Book Review and a Quick Question

[redfiona99]

While this is not my favourite Stainless Steel Rat book (that is still The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You) , I enjoyed the way time travel was dealt with in this book, and I loved the depiction of Earth, 1984, and how casually Jimmy di Griz deals with security systems then. I'd also love it if memorygrams were real.

If I enjoyed the 1984 parts then there are no words for how much I enjoyed the Napoleonic bits. While I like the alternate reality idea, I love the way it's played out, the reasonable and rampant paranoia of the English and how they're good guys but still veneal.

I think the Count and his artillery master were my favourite characters, although the Martians and Angelina came close. Professor Coypu is such a fantastic mad professor that it's hard not to like him.

Jimmy di Griz is his usual dry and laconic self, if not quite as much fun as he is in 'Stainless Steel Rat Wants You'.

I enjoyed this a lot.


The LibraryThing unsuggestions were:

My sister's keeper : a novel by Jodi Picoult
White Oleander by Janet Fitch
The memory keeper's daughter by Kim Edwards
I know this much is true by Wally Lamb
Into thin air : a personal account of the Mount Everest disaster by Jon Krakauer
On beauty : a novel by Zadie Smith
The perks of being a wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
The glass castle : a memoir by Jeannette Walls
The purpose-driven life : what on earth am I here for? by Rick Warren
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

I'm interested that most of these, and the rest of them, were what I call serious real world books, which I do avoid (possible exception on that list for Toni Morrison, if only because I like her poetry) because if I wanted so see the real world, I'd just take a look around or read a newspaper. I wonder if that's true of other sci-fi fans.

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On to the quick question - it's for some background detail in a fic:

Since it appears that Lance Cade was announced as being from Nebraska when he was teamed up with Mark Jindrak, what sport is that version of his character most likely to be into? Because I know I'd write the present one as an American football fan but not so sure about the old one or what team he's support if he was.

Having slightly fewer problems with Jindrak, but that's because I've at least got the sport decided, and until I change it again he's going to be a New York Knicks fan.

Comments

[opera142.livejournal.com]

On beauty : a novel by Zadie Smith

I got this last Christmas, and I haven't been able to get past the first chapter. It's one of those "serious real world books" that ring false and ultimately fails because of it. It starts out as on ginormous e-mail from a teenage boy to his father, and it goes on and on about interior decorating. I'm sure some teenage boys are into interior decorating, however that boy didn't strike me as one of them.

As for Cade, American Football would be a good choice. Baseball as a second one. I don't know which team most Nebraskan's root for being they don't have a team of their own. I'd guess either Denver Broncos or the St. Louis Rams, just because they're the closest geographically (I'm basing that off of the idea that most North Dakotans are fans of the MN Vikings). College football might be big too, you'll have to double check/verify/research that suggestion though.

[madlikerya.livejournal.com]

Nebraska Cornhuskers. (University of Nebraska) College ball is a way of life when your state has no Pro team.

[nwhyte]

Both My Sister's Keeper and White Oleander come up a lot for books I read. I suspect that they tend to be read and owned by people who don't own the sorts of book that I do.