Audiobook Review: A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

"In one respect at least the Martians are a happy people; they have no lawyers." -- John Carter, A Princess of Mars

A Princess of Mars (1917) by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Genre: Science fiction romance
Length: 7h 26m
Audio publisher: LibriVox, 2008
Read by: Marc Nelson
Download audiobook from LibriVox
Download ebook from Project Gutenberg

Story: After ending the War of Northern Aggression on the less than victorious side, Captain John Carter of Virginia traveled West to look for gold. In Arizona he found a strange cave where he passes out and later wakes up on what must be Mars. John is then taken captive by its mysterious green inhabitants. Luckily, due to the limited Martian gravity, John possesses extraordinary strength, speed, and the ability to leap tall buildings. John spends his time learning the language and customs of the green Martians until the day they take another prisoner, this time a red Martian who looks almost human and happens to be a princess.

Thoughts: A Princess of Mars follows John Carter through his various Martian adventures. The beginning spends a lot of time describing the green Martians' way of life: their social structure, class system, methods of reproduction, manner of education. Even though these digressions are pretty dry, I came to enjoy them since they're very detailed and well thought-out. The group of Martians that finds John Carter is well described, but the other types of Martians, especially the red Martians, are not as well-formed. The red Martians look like humans and are more technologically advanced than the green, but I wasn't sure how their social structure differed. Mars is a very violent place.  Everyone is obsessed by war, and all conflicts are solved by killing. Sometimes John Carter comes up with a clever instead of a violent solution, but these are few and far between.
Usually he just uses his fists. And his superpowers.

My favorite parts of the book were the descriptions of the Martian technology, especially their oxygen creation system. I would have liked to learn more about those aspects and less about hand-to-hand combat.

I wasn't prepared for the very dense writing style in A Princess of Mars, but I loved it. Here's an example:

I do not believe that I am made of the stuff which constitutes heroes, because, in all of the hundreds of instances that my voluntary acts have placed me face to face with death, I cannot recall a single one where any alternative step to that I took occurred to me until many hours later.

The whole book is written like that. It's fun to listen to, but I could only handle it for short stretches. I missed a lot of the beauty of the phrasing by listening to the audio since I was focused on the words' meaning instead of their placement, but I don't know if I'd have been able to power through the visual version. I can barely get through that sentence.

I also had a few issues with continuity. There are said to be no mammals on Mars, but everyone sleeps on furs. More confusing was John Carter's ability to read minds, which came and went. He's also the only person who can lie, but then meets up with other liers, so maybe it's only green Martians who tell the truth. I did like how they were all vegetarians.

Reading: Marc Nelson did a fabulous job. I can't imagine reading some of that text silently, never mind aloud. He flawlessly delivered every run-on sentence and compound prepositional phrase in a way that brought out the meanings of the words and made them fun.

Final thoughts: While I'm glad I listened to A Princess of Mars, I'm not clamoring to listen to its many sequels.The story is interesting for historical value, and it has a lot of great ideas scattered through, but the emphasis on mindless violence turned me off.

Grade: 3.5 out of 5

This book qualifies for several challenges as a science fiction classic:

Graphic Novel Review: The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci & Jim Rugg

"Art saves. Think big. Think P.L.A.I.N (People Loving Art in Neighborhoods)."

The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg
Genre: Contemporary YA
Publisher: Minx, 2007 - update: Ms. Castellucci just informed me it's been reprinted under the DC Vertigo Comics label. Congrats!
Awards: Joe Shuster Award for Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Writer, 2008
From: Local library

Story: Jane loves Metro City and isn't happy when her parents decide to move to suburbia. The kids at her new school are like they're asleep, but one lunch table looks promising. It just so happens everyone at that table is named Jane. Jane makes a plan to convince the others to join her in neighborhood "art attacks" to wake up the town. But they'll be in big trouble if anyone finds out.

Thoughts: The Plain Janes is my kind of graphic novel: interesting story, fun characters, and clear, amusing graphics. I love that the story is straightforward but still has several amusing twists. It's great that all of the main characters are named Jane (or Jayne), and each has her own, distinct personality and expertise. The art attacks the group pulls made me laugh and got me to think "I can do that," the ultimate danger of  free expression. And I loved that Jane is a vegetarian. Yeah!

Jim Rugg's clear greyscale drawings reinforce each of the Janes' personalities and clearly show the differences between Metro City and suburbia around Buzz Aldrin High. Jane always stands out with her clothing that's a little too hip for school. I love Jane's haircut, but it's hard to recognize her in flashbacks when she has her old hair. The all-caps dialogue is clean and easy to read with just enough bold to get the point across, but not too much to lose impact. I especially enjoyed the use of newspapers and letters to show the progression of events.

Final thoughts: Plain Janes is my favorite Minx title. The Janes are fearless in their efforts to challenge the ordinary and be themselves.

Grade: 5 out of 5

Audiobook Review: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

What a great book! Action, adventure, romance. With lots and lots of of I ♥ the 80's: Revenge of the geek.

Ready Player One
Author: Ernest Cline
Genre: Dystopian adventure SF
Length: 15h 46m
Read by: Wil Wheaton
Audio publisher: Random House Audio, 2011
From: Library OverDrive

Story: The billionaire computer programmer James Halliday dies, and his fortune will go to the person who can find a secret hidden in his virtual reality universe, OASIS. Everyone is on the lookout. Wade has spent the past five years learning everything he can about 80's books, movies, and video games in an effort to uncover a clue to the treasure. He's dedicated. And the 80's are better than his life now.

My thoughts: I grew up in the 80's. I had a TRS-80 Color Computer II, played Zork, and listened to Duran Duran. I even played Dungeons and Dragons. So this book was written for me. The question is, will anyone who didn't grow up in the 80's get anything out of this book? I don't know. Some of the references have withstood time: Star Wars, Indiana Jones. Most haven't. That's what makes them fun. I didn't get the majority of the music or early video game references, and that didn't damper my enjoyment of the story. The most obscure were explained for us newbies without being pedantic. And it's not all 80's. There are Firefly and Matrix shout-outs along with Lord of the Rings.

The book follows Wade, and I loved learning about his life beyond the 80's. The story unfolds like a John Hughes movie with details of the world he lives in, both the real world and in OASIS, uncovered as Wade goes about his daily tasks evading bullies and going to school. The quest to find the treasure steamrolls in and action scenes fill in the gaps. There's even a love interest for variety. Yes, the plot hits each of the standard movie beats, but it moves along fast and I was enjoying it too much to care.

I liked the fact that NOT everyone in Wade's world is crazy about the 80's. Only a small group of people have chosen to dedicate their life to this decade. These people are driven to solve the clues and find the treasure using 80's trivia. I'm so sorry for them. To watch any of these 80's shows now would be torture. They are only good in retrospect.

Reading: I'm apprehensive of celebrity readers. I don't want the person reading to distract from the story, so I was worried when I found out Wil Wheaton read Ready Player One. As soon as the book started, my fears were put to rest. Wil Wheaton's energy and enthusiasm for the material come through. Some of the characters sound a little too similar, especially Wade and H, but since the secondary characters don't say much, it wasn't too a big deal.

Minor points: Food: The people in Wade's world don't appear to eat meat. It's too expensive and resource-intensive. Forced vegetarianism. It's coming.
Cover: This book has one of the worst covers I've ever seen. It took me several months to pick the book up because the cover is so bad.
Spoiler nit: ****I can't believe that A only had that blemish! I was expecting her to have no legs or be a dwarf or something. I guess she didn't watch any 90's infomercials. Hasn't she heard of Bare Escentuals?

Final thoughts: If you ♥ 80's geekiness, read this book. If you don't...you can still read this book, and we'll talk.

Grade: 5 out of 5

The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

The Leftovers is the first Tom Perrotta book I've tried. I saw it on the New table at the bookstore and heard good things, so when I came up in on the library's Overdrive, I had to give it a listen.

Genre: apocalyptic science fiction
Length: 10h 18m
Audio Publisher: Macmillan Audio, 2011

Recap: On October 14, thousands of people just disappear. No one knows where they went or why. The Leftovers follows one family who remains. Along with a few of their neighbors, they try to make sense of the world and what happened.

Review: The Leftovers is human drama with a sci fi set-up, and its strength is its characters. They are immensely believable, each with their quirks and coping strategies. The point-of-view changes from character to character, and this change in perspective makes up for a lack of action. For a book about grief and coping, it's pretty funny. I especially liked the cults that sprang up after the Disappearance, how each is distinct yet credible.

Reading/Production: I was surprised this book was read by a man since 3 of the 5 POV characters are women. Dennis Boutsikaris washed my fears away with his excellent reading. He gives the narrator just the right touch of snark and really seemed to be enjoying himself.

I loved the music that played at the beginning of the recording but was glad it wasn't repeated. There was a short author's interview at the end of the recording that was a little fuzzy.

Final Thoughts:  I liked this sci-fi story of the suburbs. It is well-written with interesting characters who act like real people in the face of unreal events.

Grade: 4.5 out of 5

For: People who like family dramas who want to stick a toe into sci fi.

Eating habits: I'm starting to keep track of books where vegetarianism is brought up. This one had a vegetarian character and a vegan restaurant.

Num: It was funny that so few of the characters had jobs since there would be a lot of vacancies.


Nit: The one part that didn't ring true was the substantial survivor's benefit provided by the government. With this large of a pool of people who vanished, the pay-out would have to be relatively small. But maybe the number of people who disappeared in the US wasn't that large. I don't think a number was provided. It seemed like thousands.