Friday, August 31, 2007

August '07

ALVIN MAKER: ALVIN JOURNEYMAN
-O.S. Card-fantasy
-400-Alvin is well on his way to creating the Crystal City. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop though.

DEATHNOTE #12
-T. Ohba-manga
-210- a satisfying conclusion. Melo dies, but Near is Triumphant over Light/Kira/NewL. Light was simply over the edge, a psycho mass murderer. But in the end, I was hoping that Kira would win, to create a better world. I REALLY liked this series. Confusing, and forcing you to read VERY carefully, but oh so worth it in the end. This series is one that I am looking forward to enjoying reading again. And quite possibly again :-)

ALVIN MAKER: HEARTFIRE
-O.S. Card-fantasy
-336-A good ending, imo, to the Alvin Maker series. Alvin has gathered a group of people with knacks who believe in the Crystal City like he does. But the book ends as they are setting out. Card does not make the mistake of actually showing the Making of the City, for that will be Heaven on Earth, and no man knows how to accurately write that out.

THE HOWLING STONES
-A.D. Foster-scifi
-330- a Humanx commonwealth novel. 2 xenobiologists uncover a great power/mystery in an aboriginal tribe on a new world. Through it, one of the protagonists comes across the "great, mindless, relentless evil" that Flynx has been tasked to deal with. A good standalone novel.

FRUITS BASKET #15-16
-N. Takaya- manga
-I am getting sick of everyone feeling sorry for themselves. If it were just a couple of people, that would be one thing, but when it is EVERY single one of the Zodiac family, all feeling "bad", it gets on my nerves. Probably because I want to read encouraging, positive stories and these don't seem to be. If Tohru is supposed to be some kind of Curse Breaker/Savior for them all, she is taking her sweet time doing it. It is just weepy/girly, too much so.

NICHOLAS NICKLEBY PART I
-C. Dickens-historical fiction
-556-a man dies, leaving his wife, son[19] and daughter[15] to the mercy of his brother. Said brother is a money-loving scoundrel. The son, Nicholas, sets out to earn money to support them while the Uncle throws the daughter[Kate] into the path of a foppish nobleman and the older lord who is leaching off of him, to entice them for money's sake. Ends with Nicholas returning to London and getting into a fight with the older lord.

DRAGON AND HERDSMAN
-T. Zahn- teen scifi
-299- The best of the Dragonback novels so far. Alison comes back into the story, Jack and Drayco find a "colony" of K'da, who seem to have reverted back to animalism, and one of them bonds with Alison and becomes intelligent again. Right at the end there are "leads" that point to Alison working for Neverlin. Personally, I think she is working for Braxton. The plot starts to be less simplistic and more "Zahn'y" ;-). I really am liking this series, the more it goes on, the better!

FOOL'S RUN
-P. McKillip- scifi
-221-what McKillip has done for her fantasy novels, she does for scifi. Incredible vivid words. Swirls, colors, thoughts, emotions. All dancing, colliding, drawing away and in the end telling a good story.

JEEVES IN THE OFFING
-P.G. Wodehouse-humor
-200-yet another story about how stupid Bertie is. This series just goes to show how dumb the idle rich become. I find it funny, but not as funny as other people do, because the sheer idiocy of the characters turns me off.

FEET OF CLAY
-T. Pratchett-comedic fantasy
-249-golems make themselves a king and some kind of Ankh-morpork politics going on. And a lady dwarf. It was just odd. Funny bits, but not funny overall.

ON STRANGER TIDES
-T. Powers-fantasy
-325-magical, piratical adventures. Follows one man who is sucked into the world of pirates and magic against his will. Many of Powers ideas from The Anubis Gates are present here: reincarnation, destiny, magic. I really enjoyed this book. Maybe more so than The Anubis Gates.

CHOBITS #1
-CLAMP-manga
-183-borders on the pornographic. Will not be reading any more.

SOURCERY
-T. Pratchett-comedic fantasy
-214- the 8th son of an 8th son is a Sourcerer. This ten year old is taken over by his father [who has escaped Death, for the time being, by becoming part of his son's staff] and the End of the World is almost brought about. Rincewind the Wizzard manages to stave it off. I love the 4 Horsemen of the Apocrylipse, they crack me up!

DRAGON AND JUDGE
-T. Zahn- teen scifi
-318- Jack goes to the planet where his parents died. Finds out that they were Judge-Paladins and that someone from Braxton Universi engineered it. Drayco and Jack are discovering even more abilities, telepathy. Alison and Taneem go off to another planet and are kidnapped by Neverlin to work on cracking the safes that tell where the rendezvous point for the incoming K'da fleet is. She succeeds. Jack also rescues a Starforce pilot who then begins to infiltrate Neverlin right at the end of the book. Enjoyable.

NICHOLAS NICKLEBY PART II
-C. Dickens-historical fiction
-548-Nicholas marries Madeline, Kate marries Frank Cheeryble, Ralph hangs himself after Smikes dies. Good prevails and Evil fails.

THE AGE OF DISCOVERY: THE NEW WORLD
-M. Stackpole-fantasy
-399-The trilogy finishes, very quickly in my opinion. The problem I had with this series were the massive number of side characters, names/places/thing/positions in italics[which made them somehow special?] and he just wrapped everything up in 2 chapters. I was hoping for something a little more drawn out. Oh well. I'll still be buying it.