Locus Winners [thevalve.org]

[nnyhav]

Locus Winners
Posted by John Holbo on 06/25/08 at 09:53 AM

Some good reads. The Locus Award winners have been announced (http://www.locusmag.com/2008/Locus_Awards_Winners.html).

Michael Chabon won for Yiddish Policemen?s Union. I thought it was ok - fun - a bit of a disappointment after Kavalier and Clay. What did you think? OK, I?ll write a short review to finish this post out. Now, on down the list.

Terry Pratchett, Making Money. Very funny, as usual, but sort of by-the-numbers.

I haven?t read Mi?ville?s Un Lun Dun or Joe Hill?s Heart-Shaped Box. (Put them on the to-read list.)

Cory Doctorow?s ?After The Siege? is magnificent. It?s a harrowing tale. It will definitely give you that ghastly, crazy, infowar siege of neverland feeling. I listened to it as a podcast (http://www.archive.org/details/podcast_corydoctorow), read by the author himself. I see that someone else has re-recorded it (http://www.boingboing.net/2008/06/22/podcast-of-after-the.html). Throw it on the iPod.

more ... (http://www.thevalve.org/go/valve/article/locus_winners/)

[Stewart]

Michael Chabon won for Yiddish Policemen’s Union. I thought it was ok - fun - a bit of a disappointment after Kavalier and Clay.
I get the impression Michael Chabon is deliberately trying to get worse with each book, ever since The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier & Clay. Not by just waking up and saying, I know, I'll write a crap novel today, but because he has this bee in his bonnet about genre staples and literary snobbery and seems to have sought out to write genre novels bringing his literary touch, with emphasis on the genre part which sort of buggers up the point of whatever he wants to say. Gentlemen Of The Road, his attempt at the classic boy's advernture story, has been my worst read of the year.

Oh, and I added The Valve to BlogSpy's repertoire. ;)

[Eric]

I know nothing about Chabon, but thought that the eyecatching tile "Yiddish Policemen?s Union" was rather weird. What is it in the novel that makes the policemen Yiddish? I haven't read the book, so please explain. It seems rather amusing.

[Stewart]

I know nothing about Chabon, but thought that the eyecatching tile "Yiddish Policemen?s Union" was rather weird. What is it in the novel that makes the policemen Yiddish? I haven't read the book, so please explain. It seems rather amusing.
It's an alternative Earth story where Alaska becomes the new home of the Jews.

[nnyhav]

Oh, and I added The Valve to BlogSpy's repertoire. ;)

Good lord, I thought that ";)" was serious.

They're really more academical, you'll be filtering out a lot of chuff ... (btw, Holbo cross-posted it to crookedtimber.org as well -- don't even think about it ...)