Reading for June, 2006

First I read the first half of Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer, which won the 2003 Hugo Award. The writing relies on an alternative worlds premise to keep the reader interested, but the reader has access to characters from both worlds so there isn’t any mystery involved. After that, the characterizations were too weak to keep me interested, and I skimmed through the rest.
A Passage to India by E. M. Forster. Number 25 on the Modern Library list.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, which I received as a gift. This book is quite popular at the moment, as it deals with a boy who grows up in Afghanistan and then immigrates to the United States. As literature goes, there were a lot of missed opportunities to give this story some poetry. In fact, given the wonkiness of the narrative structure, I have my suspicions that the book was largely ghostwritten. I’m sure Hosseini provided a number of the episodes based on his life experiences, and probably wrote the original draft, but the publisher provided a little help to finish the book.
With a Single Spell and The Unwilling Warlord by Lawrence Watt-Evans. One of my favority fantasy writers, rereading after sitting on my shelf for many years.