#95 - Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy

COMMUNIST UTOPIAS!!!

Ok.

Our hero is a young aristocratic Bostonian on the verge of his marriage in the late 1800's. He falls asleep in a special chamber he's built under his house so that the city noises don't wake him up (he's such a light sleeper!). Well, his house burns down and his servant is killed in the blaze. The chamber is forgotten for a century, and our poor hero is left to rot in it.

Only... he doesn't.

He is put into such a deep slumber by the quiet of his chamber that he enters a trance like state where his body doesn't decay. Lo' and behold, he awakes in the year 2000 alive and well (minus the jet lag).

That's the first chapter or two -- the rest of the book is his discourse with a Dr. Leete.

Apparently, society has followed a "natural" progression from the capitalist economies of Edward Bellamy's time to what is now a huge communist utopia. No, not Soviet communists; that's spelled Communists.

Honestly, I didn't feel like finishing the book, so I stopped two thirds in. I might come back to it eventually. Some of Bellamy's concepts interested me, but the content was presented in such a dull fashion.

~Cheers

#96 - Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Yes! It's another RLS book! It's also the last. Too bad, because I was starting to like his style.

This book defined many of our modern stereotypes of pirates. RLS introduced (or at least brought into the mainstream) such elements as parrots on the captain's shoulder, eye patches, peg legs, islands with treasure hidden on them, "X marks the spot" and the famous "15 men on a dead man's chest" song.

Yeah. Robert Louis Stevenson for the win.

A fun read; surprisingly fast. I can see why it's RLS's most famous work.

~Cheers me hearties!

#98 - At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald

This was the quickest read yet, a good 5 hours perhaps -- Also one of the more enjoyable. Out of the books I've read so far, this is the first that I'd recommend. Mind you, there's certainly some painful sections; There's several lengthy nonsense poems that aren't necessary to read, save for skimming over the first one. Also, some of the story elements feel unnecessary. However MacDonald managed to paint a beautiful (though logically weak) painting of the world, showing us an explanation for the unambiguous existence of Pain; In short, all bad things are meant to lead to good things; All is made right in the end.

NOTE: Dibs on screen rights.

#97 - Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson

Ugh. I offer my sincerest apologies, for I have yet again taken a tangent. When I finished Kidnapped, Master of Ballantrae was but a turn of a page away. Lazy as I was, I decided to skip a trip to the library and quickly get #97 over with. Hoorah! It's done!

MoB was (according to the compilation's introduction) Stevenson's only tragedy. Some, however, say that it is this book that truly reflects RLS's character. It features a pair of rivalrous brothers; One an ostracized weakling with the world unjustly set against him; The other a swashbuckling romantic, favoured and loved by all. Stevenson was sickly all of his life, and there are a few essays which betray his negative views on life; quite opposite his romantic, upwardly mobile stories and characters.

*yawn*

Ugh. It's 4:39 AM and I don't really care that much. Master of Ballantrae makes for a decent read, but the narrator is annoying as... yeah. Also, whenever RLS tries to tell a segment of the story in another character's words, nothing changes in the writing style and it's still RLS speaking to us. Quite bland. The only time we see variety is the contrast between RLS's educated English and his intimate knowledge of the Scots dialect. It's odd though because as passions rise and fall his characters gain odd accents and drift between the formal "ye" and informal "you".

Anyway! On to (back to?) #98!

~Cheers