NOBLE DEAD: CHILD OF A DEAD GOD
-B. & JC Hendee-fantasy
-464-Magierre and Co go to the place she's been seeing in her dreams, brought upon by the black cloud thing. Get there, find some ultra-powerful artifact, leave and go their separate ways. This sucked. It was nothing but bickering, fighting, distrust and non-hope the whole way through. There was no joy, no light, no happiness. If the next book's tone is the same, I will be done with this series.
NIGHT ANGEL: BEYOND THE SHADOWS
-B. Weeks-fantasy
-720- the conclusion. A LOT happens. I'm still confused, to be honest. People pop back up from the dead, have new names, get possessed, get un-possessed, lots of battles, prophecies, etc, etc. Honestly, I felt like I was in a maelstrom reading this book. Just dragged along for the ride. Weeks did such a good job of weaving so much together that I can't pick particular threads to write about, it was all woven so tight. Blint coming back and his ability to still use the little black magic thing was a bit much though. Needs to be edited for profanity.
STAR WARS: FATE OF THE JEDI: OMEN
-C. Goldman-fantasy
-272-Jysella Horn [Corin and Mirax's daughter] goes nutso. More politic'ing between the Jedi and the GA. Luke and Ben trace Jacen's path of travels. And Ship [the sith ship] finds the Sith World and starts training them. Opening things up for another fall of the Jedi and ascendancy of Sith. Kind of sad.
YU-GI-OH! MILLENNIUM WORLD #1-7
-K. Takahashi-manga
-I really didn't enjoy this series. Going back thousands of years in Yugioh's memories to change fate. A bunch of old world style duels with stone tablets, sucked really. One final duel between Yugioh and Yugi to send Yugioh [the pharaoh] peacefully to the afterlife.
THE RIVER INTO DARKNESS: THE COMPASS OF THE SOUL
-S. Russell-fantasy
-353-whew. This was SLOW! Just like McKillip has her own unique style, so does Russell it appears. It is definitely not for everyone and I am hesitant to read any more of his stuff. Basically, Eldrich [the mage] stops the last of the Tellerites [rogue mages who want the arts to continue] and uses tons of people to gain this end. A sad and melancholic story. Not nearly as enthralling as the Swan's War trilogy.
JURASSIC WORLD: THE LOST WORLD
-M. Crichton-science fiction
-390-the novel sequel to Jurassic Park. Another island, Site B, is discovered by a scientist friend of Ian Malcom [who doesn't die, it turns out] and he finances an expedition. Malcom along with 3 engineers/designers and 2 stowaway kids go to the island. Everything goes wrong, as Malcom predicts and dinosaurs eat people. This was a rehash, and not a very good one. I can see why the movie added lots of people [to get eaten!]. Jurassic Park was cool, this was tired.
THE LONG PRICE QUARTET: A SHADOW IN SUMMER
-D. Abraham-fantasy
-304-a loose confederacy of kingdoms keep the rest of the world at bay with the power of Andats. Andats are beings forced into physical form by poets and they have the power of their name. Seedless is the andat in this story. He removes all the seeds from wool, in the blink of an eye. Gives the kingdom a huge economic advantage. He can also remove the living seed from anything. So if another kingdom attacks, he would be used to kill all the unborn babies and destroy all the crops of that particular kingdom. However, andats don't want to exist in our world, so they are constantly fighting their owners/poets to escape. Seedless sets up a scenario where he is working with the enemies of his poet. He intrigues so that the poet repeats a horrible deed from his past, unknowingly, until after the fact, in the hopes of breaking the poet so he kills himself and frees Seedless. The story is from the perspective of a young man who walked away from the poet's school and who has become a common laborer. A very complex world, but so sad. Nobody is happy. There is no joy, no happiness. Everyone is concerned with money, power, etc, etc. No one is content, but yearning after something, usually something out of their reach. Seedless succeeds in gaining his freedom and the kingdom falls.
THE LONG PRICE QUARTET: A BETRAYAL IN WINTER
-D. Abraham-fantasy
-291-turns out the common laborer from the previous book is an heir to another kingdom, except heirs figure out who is going to rule by killing off all the competition. Brother against brother. However, this time a sister enters secretly so she can have her lover/husband be the new king. So the sister conspires with outside forces to kill off all the brothers and blame it all on the main character. In the end the sister is revealed the hidden heir takes over. So much betrayal, backstabbing, fear, loneliness. It was not enjoyable and I don't know if I'll be reading the next book in the series.
THE ELVEN WAYS: THE FOUR FORGES
-J. Rhodes-fantasy
-547-a world where elves suddenly descended after mages had wiped themselves out. For hundreds of years the elves have been trying to remember where they came from and how to get back there. This follows 2 halfbloods. One becomes the spy for the queen of the elves and the other grows up with a dweller [think hobbit/dwarf cross] family. The elves have accords to not war with eachother and this series deals with how those accords are failing. In this novel, a renegade elf forces demons into weapons to make them super-powerful. And it comes down to the 2 halfbloods to stop him. I will probably read this series but no other by the author. It just wasn't interesting enough to me to search out her other stuff.
DELVER MAGIC: SANCTUM'S BREACH
-J. Inlo-fantasy ebook
-449-magic was all sucked up into a sphere hundreds of years ago and sealed away because it had become tainted and was destroying the land. The seal has been breached by the sphere itself [it has become semi-selfaware] and it is up to a small group of various races to find it and destroy it. This must have been Inlo's first book or something. It was almost painful to read. I think he had a thesaurus by his side when he wrote because his descriptions are always with words that are "too much". It was very shallow, very amateur. Not a good impression for a first book. Hopefully he improves with the next books in the trilogy.
RANMA 1/2 #1-8
-R. Takahashi-manga
