Friday, September 24, 2010

September '10

STORMLIGHT ARCHIVES: THE WAY OF KINGS
-B. Sanderson-epub-1035
-fantasy-the first in a 10 book series [or so touted by the publishers with no denial by Sanderson]. Epic fantasy. This was very hard to get into. I was over the 500page mark before I really found things getting interesting. Things were broken up between 3 main characters and I felt like not enough time was given for each character at once, ie, needed bigger chunks at a time for each character. Then in the interludes we get short little threads about side characters we know nothing about but it appears will be appearing in future books. Overall, I felt like I had been duped into spending a very large amount of time on something I didn't really enjoy. I kept expecting things to "get better" but it took until over the 800page mark for that to happen. I doubt I will be reading these books as they come out, but will wait til 3 or 4 have accumulated, then play catch up. Felt like this book failed to live up to its hype, which is sad since I've really, really enjoyed everything of Sanderson's so far [well, except for War Breaker].

SNOW CRASH
-N. Stephenson-epub-520
-cyberpunk-wasn't really expecting to enjoy this, and was very pleasantly surprised. A kooky rich eccentric is trying to take over everyone's brains with some sort of mental virus. Lots of references to old religions, etc, etc. Very fast paced, action packed and ends with a bang. And swords. Wicked cool.

LEGENDS OF SHANNARA: BEARERS OF THE BLACKSTAFF
-T. Brooks-epub-336
-fantasy-taking place after the Genesis of Shannara trilogy. 500 years later, the ward of protection Hawk placed wears out. The valley has split into factions, mainly based on species, but the world outside has survived too, albiet, all the nasty strong things. Inside the Knights of the Word devolved into outcasts who forgot their history. Follows 2 humans, both who have magic potential, as the valley is about to be invaded by trolls. One of the them is a candidate for the blackstaff and it looks like he will probably be the founder of the wizards. Typical Brooks, with nothing stunning, but nonetheless, an interesting story, mainly because we want to know how things get to the world of The Sword of Shannara.

LIGHTBRINGER: THE BLACK PRISM
-B. Weeks-epub-609
-fantasy- A world in which magic is manifested through colors. Different colors have different effects, and most magic workers can handle 1, maybe 2, colors. Only the Prism, ruler of a bunch of small kingdoms, can use all 7 colors. This was cool because it follows a fat boy who turns out to be the Prism's bastard from 15 years before the book. There is supposed to be only 1 Prism in a generation, but there were 2 back then, and a war to determine the True Prism. This series is dealing with the after effects of that war. Lots of politic'ing and intrigue and fighting. In some ways it reminded of The Mistborn Trilogy, in which it is posited that the good guy is the badguy, or vice versa or all jumbled up. Very interesting plot points. Thankfully Weeks' use of foul language is somewhat curbed, making this a more enjoyable read than his Night Angel books.

RIYRIA REVELATIONS: THE EMERALD STORM
-M. Sullivan-epub-380
-fantasy- yet another rollicking chapter in the Riyria Revelations tale. Royce and Hadrian get their butts kicked, only they don't realize it until near the end of the book. Was good to see that they weren't all powerful characters with no weaknesses. Vague hints portend some horrible Event in the near future, which with only 2 books to go, makes me kind of nervous. The only bad thing I have to say about this was the formatting of the file itself, not the story. There were numerous [over 10] cases where words were kind of piled into eachother, ie, "He would have loto hurt him some" which translated would be "He would have loved to hurt him some". Also, there were orphan html commands, notably paragraph or line break commands. Will buy another copy sometime and see if it is a store thing or just a bad release by the author/publisher.

THE THREE INVESTIGATORS: SECRET OF TERROR CASTLE
-R. Arthur-epub-79
-children's mystery- Having read many of the books in this series in elementary school, it was interesting to go back and read one again. Will not be reading anymore. Fantastic reading for a child, just not meant for adults. I shall leave them with the fond memories of my childhood.

ARTEMIS FOWL
-E. Colfer-epub-143
-YA fantasy-a young genius, from a crime family, gets involved with stealing gold from the fairie folk. An interesting idea of trying to make the protagonist a bad guy, walking the fine line between making you like him and still keeping him as a villain.

ANCESTOR
-S. Sigler-dtb-421
-scifi-really should be classified as medical/drama. Basically an update/relocate of Jurassic Park. People muck about with genes, make a super monster, a bunch get loose on an island, almost everybody gets eaten, a select few escape. I really enjoyed this, but there was not a single ounce of originality in this. Good escapist book.

DIRK GENTLY: THE LONG DARK TEA TIME OF THE SOUL
-D. Adams-epub-199
-fantasy-a blase book in which Dirk Gently is involved with ancient Norse Gods, a contract for a god's soul and some random woman, all mishmashed together in a nonsensical format that hardly anybody could enjoy.

STAR WARS: CLONE WARS GAMBIT: STEALTH
-K. Miller-epub-293
-fantasy- a nasty bioweapon plan is uncovered and Anakin and Obi-Wan must go under cover, in Separatist territory, to figure out a way to destroy it without further extending Republic Forces. Once again, as seems to be on par with these Clone Wars novels, there is nothing really exciting to read about. You see Anakin continue down the path towards Darth Vader, but other than that, I really find the adventures boring.

THE GUARDIANS OF THE FLAME: THE SWORD AND THE CHAIN
-J. Rosenberg-dtb-251
-fantasy-in which the group is back in the fantasy world. They free some slaves, start their own little village and some of the group go out and encounter what turns out to be Excalibur. and the wizard\professor who sent them there turns out to be Merlin in our world. Lots of dumb crap about freeing slaves and such. The main problem I had with that was that there was NO real world view for not having slaves. None of the main characters believe in a god who loves everyone and sacrifices for them. Only by believing that there is One God who created All Men, and hence that all men have equal worth and due the respect of a created being, will there be motivation for slavery to be stamped out. If you just "believe it is wrong", your motivation will fizzle.

BIOS
-R. Wilson-dtb-251
-scifi-a humanistic book in which everybody dies just so the author can wax eloquent on his pet philosophical point. Not really enjoyable and will not be reading any more by this author.

MONTHLY SUMMARY
12 novels
4517 pages