I picked this book up from IO9 at some point, and it’s been languishing on my Kindle forEVER, so I thought I’d finally give it a go. I was hoping, based on press, for sort of a speculative/alt history police procedural a la Chabon’s Yiddish Policeman’s Union, which I found utterly delightful.

Sadly, I was to be very disappointed. Empire State is Christopher‘s first novel, and it shows. It’s all over the place, with elements of noir, steampunk, alt history, mystery, superheroes, and more, and none of it ever quite gels into a coherent story.

I can’t say as I recommend this. Amazon’s reviews seem to bear this out, though that’s a notoriously fickle metric. The narrative just doesn’t hold up, and the characters are kind of flimsy and interchangeable (and not just in the way allowed for in the book’s universe). Christopher’s attempt at worldbuilding here is, well, a good attempt, but it doesn’t really work. The kitchen-sink approach to plotting — masked heroes! war! airships! robots! alternative universes! detectives! conspiracies! — rarely flies well, and this is no exception.

Good LORD I’m behind on these things — plus, as my general posting frequency has showed, I’m a little swamped at work. A few books will have to get the short shrift to allow me to catch up, as over the weekend I finished book #13.

THAT IS ALL is Hodgman’s final entry is his “Complete World Knowledge” trilogy, and what you get here is more of what you got in the other two. I’ll confess I actually skipped the second entry, but enjoyed the first when it came out back in 2005.

Because of this, I can’t really tell you much about how the style evolves, but I can tell you that Hodgman is playing at a more substantial game here than just a recitation of made-up facts. TIA concerns itself primarily with a countdown to the end of the world, events leading up to or contributing to it, ways in which one may prepare, and how he intends to survive as a deranged millionaire.

But there’s a metaphor at work here, too, that Hodgman winked at during his performance on the nerd cruise last month, when talking about his children. He noted that everything ever said, more or less, about one’s children boils down to “children are awesome, and I am dying.” He’s not wrong. Obviously, a meditation on the end of the world is a charmingly and grandiose way of confronting the sense of mortality one inevitably acquires in middle life.

Frankly, I was a little surprised how much I enjoyed TIA as an actual book (instead of a multi-hundred-page joke, which is what I expected). I’m actually considering revisiting the first book, and reading the second, as a consequence.

One note, btw: don’t skip the list of 700 ancient and unspeakable gods. There’s gold in there (just as I’m sure there’s gold in the list of hobos in the first book).

Terrible Nerd is Savetz’s memoir of sorts of growing up nerdy in California around the same time I was growing up nerdy in Mississippi. Near as I can tell, it was much easier going in California. ;)

I met Savetz on the Giant Nerd Cruise last month, and he gave me a copy of his book as we were playing Cards Against Humanity. I read it on the boat, which tells you how far behind I am on these posts.

He’s a nice guy, and his book is a fun read, but probably only if you’re part of our tribe.

I’m rarely amused by graffiti, but this is kind of awesome.

Achewood may be returning as a cartoon.

What the hell, Farmer, a series book?

What of it, Judgey McJudgerson?

But don’t you usually read SRS LITRATURE?

Mostly, yeah. But I also travel a bunch. There’s a place for junk food in one’s diet.

Aren’t these books mostly all the same, though?

No idea what you mean. See, this is the one where Reacher ends up investigating an improbable conspiracy, and then has to take it down more or less single-handledly.

And this is different from the other ten you ready because?

Um. Right. Still, good fun. This one was mildly different because it was the first written post-9/11, which forces some changes on Reacher’s behavior. Also, I was on vacation. There was drinking. And a beach.

I’m so behind on this; I actually finished Horns before the cruise.

I’d read one of Joe Hill‘s books before — Heart Shaped Box, his debut novel — but somehow missed out on Horns when it was released, and then it went into the perennially sifted “I’m gonna read that…” pile. I shouldn’t have delayed.

Horns is great fun from the start. Instead of slowly building to a monstrous development after hundreds of pages of hinting, Hill drops us right into the mess from page one. Ig Perrish wakes up with devil’s horns. They have odd effects on people. Given the immediate past circumstances of his life — everyone thinks he murdered his girlfriend Merrin a year before — there’s plenty of opportunity for these effects to create amusing developments.

It’s only after you’re hooked on the story that Hill paints the rest of the picture — Ig’s childhood, his family, his friends, his relationship with the dear, departed girlfriend, etc. — and if I have a complaint here it’s that these sections kind of drag a bit, and I felt at times like I really wanted to get back to the first story thread, which I was sure would be full of righteous retribution. And then, in those moments, you realize that you are reading a book that has you rooting for the devil.

Nice work.

Here’s a little bonus, btw: Horns is already being made into a film, starring Daniel Radcliffe as Ig and Juno Temple as Merrin. Principal photgraphy started last September.