but the result is a fun, funny, and in places intensely tragic story of love, lust, and revenge.

The two main characters are Katina "Katchoo" Choovanski, a man-hating former call girl, and Francine Peters, a quiet brunette who is dealing with her own insecurities with food and poor choices in boyfriends. The third side of the love triangle is David, a quiet art student who hides some sinister secrets.

The book has a great intensity and Moore's stark b/w art style captures the variety of characters nicely. Bits of songs and poetry complement the story, along with two extended prose segments (one of which is a nice noir bit featuring...

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rsilva says "Elcectic collection of material for your D&D game." about Dragon Magazine Annual Volume 1: A 4th Edition D&D Compilation

rsilva — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:01:09 GMT

Back in the early days of the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game, the "Best of Dragon" collections were among the coolest supplements. Loaded with new character classes, monsters, and treasures, these books delivered great bang for the buck when it came to expanding a campaign.

In that spirit, we have a "Best Of" annual edition in hardcover format, collecting articles for the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons game from the online version of Dragon magazine.

Like those original collections, this one delivers a lot of character options, including two new PC races plus character class options for assassins (one of several versions that exist in the current rules framework), star-pact warlocks (presented in a wonderfully Lovecraftian style!) and gladiators. Even more options are presented for higher-level characters, including a collection of new epic destinies related to planar travel.

Dungeon Masters get some nice goodies here too. In fact the most immediately out-of-the-box useful...

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rsilva says "Essential reading for anyone interested in Chinese history." about Mao Tse-Tung - Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung

rsilva — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:43:30 GMT

This is the famous/infamous "Little Red Book" that has been a handbook of far-left political activists around the world. It's also essential reading for anyone who wants to understand Chinese history in the 20th century and Chinese society today. Having just had the opportunity to stroll through Tiananmen Square, I can state without hesitation that Mao's influence is still a powerful force in modern China.
The collection of quotations is organized into chapters on specific subjects such as "Class and Class Struggle", "The People's Army", "Serving the People", and "Criticism and Self-Criticism".

My first impression of Mao's writing was how much he loved to categorize. Mao had to fit everything into its own little box, and he had plenty of boxes to go around. He would invent subcategories for his categories, distinguishing the "industrial proletariat", "semi-proletariat", "petty bourgeoisie", and "middle bourgeoisie". As an organizer, Mao seems in love with the very act of organizing, and...

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rsilva says "Sensual and poetic writing." about Catherynne Valente - Palimpsest

rsilva — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:33:50 GMT

Somewhere beyond sleep, a city wondrous and terrible waits for those who know the way there. Catherynne Valente's dream-fantasy is a brilliantly sensual and poetic tale that follows four strangers who arrive together in the mysterious city of Palimpsest on one night, their fates irrevocably intertwined.

With descriptions that mix steampunk style with a heave dose of the surreal, Valente has created a fantasy realm that is wholly original even as it echoes familiar mythology.

And her characters are as original and as vivid as her setting.

The writing style is descriptive to the extreme. Some the images seem random, but for the most part, the prose is beautiful and effective at conveying a city that mixes the familiar with the utterly alien.

The book follows four plotlines involving four separate lead characters and it takes a while before they get to the point of interacting with each other. This, combined with some of the rules for travel to Palimpsest that the author has established, result...

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rsilva says "Complex story set in China." about The Middle Kingdom

rsilva — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:12:30 GMT

Grace Hoffmeier comes to China as the dutiful wife of her respected scientist husband, traveling to Beijing for an international conference on the effects of acid rain. But when events take an unexpected turn, Grace finds herself suddenly falling out of her troubled marriage and in love with the wonders of the country she has just begun to discover.

The story of Grace's trip to China forms the central and climactic plotline of Barrett's novel, but much of the story is told in flashbacks, taking the reader through Grace's disastrous first marriage, her transition from artist to lab assistant, and the resulting relationship with Professor Hoffmeier.

Barrett's descriptions are vivid and original, and the book in populated with an extensive cast of interesting supporting characters. In fact, some of the minor characters are interesting enough that I was left wanting more of a chance to get to know them.

The heroine herself can be frustrating at times. She gets obsessive about her weight, reacts...

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rsilva says "Political overview of China in the 1990s." about Joseph Fewsmith - China Since Tiananmen: The Politics of Transition

rsilva — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:57:42 GMT

This is an in-depth look specifically at the political situation in China in the ten years following the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The book traces all of the power-players in high-level Chinese politics and attempts to analyze the reactions of the intellectual and political communities as well as the growing role of public opinion.

This was a challenging read for someone like myself, who came to it with only minimal knowledge of Chinese politics. By the end, however, I felt that Fewsmith had done an excellent job with explaining and analyzing the backgrounds and motivations of the major political power players. His descriptions of the infighting and political maneuverings kept the book interesting, and his writing was focused and well organized.

I did find occasions where I was being thrown off by terms like "leftist", "rightist", "liberal", and "conservative", which take on decidedly different meanings in the Chinese political spectrum than...

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rsilva says "Beautiful scenes from classical mythology." about J. W. Waterhouse - Myth and Romance: The Art of J.W. Waterhouse

rsilva — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 19:28:46 GMT

J.W. Waterhouse, an Italian-born painter and illustrator, did his best known work for Primrose Hill Studios in London in the late 19th and early 20th Century.

This pocket-sized collection of his work showcases Waterhouse's paintings of some of the most famous scenes in mythology and classical literature. The full-color artwork is accompanied by quotations from Shakespeare, Tennyson, and many others.

Waterhouse painted in a vibrant style, giving special attention to the female figures on the classic stories that he was illustrating. While best known for the innocent, waif-like looks of his models, Waterhouse could make a character like Circe or Medea downright scary.

His vivid backgrounds evok Maxfield Parish, but the figures in his paintings are full of the tension of the moment, often a climactic event in the story.

Among the tales illustrated in this volume, you'll find Sakesspeare's Hamlet and The Tempest, scenes from the Odyssey and from the voyage of the Argonauts, The myths of...

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rsilva says "Goofy apocalyptic fun." about The Swarm

rsilva — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 05:15:54 GMT

I make it a point to see any movie in which either New York or Los Angeles is destroyed. Sometimes, you just need to go see a goofy disaster movie.

German author Frank Schatzing's The Swarm (no relation to the goofy b-movie/bee-movie of the same name) is a goofy disaster movie in book form. And what a disaster! The oceans turn against humanity.

Some of the consequences are pretty obvious. Whale watching suddenly becomes a full-contact sport. Swarms of stinging jellyfish attack beachgoers.

But then Schatzing gets creative. Shellfish toxins delivered en masse by deep-sea crabs into the New York City water supply. Zebra mussels mutating into highly mobile forms that can chase down ships. Worms and bacteria destabilizing the methane ice that holds the North Sea continental shelf together. These are some really nasty effects and Schatzing does a nice job of backing them up with just enough science so that the reader is able to grasp the full implications of each attack.

The characters in...

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rsilva says "Adults and children will love the simple story and Gorey's art." about Peter F. Neumeyer - Donald Has a Difficulty

rsilva — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 20:52:35 GMT

I picked this book up yesterday during my visit to the Edward Gorey House in Yarmouthport MA.

This lovely little hardcover was the result of a longstanding correspondence and collaboration between Neumeyer and Gorey.

Young Donald is out playing in the woods, when he gets a splinter in the calf of his leg while pushing a tree. Fortunately, his mother is wise in the ways of splinters, and she calls upon her skills to attend to Donald's wound.

The text is simple, yet skillfully worded. The illustrations are classic Edward Gorey, especially during a sequence of daydreams that Donald uses to distract himself while his mother sets to work on the splinter.

Neumeyer's afterword gives some insight into his friendship and collaboration with the sometimes enigmatic Gorey.

This is the kind of quirky, fun book that children will find appealing while their parents marvel at the artwork.

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rsilva says "Delicate and thoughtful teen drama." about Tears of a Lamb Volume One

rsilva — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 05:18:42 GMT

This high school drama begins with a girl's strangely urgent plea to see the apartment where the new boy at the school is living. Kanzaki is, not surprisingly, a bit put off by Kei's request, and it doesn't help matters that she seems absolutely obsessed with getting a look at his room.

As the story unfolds, the past traumas of both Kei and Kanzaki are gradually brought to light, even as a tentative friendship begins to develop between the two. The complex storyline is only getting started by the end of this volume, but there are enough revelations and plot twists to leave the reader satisfied.

Banri Hidaka's delicate artwork is beautiful, and she has created a very unique set of characters that share some thoughtful and insightful dialogue. Her autobiographical cartoons that begin and end each chapter are a cute look inside the mind and the studio of the manga-ka.

Some readers may find some portions of the story which involve eating disorders to be disturbing, but it is generally suitable...

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rsilva says "WWII epic meets modern techno-thriller." about Neal Stephenson - Cryptonomicon

rsilva — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 04:31:17 GMT

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Publshed in 1999, Stephenson's military/suspense epic of codes and codebreaking tells two parallel stories, one set during World War II, and the other in the present (when the book was written, which was at the height of the dot-com boom). The title refers to a manual of codebreaking assembled over the years by the US military, and eventually declassified and released on the internet, where it has become a tool of programmers, hackers, and amateur cryptographers.

One of the central characters is Lawrence Waterhouse, a quirky genius who studied mathematics at Princeton before being stationed at Pearl Harbor by the US Navy in time for the Japanese attack and the start of the War. Waterhouse is recruited to work on secret intelligence projects when his talent for breaking codes is discovered. His path intercepts those of a US Marine named Bobby Shaftoe and a chaplain named Enoch Root, and eventually he becomes involved with a conspiracy locate hidden treasure...

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rsilva says "Humorous steampunk webcomic collection." about Girl Genius Volume 1: Agatha Heterodyne & the Beetleburg Clank

rsilva — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:35:31 GMT

This is the first collection of the Girl Genius webcomic by Phil & Kaja Foglio. Gamers will recognize Phil Foglio as the cartoonist behind the long-running What's New? strip in Dragon magazine. He and his wife Kaja have also done the artwork for many classic cards in Magic: The Gathering.

Girl Genius, set in an over-the-top steampunk Europe, tells the story of Agatha Clay, a lab assistant who can't seem to get anything to work. This is a world where a certain few "Sparks" have the talent to do true mad science, including the building of the robotic "Clanks" that provide the muscle for the feuding lords and barons.

Caught in the midst of one such feud, Agatha gets mugged, discovers that her University has been overthrown by hostile forces, and is kicked out of school. All in all, it's a pretty bad day, and things don't look much better when a strange clank is set loose on the streets the next morning, and only the young son of the invading baron begins to suspect that there may be more...

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rsilva says "Fast-paced steampunk action." about Castle in the Sky, Vol. 1

rsilva — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 02:05:00 GMT

The first volume in a four-part series adapting Miyazaki's classic animated film. Set in a steampunk world of airships and industrial revolution towns, Castle in the Sky tells the story of Pazu, an orphan boy who helps run the machinery in a coal mine and is working on building his own flying machine to find the legendary sky-castle Laputa, which his father caught a glimpse of years ago.

Into Pazu's life comes Sheeta, who literally falls out of the sky. Her airship was raided by pirates, and Sheeta escaped with the help of a mysterious stone that allows her to defy gravity.

Pazu helps her to escape from two factions of enemies: The air-pirates, and a mysterious force of government agents who seek to control the power of the stone.

This is a fast-paced story with fun and likeable characters in a stylish and imaginative setting. The artwork consists of cells from the actual film, which don't always do justice to the film's beautiful art, although a lot of the larger panels look great....

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rsilva says "Get to know your disaster persona." about Amanda Ripley - The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - And Why

rsilva — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:08:11 GMT

Journalist Amanda Ripley takes us to ground zero of some of the worst disasters in recent history in a book that focuses on the response of the human brain.

The book is generally structured in stages of reaction that are reminiscent of the well-known stages of grieving that psychologists have used to describe the human psyche's reaction to the loss of a loved one.

In responding to disaster, Ripley organizes the human response into stages of denial, deliberation, and decision/action.

Calling on interviews with survivors from dozens of disasters ranging from plane crashes to hurricanes to terrorism, Ripley places the reader in the mind of the victim. She examines the physiological effects of fear, and the social interactions of groups placed under stress.

The data yields some surprising results: The tendency to delay action in the face of danger is one. Another is the surprising lack of panic in many situations where it would be expected.

Along the way, Ripley's narrative touches on...

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rsilva says "Albom's Earth is more interesting than his Heaven." about Five People You Meet in Heaven

rsilva — Sat, 02 May 2009 00:30:56 GMT

Mitch Albom's novel begins an hour before the death of its main character, an 83-year-old maintenance worker at a boardwalk amusement park named Eddie. Eddie dies trying to rescue a small girl from a falling gondola that breaks loose from a freefall ride in a freak accident.

The story is Mitch Albom's vision of Heaven, a place where the meaning of your life is explained to you by five people whose lives intersected your own, some of them in ways you might not have even noticed.

It's a story of closure and a story of purpose, of making sense out of the twists and injustices of life and of finding meaning in the small interactions that happen every day.

While the main plot of the story takes place in (a rather nondenominational) heaven, the book consists mosly of flashbacks, and it is in these sequences where Albom's writing really shines.

His characters are complex, richly detailed, and full of hidden beauty and intensity. From the blue-skinned sideshow freak to Eddie's abusive father...

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rsilva says "Technology cartoons for everyone." about The New Yorker Book of Technology Cartoons

rsilva — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 03:14:21 GMT

The New Yorker is known for many things, but being on the cutting edge of new technology is not one of them. Still, this collection delivers some good laughs at the expense of the tech industry and the people from all walks of life who have found themselves unable to live without the latest gadget.

Some of these cartoons, first collected at the height of the dot com bubble, are quite dated at this point. Others have become obvious in our email/text society. But a number of them are truly timeless.

The artwork and style of humor is classic New Yorker, and the humor is almost always focused on the people rather than the gadgets. There is the typical quirky wit and charm that you would expect from the New Yorker. The jokes are aimed at technological laypersons. This is not like XKCD or some of the other webcomics that can appeal to a highly specialized audience that appreciates, say, jokes written in Linux code. This is humor for the casual internet user, the person who can't set their VCR...

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