April '11

STARSHIP: MUTINY
-M. Resnick-epub-163
-scifi-taking place in the same universe as the Santiago books, this is about a misfit Space Navy guy who is so disgusted at his superiors, for punishing him for doing a good job because it wasn't by the book, that he convinces a ragtag crew to turn pirate with him. I guess there are several more books in the series. I'm going to try to find them.

CIRQUE DU FREAK: KILLERS OF THE DAWN
-D. Shan-epub-129
-ya fantasy-the 3 hunters, Crepsley, the Vamp Prince and Darren, hunt down the lord of the vampaneze. Crepsley kills him at the cost of his own life and the others escape. Only to find out that Steve was the Lord all the time. So Mr Crepsley died for nothing.

CIRQUE DU FREAK: LAKE OF SOULS
-D. Shan-epub-161
-ya fantasy-Harkat Mulds is going to die. So Mr Tiny allows him and Darren to go on a quest to find out who he was in a previous life to save himself. Darren and Harkat go through adventures and find out. Then they come back and prepare to start doing stuff again in our world.

WHEEL OF TIME: THE GREAT HUNT
-R. Jordan-epub-618
-fantasy-the women go to Tar Valon to become Aes Sedai and the men go after the Horn and the dagger, otherwise Mat is going to die. The Black Ajah is revealed as a real thing, Artur Hawkwing's armies come back. Rand starts channeling for real and is pretty much recognized as the Dragon Reborn by a small group of men. He has an epic battle with Ba'alzamon and defeats him, but at the cost of taking an unhealable wound. This was fantastic. Even better, imo, than the previous book. Lots of epic'ness and glimpses into a world that is older, more mysterious and intriguing, than we can truly imagine. I am simply enjoying this without thinking of the future books, cause that would spoil things. These beginning books are the reason this series is so fantastic. It has a solid foundation.

CASTLE BRASS: QUEST FOR TANELORN
-M. Moorcock-epub-80
-fantasy-the end of the Eternal Champion series. Hawkmoon, along with Corum, Elric and Erekose [the eternal champion who remembers all his incarnations, unlike the others] must battle 2 sorcerers from outside the multiverse who want to take all its energy [hence destroying it] and use it to become greater in their own dimension. Much like the time in Elric, all 4 become 1 and defeat them. In the process, Law and Chaos and the Balance are destroyed and humanity is left to fend for itself. Hawkmoon finds his children at Tanelorn. He goes back to Castlebrass with them and his wife to live out his life instead of staying in Tanelorn. I have read the stories of Hawkmoon, Elric and Corum and after reading this, am tempted to go find out Erekose's story. A good ending to this universe of Moorcock's.

LOLITA
-V. Nabokov-epub-363
-fiction-the story of Humbert Humbert, a pedophile who is telling his own story after killing a man who lured Lolita away from him. Gist of the story-Humbert, who is european, marries a widow with a young daughter to be near the daughter. The mother dies, Humbert takes Lolita traveling around the U.S. for 2-3 years in an effort to completely possess her. She slips away. He gives up trying to find her. She comes to him for money, married and pregnant. He finds out how she slipped away. He goes and kills the man [not her husband, who is the father of her baby] and is writing his memories down to present to the jury and judge. He is a nutcase, so he writes all over the place. He is deluded, thinking he is perfectly fine and doing the best for Lolita. So it is obvious that you, the reader, cannot take at face value what the writer, Humbert, is writing. Overall, a disgusting book that gives more weight to the idea of simply killing all pedophiles instead of sending them to jail.

OTHERLAND: SEA OF SILVER LIGHT
-T. Williams-epub-1002
-scifi-the finale to the Otherland story. Dread takes over the network and wreaks havoc. The group offline figure out a way to communicate with the Other, which turns out to not be an AI, but a telepath in a satellite in earth's orbit. It destroys itself, Dread is in a life coma, Lando Gardiner is alive online only, and Mr Sellars has created a new lifeform, an electronic form, which takes off into space. The otherland Network survives as a pale imitation and is hidden away by the group until it can be integrated easily into the existing networks of the world. And there are shocking revelations about Paul, but it works out all good. Overall, a good wrap up to each storyline.
As a re-read, this series held up. It was slow going at first, confusing, but then all the threads started coming together and forming on awesome story. Since this series held up so good, I think I will go and re-read Memory, Sorrow & Thorn with a lot less trepidation.

PET SEMATARY
-S. King-dtb-411
-horror-A story about a cemetary that brings things back to life. A very long build up about a family of 4 who move to Maine, befriend an old yankee who tells the father about the cemetary. The family cat dies, so the father buries it and it comes back, but it is "off". Then the young son [pre elementary school] dies and the father buries him secretly. The son comes back possessed by whatever evil powers the cemetary and kills the wife and old neighbor. The father kills the son, burns down the neighbor's house to cover his tracks and buries his wife immediately, because he believes that the time gap is what accounted for things not working for his son. Ends with his wife coming back into the house, and the rest is left to our imagination. Now, the last 50 pages deal with the horror. The first couple of hundred are the build up and yet, that build up was just as enjoyable, if not more, than the ending. Hints about the evil of the burial ground were given, vague stories by the old yankee neighbor, myths about the Indians who created it. A sense of dread was quietly building up the entire time and you knew the son was going to die and be brought back and that nothing good would come of it. Fantastic, keep me glued to the pages, kind of writing. Makes me wonder what King could have written if he'd gone into another genre.

MECHWARRIOR: WARRIOR: EN GARDE
-M. Stackpole-epub-388
-scifi- I was really looking forward to Stackpole's writing and hoping he would make this universe interesting. I will probably not be reading any more in the mechwarrior series. I'll keep them in my library, but not on my reader. The blow by blow mech fights did nothing for me, I couldn't connect with the characters, and the multiple storylines were just wicked confusing.

MOBY DICK
-H. Melville-epub-UNFINISHED
-classic- I got half way through this and then just couldn't stomach any more. The story was interesting. The problem was that there were more chapters akin to National Geographic articles on whales than chapters dealing with the plot. Maybe someday I'll read a condensed version that has all the useless crap [and yes, chapters going into details about whales and how they are made up, or the process of catching a whale, or skinning a whale, or "whatever" a whale, are USELESS in regards to the plot] gone and I'll be able to actually read a story, but not with this version.

HULL ZERO THREE
-G. Bear-epub-256
-scifi-a man wakes up in a spaceship with little to no memory and completely disoriented. He has to figure out what is going on, to stay alive, and hook up with other "wake up"ers and make a choice that will affect the whole colony ship. This was confusing to read, a deliberate style by the author. Part way through everything you thought you knew was turned on its head. Who are the good guys, who are the bad guys, what in the world is going on, who am I? I didn't realize Greg Bear had written this before I read it and it reminded me once again that I just don't care for his stuff.

THE MAGICIANS
-L. Grossman-epub-390
-fantasy-a 17 year old is taken to an academy where he finds out magic is real and he has the gift. A coming of age story, but from the viewpoint of someone who is self-centered. All he wants is to be happy, but he is always thinking the next "thing" will make him happy. Ends with him realizing he has to make his own happiness, or some such thing. It started out really cool, but then kept descending into a depressing swirl of meaninglessness. A good look at someone with power who has no anchor point, no real meaning with their life. Not recommended.

THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS
-J. Wyndham-epub-196
-scifi-a new kind of plant is discovered/invented, one that is mobile, carnivorous, and filled with all sorts of new useful oils/chemicals. Then one night there is a meteor shower and the next day anyone who watched it is blind. Follows one man as he tries to survive the collapse of civilization. This actually had almost nothing to do with the triffids, the plants. More about the collapse of civilization as 99% of the world dies off in blindness. The triffids are just a bogeyman that appear once in a while and a future threat. Blardy, blardy blar...

MONTHLY SUMMARY
12 novels
1 unfinished novel
4157 pages