Lately, No Donkeys

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Fire and Ash

Well I finished Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling. It’s the fifth year book. You can read the first , second, third, and fourth books in the series.

I finished this one the Monday after Thanksgiving. That’s not bad considering I started it over the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Like the last book this one came in at around 130+ pages longer. What you may not have noticed was that the font seems to have dropped by about one point size, maybe a drop from 12 pt to 11 pt. It may seem a small change, but it probably added a couple dozen pages to the book. Of course I didn’t measure it, so my eyes may be playing tricks on me. It also seems they used a thinner paper to curtail the book thickness growth as well.

Normally I don’t compare movies to the books that much. It’s a self defeating pastime in most cases. They are two different media with their own strengths and shortcomings. The storytelling has to be tailored to each in order to make the best story. I covered that in the last review. This book however, almost necessitates it. This is the longest book so far. It is jam packed with information. In fact there really isn’t much that could be removed from the book without diminishing the story. That is the problem. There was simply too much to put in the movie at its given length. You can see that in the review I wrote 18 months ago. Rereading the review I feel better about the review itself than I probably did at the time. After reading the book, I am amazed at what they managed to get in. Truly it is remarkable. I just watched the movie again to make sure I was comparing properly. There is a whole lot cut out to make the film, but the cuts were surgeon precise. They eliminated scenes that retold information and combined characters and changed who said lines. I am impressed. In fact it probably makes me admire the movie more. It would have had to have been two movies if done closer to the book. I think the movie suffered from a lack of more background, environment, and some cooling down time, but it holds up well.

This book is really just great. I think it is the best so far. There is a bunch of character development, the washing away of childhood simplicity, and the black and white nature of the world dissolves. It’s just great. It’s the first one that really had me yearning to get back to the book to finish it. I can see why some people read it straight through in one sitting, but that it a bit much for me. One sad thing though. The movie had left enough out of the storytelling that I had some hopes for some of the characters. With the book however, that seems less likely, but it is still a possibility. I’ll just have to wait to see. But honestly, this one has made it tough for me to wait my normal cycle of 2 fiction one non-fiction for the next one. I had hoped the next movie would be out now, but they pushed it back to Summer. Should I move on with the books or wait for the movie? Feel free to give advice on that one.

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The Universal Mulligan

As per usual recently I’m behind on this. So I finished Manifold Time by Stephen Baxter. It’s the first in the Manifold Series by Baxter. I’ve read a couple of Baxter’s later collaborations with A. C. Clarke. This is the first of the 3 book series, but it was written way back in 2000.

Frankly you can see why Clarke wanted to work with Baxter. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a kind of passing of the torch. I’ve only read 3 of his books so far, but Baxter seems to have the makings of the next great SF author, on the level of Clarke himself. This book is an excellent example of that. If the next two in the series hold up to the example this one set it is a series on par with the scale of The Space Odyssey series.

Baxter takes a big bite in this grand scale book that covers human existence from now until the heat death of the universe. And he does remarkably well living up to the goal he set himself. It starts at a time close to the publication of the book, 2000. That means that the 8 years that have passed make the story behind in some ways, but really it can be seen as an alternate universe anyway. Baxter weaves a tale that could lose many readers if not for his good use of characters that need exposition.

If you like stories with grand consequences that question humanity’s place in the universe, then this is a good one. It has made me really curious about the next books in the series.

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