New Reviews: Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident and Diana Wynn Jones's Howl's Moving Castle
May 29, 2004 (5:15 AM) ( link )

ADDED reviews of Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and Diana Wynn Jones's Howl's Moving Castle.

I actually finished Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky, which turned out to be really excellent--after taking two or three days to read the first third of the novel, I finished the thrilling last two-thirds in a single day (almost a single sitting). I'm likely to give the novel a 9; the fact that I gave Haddon's novel only an 8, despite the fact that it's won a lot more awards than Vinge's novel, says something I think about my tastes (fun more than serious; thrilling more than cerebral--unfortunately these do not describe my personality, only my reading interests).

I'm undecided about what to read next, for a couple of reasons. In particular, I'm trying to decide between a short novel (likely Octavia Butler's Wild Seed) or another long one (likely C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen). A lot of factors go into this decision: how much time I'll have to read either (I start work on Tuesday), whether the books will be good (I liked my last long novel--Vinge's--more than my last two short ones, which I will be reviewing shortly), Cherry's very poor track record with me, etc.

The truth is I'll probably read both before I start work, but then the amount of reading I'll be able to do will drop very swiftly.