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Duckus@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 year, 9 months ago

Secondary English teacher in Aus, with a personal interest in Sci-fi, crime, graphic novels, educational theory, novels worth teaching to students!

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The Last Emperox (Hardcover, 2020, Tor) 3 stars

The Last Emperox is the thrilling conclusion to the award-winning, New York Times and USA …

The weakest link. But some cool ideas.

2 stars

The weakest of the trilogy. Packed full of wonderful ideas and no time spent in any of them. It felt very rushed.

I’m glad I read it. I’m the trilogy was good, but fizzled out a bit.

Might try some other Scalzi books and see how they go.

Leviathan Falls (EBook, 2021, Orbit) 4 stars

The Laconian Empire has fallen, setting the thirteen hundred solar systems free from the rule …

One of the stronger Expanse novels

4 stars

Content warning Mention of the third side of the gates.

The Consuming Fire (Paperback, 2018) 4 stars

"The second, thrilling novel in the bestselling Interdependency series, from Hugo Award-winning author John Scalzi. …

Better Than The First

4 stars

All my concerns from the first novel are addressed in Scalzi's second 'Interdependency' novel.

The politicking is a lot stronger, more detailed, and very clever. There's some nice action pieces, and the world is developed further.

Emperox Grayland II starts to uncover the history of her nation, and because she's not been raised by the familial dynasty, she has fresh eyes that helps her recognise patterns others might not otherwise see. She grows as a leader and a character, and whilst there are some leaps in logic, it makes sense how she'd get there, but because we have seen her journey I sometimes find that the character we see here doesn't connect strongly with the character we saw in the first novel. Still, the author leans into her nervous and emotional-focused inner monologue often enough to show us that she is the same person.

Scalzi adds a character from waaaay …

Fly Away Peter (1989, Rainbow Publishing) 1 star

Parochial Literature

1 star

Let me start by saying I'm not a Malouf fan. I must be one of the only Australian English teachers who isn't a fan of his.

But this novel is a classic case of "Too clever by half." Many people adore this novel, I personally can't stand it. Its point is obvious and heavily laboured, and the repetition of the "Fly away Peter" intertextual reference is painful.

Getting a class of students to read it was like pulling teeth. From a lion. Whilst it was awake. And hungry.

This is very much a personal perspective, but teaching with this book is like teaching the worst of the Australian literary canon. It's full of navel-gazing, Australian pre-occupation with self-perception and nationhood, and horribly colonial.

It does has some nice moments, and if you're looking for concrete examples to teach specific techniques, I'll begrudgingly admit it is quite useful for that.

But …

Maus (Hardcover, 1996, Pantheon) 4 stars

In a world where Jews are mice, Germans are Cats and the Polish are pigs, …

Great for examining complex issues and critical reflection in visual forms

5 stars

Spiegelman is on record saying he doesn’t like Maus being used to teach about Holocaust, but honestly I can’t think of many better texts for it. He prefers Maus being used to discuss relationships, and I’m just thinking “por que no los dos?”

In this novel the author shows his father’s story of survival through the holocaust, and the long term impact on his physical and mental health. He delves into the intergenerational trauma associated with survivor’s families.

Spiegelman said in an interview with Australian Radio National that he wanted to challenge the myth that everyone who goes through such a crucible inherently becomes a better person His depiction of his father, Vladek, is loving but unyielding. When Vladek, who suffered so much during the Holocaust, sees his son wanting to pick up an African-American hitchhiker, he responds with the exact kind of racist stereotypes he himself faced as a …