Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor gets an award for best title I've seen in a long, long time, and I am in no way kidding. That title tells you exactly what to expect in the book, relates directly to the theme of the book, connects directly to the plot of the book, does it all meta. Which is a little hard to explain, but trust me, the title gets full marks.
Oh, and the actual book is pretty awesome as well.
January 2009 Archives
I've often found that the best way to know what I think of a book is to look at my immediate reaction to finishing it. This works best when I read the book in one sitting, because my reaction is least sullied by outside factors... and also, if I read a book in one sitting, my immediate reaction tends to be strong enough to cause me to say something out loud (whether I'm alone or not), making it pretty easy to know what I thought of it. For example, when I read Debatable Space last year, when I finished I said "Well! That was interesting, and pretty awesome." And when I finished Traitor last night, I said "I love this book so much!"
I really do. There are a variety of reasons why--one of which is because the character of Vergere as written by Matthew Stover is probably one of my favorite characters in all of Star Wars. I can't even really remember what she's like in the other books... I've re-read Traitor so many times, and all those others barely at all, if ever. And then the Legacy of the Force series went back and did interesting things to her history. (By "interesting" I mean "reprehensible.") But I could pull just about everything she says in Traitor and hold it as an example of some of my favorite quotes ever.
In fact, Traitor is an extremely quotable book. And it's under 300 pages, which just makes it easier to read in one sitting, see above re: benefits. And yet Traitor seems to lack an easy quote compilation... well, maybe I'll make one myself!
My brother gave me this book for Christmas, and I read it, then he borrowed it and read it, and now my mother is in the process of reading it. It's kind of like a behind-the-scenes DVD special feature, except really long, really detailed, and all about writing. Oh, and in book form. Unlike a lot of behind-the-scenes books, which might be filled with a little bit of interesting information padded with lots of random stuff that's either common knowledge or pointless to know, there is not a single page in this book that is not packed with interesting information. Well... no, I take it back. The Foreword is pointless. Phillip Pullman? Who cares about Phillip Pullman? Especially in a Doctor Who context.
If you're at all interested in writing as a career, even if you're not leaning towards television writing, I really really suggest you read this book. It would help to also know/have watched/be a fan of Doctor Who, as that's the context of all his writing talk, but it wouldn't surprise me if it's all completely accessible to anyone interested, no matter how little they may know about the show.
