Saturday, November 28, 2009

November '09

ICEWIND DALE: THE CRYSTAL SHARD
-R.A. Salvatore-344-pbook
-fantasy-the continuing adventures of Drizz't. A magical do-hickey from the bowels of hell comes to the surface and takes over a weakminded wizard. He threatens 10 towns and it is up to Drizz't and a new character named Wulfgar to save the day. Kill dragons and demons, face down hordes and get magical weapons. Good for what it is.

THE GODLESS WORLD: WINTERBIRTH
-B. Ruckley-654-pbook
-fantasy-a world where the gods made 4 races. One went bad and the other 3 banded together and committed genocide, then turned on eachother. The gods left the world in sorrow. One race disappeared, 1 split into factions and went to the woods and the third, the humans, split into medieval style clans. This is the story about the possible fulfillment of a prophecy stating the gods would return. Honestly, very little "grand" magic, more of a blood and mud medieval story. Follows a clan that is almost wiped out. It wasn't bad, it just seemed very slow and boggy reading. Since the library doesn't have the next book, doubt I'll read it.

JAG IN SPACE: AGAINST ALL ENEMIES
-J.G. Hemry-203-epub
-scifi-the final book in the JAG in Space series. Paul has ticked off enough people that he is being reassigned to Mars. But before he goes, he has to participate in another courtmartial for someone on their ship who has been selling secrets to the SASAL's. He and Jenn get married hurriedly at the end and then that is it. Kind of a "going out with a whimper" ending. Not sure why this series was so popular.

RANMA 1/2 #15-17
-R. Takahashi
-manga

ICEWIND DALE: STREAMS OF SILVER
-R.A. Salvatore-377-pbook
-fantasy-Bruennor the dwarf, along with some others, set out to find his ancestral home that he was driven from over 2 centuries ago. Mix in an assassin going after the halfling, a wizard going after Drizz't because he thinks Drizz't has the Crystal Shard and a dragon trying to kill them all, and you get a good rollicking adventure story.

TITAN
-J. Varley-302-pbook
-scifi-a complete piece of crap from the late 70's. A spaceship encounters a huge thing and end up crashing on it. An artificial world. A quest to find the guiding intelligence behind it. Madness, perversion and drugs. Basically, this story boiled down to hardcore feminism, lesbians and cocaine. Yeah, on a self aware planetoid type thing.

KINGMAKER, KINGBREAKER: THE INNOCENT MAGE
-K. Miller-642-pbook
-fantasy- there are 2 races in a land cutoff from the rest off the world, for its own protection. A fisherman from the lower caste race becomes the trusted advisor to the Prince, a higher caste race. Their adventures that draw them together and tear them apart. The King keeps the wall of protection up, but its cost is in his blood. This book ends with the king dying and the evil ruler from the outside world taking over the royal magician and turning the prince against his advisor. I really enjoyed this. The writing just drew me in. The dialogue was clever without being shallow, the problems were big without being pretentious and the characters were very real. I look forward to reading more by Miller.

TWILIGHT: NEW MOON
-S. Meyer-563-pbook
-fantasy- my final foray into the Twilight universe. This book sucked. Bella was a completely selfish, self-centered, suicidal, insecure, self-lying bitch. If this is the type of character teen girls want to read about and emulate, then we are all doomed. But maybe we'll get lucky and all those stupid types will just off themselves and do the world a favor. Maybe that is actually Meyer's sinister secret plan. A kind of Literary Eugenics Master Plan? LEMP for short ;-)

WOLF: WOLF CAPTURED
-J. Lindskold-520-pbook
-fantasy-Firekeeper and Derian are captured and taken South, to a land where people know about Royal Beasts and use them for future telling. Firekeeper learns about her origins and how she came to be with the wolves. Lindskold takes this book down a path I was not very comfortable with. Firekeeper wants to be a wolf and be with Blindseer. Practically bestiality. I hope the rest of the books in the series turn from this path, or I'm done with them.

THE IRON ELVES: A DARKNESS FORGED IN FIRE
-C. Evans-416-pbook
-fantasy-across the Sea, there is some evil witch elf who wants to cover the world in darkness, or some such. A group of elves have been marked by her, with one ear being turned black. Such elves are called the Iron Elves and cast out from elven society. They became a group of fighters in the human empire. They were disbanded for disloyalty, before the book begins. This book deals with the reforming of the Iron Elves, only without any elves except for the Captain, who is an elf who hates nature and who nature seems to hate in return. The New Iron Elves have to fight some battle and in the end realize that they have carried out the will of the Witch Elf and everyone is all sad. Darren recommended this, so I was really looking forward to it. Didn't really care for it though. I'll read the next, but only because the library has it.

INHERITANCE: ERAGON
-C. Paolini-544-pbook
-YA fantasy- a young boy finds a dragon egg, one of the last 3 and bonds with it. Minions of the dark king come looking for him while he is away and end up razing the farm he lived at and killing his uncle. He hooks up with an old dragonrider and learns swordsmanship and dragonriding lore. Makes it to the main hideout of a group of rebels who are fighting against the evil king. Oh my, I just realized this is Star Wars on dragons. And at the end? He scry's an old man in blinding white who is going to protect him and further his training. Can you say Tolkien? Not bad really, but nothing really wonderful. Good YA stuff to hook them.

ICEWIND DALE:THE HALFLING'S GEM
-R.A. Salvatore-378-pbook
-fantasy-Drizz't and company go rescue Regis, the overreaching greedy halfing. Ends at Cattie Brie and Wulfgar's wedding. This stuff is one step up from the Mars series by Burroughs. But palatable, unlike Burroughs :-)

KINGMAKER, KINGBREAKER: THE AWAKENED MAGE
-K. Miller-712-pbook
-fantasy-the finish to this duology. Morg takes over the next in line to be king and becomes king. Has Asher executed and the Prince exiled. Asher is spirited away and comes back to finish off Morg. While this book was longer, it seemed shorter, a lot shorter. While Innocent seemed to be about Asher's journey from fisherman to Olken noble, Awakened seemed a rush to finish the story.

ALCATRAZ VERSUS THE SCRIVENER'S BONES
-B. Sanderson-322-pbook
-YA fantasy-Alcatraz is on his way to a safe place when he gets a call from his Grandfather, who is at the Library of Alexandria. The stronghold of the Librarians. His dad has entered and his Grandfather is going in after him. So Alcatraz, along with some new relatives, take a detour to rescue everyone. Interesting. Not as funny as the first one, but it might be because I was expecting it.

CASTINGS: BLOOD TIES
-P. Freeman-461-pbook
-fantasy-1000 years ago, one group of people invaded a land and dispossessed another group. This book deals with the remnants of that dispossessed and how some want revenge. The format was different. Each chapter, whether 1 page or 50 pages, followed one character. And it switched between at least 10 different characters. By the end of the book you began to see the hint of an outline of how all these different threads were coming together. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to reading the rest of this trilogy.

CLONE: THE CLONE REPUBLIC
-S. Kent-384-pbook
-military scifi-the galaxy is ruled by the U.A.[Unified Authority]. Their will is enforced by an army of clones, who are programmed to not know they are clones. One man, Wayson, is a new type of clone, promptly discontinued, because he is self-aware and has an insatiable bloodlust in battle. Basically about his rise through the ranks and the politic'ing going on around him. It was an ok read, but I am just not a big fan of military scifi overall. Won't be reading any more in the Clone series.

INHERITANCE: ELDEST
-C. Paolini-668-pbook
-YA fantasy-Paolini definitely matured between the writing of this book and Eragon. This is a lot more original but still keeps the solid foundation. Very enjoyable. Eragon comes into his own as a rider, only to have to fight against Murtaugh, his brother, who has been turned by Galbatorix.

LEGACY OF THE DROW: THE LEGACY
-R.A. Salvatore-316-pbook
-fantasy-the next series in the Drizz't series. The dwarves have taken control of the mines. Drizz't's sister regains Lolth's favor so she attempts to hunt down Drizz't with Entreri's help [the assassin]. Regis is kidnapped and used as a pawn and the group must enter the Underdark to rescue him and to free Drizz't from the Drow. Cattie-Bri and Wulfgar have a falling out and Wulfgar apparently dies while in battle with one of Lolth's servants.

ETHAN STARKE: STARKE'S WAR
-J. Hemry-216-epub
-scifi-a sergeant is sent to the moon to take everything for the US. The US has fallen under the power of corporations, who have bought the powers that be in Washington. Who in turn micromanage the army, from the backlines. After yet another disastrous fight in which inept generals chew up a whole division following a plan that had no basis in reality, Starke mutinies and takes over.

ETHAN STARKE: STARKE'S COMMAND
-J. Hemry-210-epub
-scifi-Starke makes a truce with the civ population, fights off mercenaries hired by the gov't and deals with a betrayal from within. Lots of fighting and action. The one thing that kind of turned me off was how dumb and hick'ish Starke can view himself. Someone who can make the smart decisions he does is not stupid and yet he can sit back and pretend his is just a dumb soldier.

ETHAN STARKE: STARKE'S CRUSADE
-J. Hemry-218-epub
-scifi-A final push by a corrupt gov't fails, a populace demanding their rights and other countries snapping at the US's heels all lead to the fall of the current regime, the moon colony becoming another state and Starke and Co getting pardons and living happily ever after. This was much more enjoyable than the JAG in Space series, but still had that civic's lesson taste to it.