Saturday, September 30, 2006

September 2006

The Lost Swords: The Second Triad
-F. Saberhagen-fantasy
-The first book deals with Farslayer and 2 Clans at war with eachother. Zoltan is still pursuing Blackpearl, but loses her in the conflict. The second book is about Coinspinner and deals mainly with Mark and Kristin's oldest son Adrian; who is growing up to be, quite possibly, the greatest magician the world has yet seen. And the third book deals with the Mindsword. I didn't like this one at all. Kristin comes under its spell, becomes devoted to Prince Murat, divorces Mark by royal fiat and at the end of the novel throws herself over a balcony when Murat dies. We don't know if she lives or dies. I'll have to find out in the final books. The Mindsword was a terrible sword and this story was not grand or great. It was very bleh. I didn't like the fact that mere "magic" could overcome all of what a person knew to be right and wrong.

The Pendragon Cycle: Taliesin
-S. Lawhead-fantasy
-A Christian look at the Arthurian legend. This starts long before Arthur though. It starts with the destruction of Atlantis. It continues with an unknown Prince, who was prophesied to be the Summer King, marrying an Atlantean Princess[refugees settling in Briton] and ends with the birth of their son Merlin who Taliesin gives his life in exchange for. Taliesin gave up being the Summer King so that his son could live, and usher in the True Summer King. I haven't read this series in over 6 years and I still cried when Taliesin died. Powerful stuff.

The Pendragon Cycle: Merlin
-S. Lawhead-fantasy
-A Christian look at the Arthurian legend. This follows the immortal son of Taliesin and Atlantean Princess Charis, Merlin. From young prodigy to Kingmaker. This is the immediate precursor to the Arthurian legends. But it takes all the sordid and evil things about Merlin and retells it in such a way as to make you weep and hope that this tale was true. Jesus is a large part of this story.

The Dreamers: The Younger Gods
-D. & L. Eddings-fantasy
-I was 100% disappointed in this ending of this series. I picked up about 4 different phrases that were completely overused. This whole series seemed to be about being as shallow as possible and overusing specific phrases. Once again, I place all the blame squarely on Leigh's shoulders. She has ruined the Eddings reputation in the fantasy circle as far as I'm concerned.

2001 : A Space Odyssey
-A.C. Clarke-scifi
-Evolutionistic thought disguised, more like thongwearing, as a scifi novel. Superintelligence messes with our ancestors and starts them on the path of developement. Leave a calling card on the moon, which directs us to Saturn. The man chosen to go ends up becoming a Star Child, and returning to earth. We'll see how the rest of the novels carry this out.


2010 : Odyssey Two
-A.C. Clarke-scifi
-this follows the movie, not the book, as a sequel. So the Monolith is at Jupiter instead of Saturn and is about 10times larger. Life is discovered on one of Jupiter's moons and Jupiter itself is turned into a second sun. Starchild has very little to do with this novel at all. And HAL joins Starchild at the end, scary if you ask me.

Phantom-Chainfire part 2[Sword of Truth book 10]
-T. Goodkind-fantasy
-Oh man. Kahlan is captured by Jagang but doesn't have her memories. Richard disbands the D'Haran army to destroy the Old World instead of facing the Imperial Order. Richard loses his magic, all of it, is captured by the Witch Woman Six and ends up as a prisoner of the Imperial Order, and joins a Ja'La league to vent his hatred of the Order. Goodkind is such a fantastic author! I can't wait for the conclusion of this series. At least once it is done I won't be tempted to buy them anymore. Why must he put in what he did to ruin this? Homosexuality, graphic acts of violence and such, while furthering the story, make it impossible for me to own these. Which is too bad, because this is some of the best writing I've read in a long time.

The Lost Swords: Endgame
-F. Saberhagen-fantasy
-things go into overdrive to wrap this series up. Kristin's healing is completely underplayed. Wood[the Ancient One] is killed by Swordbreaker. Vilkata comes back and dies, and in the process all the swords but Woundhealer are destroyed and that is how it ends.

2061 : Odyssey Three
-A.C. Clarke-scifi
-this is either blase hard scifi or just boring scifi. Ship crashes on Europa, gets rescued even with the interdiction. Haywood is "uploaded" to the non-physical plane, but is also left in his body. So there are 2 of him, I think. Boring and weird.

3001 :Final Odyssey
-A.C. Clarke-scifi
-Frank Poole didn't die, but hybernated in deep space. Gets rescued in 3001. Mankind destroys the Monoliths, which, according to Halman[the amalgamation of Dave Bowman and HAL which were NOT the next step but merely co-opted as extra sensors] were going to destroy humanity because it had been found wanting. So it ends with Humanity having 900 years to figure out the next step. The whole Odyssey series was so blase! And whole chapters were taken from former books, it got very boring and repetitive. Glad I read them, but I don't plan on reading them again unless there is some Need, which I can't imagine there ever being one.

The Pendragon Cycle: Arthur
-S. Lawhead-fantasy
-The conclusion to this fantastic Arthurian legend. Arthur fights, becomes High King, brings peace, is wounded in a battle initiated by a traitor, is born away by Merlin ot be healed, and then all the Fairfolk[Atlanteans] and Arthur disappear. This is so much better than Mallory's Le'Mort de Arthur.