Morgan R 2001 Altered carbon

This is a tough and nasty read, but I've read it multiple times.

The fighting is dirty, and I usually skip those passages. The torture is horrific, and I always skip past that. The sex is explicit: some in the good way (merge9 -yes please); some in the bad way (abuse of sex workers). The plot is convoluted and I'm not sure I could describe it.

What did I like? Our anti hero,  Kovacs. We learn in flashbacks that he entered  the military to escpe a tough childhood, we learn just how tough the fighting was - never his fight, never his body - and we learn how hundreds of years and light years distance don't distance you from your demons. Also, despite the body count, he seems to be basically decent. Maybe I'm just an optimist?

Also, I really like the world(s) Morgan creates. It is perfectly constructed. I believe. Has someone fan-ficed the Quellist philosophy into a quasi Little Book of Calm? Make it personal.

First line:

Two hours before dawn I sat in the peeling kitchen and smoked one of Sarah's cigarettes, listening to the maelstrom and waiting.

Last line:

 The doors were waiting at the top, the needlecast beyond. Still trying to laugh, I went through.

Pratchett T 2009 Unseen academicals

My house contains more books than bookshelves. This problem cannot be resolved with more bookshelves, as my house has also run out of walls. I'm going to reread and donate for a while. Trying to pick out the books I kinda wanna read again, but will probably be okay letting go of by the last page.

Like everyone I know, my Pratchett shelf is well thumbed. These are comfort books that come to bed with me. They've been dropped in the bath. They've gone to the beach,  and the park, and I don't know what that stain is. It's fine to start reading any one of these books wherever they fall open, and there's no need to read to the end after the first few passes. Pratchett bears the test of time.

But not all Pratchetts are equal. I particularly liked the Moist von Lipwig series. I enjoy the witches, seeing myself as something of a Magrat. I can't really be doing with the faux-Scots nonsense in the Tiffany Aching books.

This one is middling-good. Cut brutally in half by an editor with chutzpah I think it would've been very good. The idea of the wizards footballing is visually funny but I think Pratchett is better at plot & dialogue than description and theme. I have no idea why there's a high fashion sub plot (football is for boys, so let's give the girls & the gays fancy clothes?). I suspect the Orc represents some kind of anti racism undertone, but it's laboured and Pratchett's not my choice of social-conscience reading.

 Bye bye, book.

Webster, J. 1915 Dear Enemy

Sequel to Dear Daddy Long Legs. I was so desperate to read this as a kid I stole it from the library. This was a wrong thing to do, but I was only allowed four books a week and that just wasn't nearly enough. And it was 30 years ago. They've probably written off the loss by now.

Here, Sally McB turns her college educated mind to running an orphanage. This, she appreciates, is important to get right:

the future health and happiness of a hundred humn beings lie in my hands, to say nothing of their three or four hundred children and thousand grand children. The thing's geometrically progressive.

First line:

Your letter is here. I have read it twice, and with amazement. Do I understand that Jervis has given you, for a Christmas present, the making over of the John Grier Home into a model institution, and that you have chosen me to disburse the money?

Last line: Nope. It gives away the ending.

Webster, J. 1912 Dear Daddy Long Legs

There's something about an epistolary novel. I think I'd have been nine or ten the first time I read this book. I know I got it from the library, and read it in one night. Thirty years later, this was another one-night book. Charming, and sweet, it's as good as I remember.

This is a fairy tale, an orphan made good story. She gets her education and her man. What's not to love?

There's some proto feminism in here too. I loved this thought, tucked away in Judy's description of college learning:

Don't you think I'd make an admirable voter if I had my rights? I was twenty-one last week. This is an awfully wasteful country to throw away such an honest, educated, conscientious, intelligent citizen as I would be. 

First line:

 The first Wednesday in every month was a Perfectly Awful Day - a day to be awaited with dread, endured with courage and forgotten with haste.

Last line:

This is the first love letter I ever wrote. Isn't it funny that I know how?