Bookstooge's Reviews On the Road

Friday, October 18, 2019

The Ministry of Healing (Non-Fiction) ★★★☆☆

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Title: The Ministry of Healing
Series: ---------
Author: Ellen White
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Non-Fiction
Pages: 355
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

White reiterates how Jesus' ministry was as much physical healing as it was a forgiving of sins. She then talks to physicians and nurses about how they should ministering to both soul and body in their duties. Finally, she goes over various healthful habits that the laity can do on their own to help keep themselves healthy, thus ensuring that they are able to reach out to non-Christians.

My Thoughts:

Most of my issues with this book are the same exact ones that I had with The Great Controversy. So no need to re-hash them all. With just a couple of exceptions. Those I will add right now.

White claims that cheese is completely unfit for human consumption. My guess is because the process of creating cheese is pretty much letting milk rot. Be that as it may, I vehemently disagree. I'll agree that cheese can be unhealthy in terms of fat and cholesterol, but completely unfit for consumption? I don't think so! I would give up beef before I give up cheese (and to be honest, I really don't eat red meat any more. Turkeys and chickens for me). The second issue is her saying that pickles aren't to be eaten either. I'm not nearly as big a proponent of pickles as I am cheese, but I regularly eat a small jar of Vlasic kosher dill spears every week. For me, they are a great way to get salt back into my system from the physical labor I do all day and get some yummy crunch. They serve a purpose and I am not just eating them for the taste (even though I do like the taste of dill pickles a lot).

With that out of the way, I'll talk some about what I do agree with. Just like in my Quote Post earlier this month, White directly addresses Appetite. All aspects of a Christian's life is to be under the control of the Holy Spirit. A loss of self-control, which is one of the Fruits of the Spirit, shows that you aren't as mature as God wants you to be in your Christian Growth. And a deliberate loss of control is a spurning of what God offers you. Overeating is a small thing in and of itself, but the consequences of a life of overeating lead to what we see in America today (obesity numbers ballooning up and causing all sorts of health issues) AND it shows that Christ is not in control of your life, your Appetite is. Gluttony isn't something we hear preached about from the pulpit any more, but considering the typical American lifestyle, I think it should be. White wrote this back in 1905 and it is just as appropriate today as then, if not more so.

Alcohol. I am a teetotaler, someone who abstains from alcohol completely. I was brought up this way and nothing I've seen in in other's lives, even Christians, makes me think that another option is open to me. White was part of the Temperance Movement of her times, which had a big hand in passing Prohibition back in the 20's. Where White and I part ways is that she categorically condemns alcohol. That goes beyond what the Bible says. The Bibles tells Christians to NEVER get drunk but it does not forbid alcohol. However, the amount of people who can walk that line is small and from my own anecdotal evidence, should not be used to justify drinking at all. I don't think Christians should drink. The negatives of alcohol far outweigh the positives and I have seen too many lives destroyed, or seen the collateral damage from such a self-destruction. It is like having a lion on the end of a chain attached to your wrist.

Finally, White goes over the importance of proper dress (both for modesty and health), fresh air, exercise and proper ventilation in any living quarters. A lot of the specifics are kind of like “well yeah...” to anyone who lives today, but it just goes to show how far ahead of her time White was. I also found that most of these things I was already doing, as I work outdoors at a physically laborious job.

To end this, I would re-title this something along the lines of “Aunt Ellen's Big Book of Homilies”. Bits and pieces of wisdom but not something you should create any theology from.

★★★☆☆

Monday, October 14, 2019

The Ragged Man (Twilight Reign #4) ★★★★☆

Title: The Ragged Man
Series: Twilight Reign #4
Author: Tom Lloyd
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 612
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

At the end of the previous book Isak killed the son of Lord Styrax, the most powerful man in the world. In his rage, Styrax did not just kill Isak, but sent him directly to Ghenna (hell) to be tortured forever. Isak had dreamed about this scenario and he and his friend Mihn, the failed Harlequin, had set in motion a plan. Mihn had covered himself in magical tattoos of invisibility to both physical and spiritual entities. With the help of a witch, Mihn travels to Ghenna and recovers Isak. Upon their return though, Isak is a thoroughly broken man and it is up to Mihn to nurse him back to some normalcy.

Styrax is a broken man by the death of his son and heir and it takes the child Azeur to snap him out of his funk and to begin leading his Menin army again. Azeur posits a passive coalition with Styrax without revealing it's actual goal and Styrax agrees. Styrax forces a non-aggression pact with the Farlan since Lord Isak is dead and half their army destroyed. They accept since if they refuse they'll face civil war. This allows Styrax to concentrate on the one man who might be able to stop him, King Emin.

Azeur has set in motion its plans for the Harlequin nation and has recruited them to act as preachers and messengers for it. They begin by slightly changing their stories to make the gods appear more buffoonish or tyrannical or any extreme than originally intended. The Harlequins also begin preaching about a child savior that will lead the entire land without any interference from the gods. King Emin sees the danger of this and hires men and women to kill these preachers. Many Harlequins are killed but almost nobody understands what is going on, as Harlequins have always been neutral parties before this.

Styrax and his army marches on the kingdom of Narkang and begins razing it to the ground. Isak and Emin concoct a plan, one throw of the dice, where all will be won or lost. Emin confronts Styrax and his army at a castle and a huge battle ensues. Isak catches Styrax in a trap because he doesn't try to kill him. Isak forces the gods to help him and they strip all memories of Styrax from the land and take Styrax's identity from him. Styrax is now the Ragged Man, a legend of a man who lost his soul and now kills in the shadows to try to get it back. The Menin army falls apart without any memory of Styrax but Emin and the kingdom of Narkang have paid for this victory in more blood than they can truly afford.

Azeur can begin its plans in earnest now that Styrax isn't around to keep it in check.

My Thoughts:

You know, I've said it before, but I am watching Lloyd's writing skill increase right before my eyes with this series. The first 2 books were pretty rough but now, things are flowing smoothly. His skill in handling multiple points of view no longer leaves me stumbling about and the awkwardness from before is almost gone. It's not perfect, but it is noticeably different. I'm trying to think if I've ever noticed such a skill increase from an author before? Maybe I never started with one that was so amateurish though. But whatever, this was good!

Mihn's journey to hell and back was a bit slow and not very action oriented. It had me worried that the entire book was going to be like that. Thankfully, once the main story switched back to Styrax and King Emin, things got moving. The battle at the end of the book was massive. It was enjoyable. It was everything I wanted from a big epic fantasy book.

While I had serious reservations about recommending this series based on the previous books, I'd now recommend this series as long as you're willing to deal with Lloyd's lack of skill in the first couple of books. I realize that is a back-handed compliment, but it's the truth. But even with that, I'd still recommend starting with Lloyd's God Fragments series. It starts off, skill-wise, where Twilight Reign ends.

★★★★☆

Tuesday, October 08, 2019

War Factory (Polity: Transformation #2) ★★★★☆

Title: War Factory
Series: Polity: Transformation #2
Author: Neal Asher
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 472
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

There are viewpoints from: Captain Blight and Crew, who Penny Royal the Black AI hitches rides with; Sverl the Prador who is turning into a human, prador and AI, Thorvald Spear who started out hunting down Penny Royal and now carries out its wishes; Cvorn the Prador who is trying to re-start the war between the Polity and the Prador Kingdom; Oberon the King of the Prador who seems to be a Spatterjay virus infected Prador who is trying to change his subjects so they can survive long term; and finally The Brockle, a forensic AI who pretty much tortures people and other AI who have committed crimes until the Polity gets what they want from the criminals, the Brockle considers Penny Royal to be the biggest criminal in the Polity to date.

Penny Royal seems to be trying to figure something out but nobody is sure exactly what that is. In the process it is fixing many of its past mistakes, most of which are included in the list of POV's above.

The End Point is Room 101, a War Factory (hence the name of the book) from the war and the journey is getting everyone there at the proper time.

My Thoughts:

It has only been 3 years since I last read this but really, aside from from a couple of overall things, it was like reading a brand new book. It probably doesn't help that the synopsis is so vague because of how many viewpoints there are that are interweaving for the whole book.

Speaking of viewpoints, Asher handled them like a champ. Unlike that rat custard Gwynne, I never got annoyed reading them during this book. When a view point would change, I never felt like I was leaving something undone and wanted to stay. Asher wove his story adroitly and expertly and I for one appreciated that.

The only real downside was that Asher once again delves into crustacean sex, like he did in one of his spatterjay books. I don't know why he finds giant crabs doing it exciting, but he sure does. Doesn't matter if it is used as a device to kill Cvorn later on, but having Cvorn cut off a younger crabs genitals, stitch them on himself and then use them to have sex for again for the first time in decades is just not something I really want to read about. However, it is unique. So if you are looking for a unique reading experience, you'll get that here!

I did like how Asher delves into what is murder. Being an atheist, he approaches it from the complete cessation of existence. So a society that can recreate an entity if they've recorded themselves onto crystal has to decide what is murder. Asher, like many technologists of today, simply assumes that the brain and every biological part, CAN be recorded and that we are nothing but a collection of data. It doesn't bother me because this is a universe in which AI exist. Throw in some dragons and the probability factor doesn't actually change, if you know what I mean.

Half of the action was spaceship oriented, which isn't my thing, but thankfully the other half was all groundpounder action. Now THAT is my thing.

★★★★☆

Friday, October 04, 2019

Dark Sky (Keiko #2) ★☆☆☆☆ DNF@5%

Title: Dark Sky
Series: Keiko #2
Author: Mike Brooks
Rating: 1 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 352/DNF@5%
Format: Digital Edition

My Thoughts:

Captain Ichabod Drift and the crew are on a Federation world enjoying the money they got from the hidden accounts in the previous book. Ichabod is approached by the Business Man/Crime Lord of the world and hired to pick up some financial data from another world in the system.

When the Crew arrive, they find out the contact is being blackmailed to do the Crime Lord's dirty work. He threatens the crew with withholding the info unless they take him and his husband offworld to a safe world.

★☆☆☆☆

Dark Run (Book 1)

Thursday, September 26, 2019

The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard ★★☆☆☆ DNF@55%

Title: The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard
Series: ----------
Author: Jerry Ballard
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 1199/DNF@55%
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

A massive collection of short stories by the author Jerry Ballard. Mainly from the 60's and 70's, Ballard's stories one and all revolved around broken characters; broken mentally, broken physically, broken emotionally, broken psychologically, broken in any way you can imagine. The world is dystopian, hope has been removed and the inexorable pessimistic fate for humanity cannot be thwarted.

My Thoughts:

Ballard was a qualified writer, ie, he knew his craft and did it well. However, his style and subject matter destroyed any positives for me in that aspect. In the over 600 pages I read I would have expected SOME variety in the stories but nope, uniform brokenness was what Ballard thought and what he wrote. By the time I'd decided to DNF this, I wasn't even depressed, I was simply bored. I imagine I felt like what an art connoisseur would have felt like if Edvard Munch had only painted Scream style paintings.

At the 25% mark I was raging inside. The brokenness of the characters really had gotten to me and I was sick that Ballard could write such people over and over and over. Every man was a coward in one way or another, every woman a harpy or drone. Then like I said earlier, I just got bored. You can only read the same type of character and story so many times before it stops having an impact.

Originally, this book was published in 2 separate volumes and honestly, I think that was the correct choice. This 1 volume was just too big. Maybe if you wanted to slowly read a story here and there every day or week and you could set this down whenever you wanted, you'd not get bored. I still would have gotten bored though and there was no way I was going to spend a prolonged time period with this author's outlook. One week of reading it every day, approximately 100 pages a day (anywhere from 4-10 stories), was enough.

Ballard also hasn't aged well. The wonders of psychology would solve all the problems, but of course with Ballard that was misused so it would create all the problems. In one story psychologists had been outlawed by a right-wing world order and the main character had gone to jail for trying to help someone in an underground psychology session. I don't see Ballard becoming an enduring author. To the dustbins of history with him I say!

Finally, I couldn't help but compare this massive collection to the volumes of short stories by Asimov that I read back in '16. That was also a 2 volume collection, Volume One and Volume Two and together they about equaled the same number of pages as this. Their tone however, was much more positive and upbeat, which allowed the more negative stories in that collection to be more of a savory contrast, like sweet and sour chicken. Ballard was just sour chicken. That is only yummy if you're a sick, sick individual.

★★☆☆☆

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Necropolis (Warhammer 40K: Gaunt's Ghosts #3) ★★★☆½

Title: Necropolis
Series: Warhammer 40K: Gaunt's Ghosts #3
Author: Dan Abnett
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 416
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

The world of Verghast is comprised of Hive cities, which are great manufactoring cities that enable the Empire to continue its war against Chaos. Rivalries exist however and war between cities is not unknown. One such war breaks out and the city we read about call on the Empire for help, as their capture will severely curtail the current Crusade in space.

Gaunt, his Ghosts and several other Imperial forces descend to put an end to the spat. However, things are not at all what they seem. The head of the city is insane and tries to open it up to the enemies. The enemies are revealed to be the entire population of the opposing Hive city, all chaos tainted into fanatical death troopers. It is also revealed that some higher Chaos lord, Asphodel, is behind it all.

Gaunt and Co destroy the enemy but effectively lose the city in the process. The book ends with the surviving population heading off to start 2 new smaller Hive cities and most of the militia and those who fought with Gaunt becoming part of the Ghosts, as they too lost their home.

My Thoughts:

I think this was the darkest Gaunt's Ghost book yet. The Ghost's rival, the Bluebloods, led by some Captain or General, pretty much loses it and the general tries to run away. Gaunt, as a Commisar, sentences him on the spot and gives him his gun to kill himself. The coward turns it on Gaunt and Gaunt has to kill him. About time as far as I was concerned. Those bluebloods were bad news for everybody.

The body count was in the millions. People die in such large numbers that it was almost incomprehensible. I also didn't even bother to keep track of peoples' names because chances were greater that they would be dead in the next chapter than not. The focus was more on the politics dividing the city and on the workers who were fighting in the trenches.

In many ways this felt like a campaign scenario from the game Warhammer40K. I could almost hear the dungeonmaster (or whatever the controller in a game of WH40K is called) telling the facts of what the players were facing and the dice rolling. Scent of a Gamer is a blogger I follow who does miniatures and I kept picturing posts from his blog about various projects he's done.

I have been wondering how 30,000 Ghosts were going to last 10+ books when we lose so many each book. Well this book answered that in spades. Take on survivors from other lost worlds. Now we'll have to see if what makes the Ghosts the Ghosts morphs into something else with the influx of new blood.

Overall I enjoyed this and while it threatened to get a little too dark for me it never crossed that threshhold.

★★★☆½

All My "Gaunt's Ghosts" Reviews

Thursday, September 19, 2019

We Will Build (Kurtherian Gambit #8) ★★★☆½

Title: We Will Build
Series: Kurtherian Gambit #8
Author: Michael Anderle
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: SF
Pages: 356
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Things are REALLY starting to move. A Forsaken from Asia pops her head up to cause problems and Bethany Ann and her Chosen smack her down so hard it's not even funny. Michael and BA hook up. The Analyst woman from the previous book realizes she is the dupe for a super black agency and asks BA and Company for help. Said Black Agency realizes something is going on at the former military base and sends in a spy. Who gets captured by some vamp guards and everything he knows is dragged out of him.

The scientists are planning for a moon base and buy some land in a South American country that never participated in any legal agreements about Space. Therefore the shell company doesn't have to worry about any superpowers making legal claims. They send a bunch of sealed containers into space to make the first Moon base and televise it. BA's way of letting the world know her Company exists. Also a way to draw in more manpower. BA is also thinking about making more vamps as regular humans just can't handle everything she needs handled.

ADAM begins taking down malicious hackers and working on a way to stop the Chinese dead in the water, as they have backdoors all over the world.

My Thoughts:

Much better than the previous book. No crap at the end of the book.

This wasn't so much a book as I think of it, with a beginning, middle and end like a traditional novel. This was a very long chapter in the saga of Bethany Ann. It's what happens when writers go “serial”. Not necessarily a bad thing but something to be aware of.

Time is something that I did notice that wasn't handled real well. A character makes a reference about something that happened early and uses the words “years ago”. While it was true, almost no thought is given to how time passes and so it becomes a non-starter for the reader. It does make it feel like everything is happening within a month, even as you know it is physically impossible.

My final complain, before I start on the positives, is how BA is gathering power to herself and the author excuses her tyranny (and trust me, it IS tyranny) is how good and wonderful she is. There are no checks and balances. BA is the ultimate Mary Sue and she'll never have a bad day or kill people wrongly or do anything wrong, thus it is ok that she's the End and All for any decision. I realize this is fiction, but ignoring human nature so blatantly is a bit off putting. I would certainly oppose her if she was a real person with that kind of power. Every imperfect Power needs a Check of equal power. And since she's sexing it up with Michael, no one else is even close to being able to keep her accountable.

On to the good stuff.

I really liked the whole space/moonbase side of things. Showing the world they exist and are making a run to colonize the moon was great. It also opens up writing options for Anderle. He can now use shadow'y government agencies from the world over to be the new bad guys since BA has basically taken down every Forsaken. I hope we get some more creditable bad guys, as the Forsaken have been steamrolled in every instance.

Speaking of steamrolling, the action scenes were once again pretty good. Anderle might not write the best fighting scenes ever, but he writes what people who are reading this kind of book are looking for. I was satisfied.

After the last book where I questioned if I could continue the series this book brought me back on track and I foresee no problems as long as things stay at this level.

★★★☆½

All My "Kurtherian Gambit" Reviews

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Spoils of War (Tales of the Apt #1) ★★★★☆

Title: Spoils of War
Series: Tales of the Apt #1
Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 278
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

A collection of 8 (I believe, I didn't keep track) short stories taking place in the world of the Shadows of the Apt. However, these stories all take place before the first book, Empire in Black and Gold begins. Definitely meant for fans who have already read the entire decalogy and want more.

My Thoughts:

I am a fan of collections of short stories by a single author. You get lots of ideas and little bits and bobs without having to commit a huge amount of time. This book was under 300 pages, so each story was something I could sit down with and read in a sitting and not feel like I had started something that I needed a week to commit to. It was perfect for lunch breaks and an hour or whatever in the evening.

The stories themselves I enjoyed but none of them really stood out to me. However, that is how I usually am with collections like this so it isn't a slur on the book, but a reflection on me. While I do review every book I read, I have never felt like I needed to review every story in a collection like this. I don't like writing THAT much :-)

Tchaikovsky also gave a little note after each story with an anecdote of how it came to be or how a character tied into the Shadows series. It was enjoyable but also made me realize that even side characters who I'd completely forgotten about played a big part in the author's mind when he was writing. Good for him, I guess?

Most of the stories dealt with the 12 Year War between the Empire and the entity ruled by the dragonfly, the Commonweal perhaps? I can't remember. Thoroughly enjoyable but I'm not sure I'd recommend this for someone who hasn't read the Shadows series first. A lot is assumed here in terms of understanding the Kinden. That kind of thing is explained in the Shadows series so it's not a stumbling block coming into this, but if you were just starting out with this, I can see it being very confusing.

Final verdict is that I enjoyed the bejabs out of this and highly recommend it for anyone who has read and enjoyed the main Shadows series.

★★★★☆

All My "Shadows of the Apt" Reviews

Friday, September 13, 2019

Fellowship of the Ring (Lord of the Rings #1) ★★★★☆

Title: Fellowship of the Ring
Series: Lord of the Rings #1
Author: John Tolkien
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 432
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Bilbo, after the events from The Hobbit, has settled down to a nice slightly eccentric life. He adopts one of his nephews, Frodo, as his heir and begins to write his memoirs. On his One Hundred and Eleventieth birthday, Bilbo disappears and leaves everything to Frodo. Only Gandalf knows that Bilbo has gone to Rivendell.

Several decades later Gandalf visits Frodo and reveals that the little gold ring that allowed Bilbo to turn invisible, and that he left to Frodo, is actually a ring of great power, possibly The One Ring that was made by Sauron to control all the other rings of power. Gandalf tells Frodo he needs to go to Rivendell to take counsel and that he, Gandalf, will return in a year to help guide him there.

A year passes and no word of Gandalf. Frodo has been preparing and his cover story is that he is moving to Buckland, another settlement of hobbits. Two of his cousins, Merry and Pippin, along with Frodo's gardener Sam, have all been helping him move. On the way to Buckland, Frodo runs into a black rider that inspires complete unreasoning terror in his heart. No longer knowing who to trust, Frodo and his companions begin their trek to Rivendell.

Having several adventures, the hobbits meet up with Strider, a human ranger who Gandalf trusted. They all head for Rivendell, doing their best to avoid the attention of the Black Riders, who Strider reveals are Ringwraiths, Sauron's powerful underlings. The Group makes it to Rivendell and Gandalf shows up. He tells them that the head of the Wizard's Council, Saruman the White, has been corrupted by a lust for power. Now the world must deal with Sauron and Sarumon, both who want the One Ring for the power it contains. Elrond, the elven lord of Rivendell, tells that the Ring will corrupt any being who uses it and that it must be destroyed. The only way to destroy it is to cast it back into the fiery Mount Doom from which it was created.

A Company is gathered. They set out. Hindered in many ways, they must eventually decide what they are going to do with the Ring. Gandalf perishes defending them from a Balrog, a being almost equal in power to Sauron himself. Eventually, one of the Companions, a human named Boromir, falls under the influence of the Ring and tries to take it from Frodo.

Frodo flees, along with Sam and heads off on his own towards Mt Doom. The book ends with the Fellowship breaking apart and heading their own ways.

My Thoughts:

This is going to be a lot shorter of a review than my 2012 one.

I enjoyed this but was not raving about it. A thoroughly good story that is at once personal and cozy and yet epic in scope all at the same time. It is no wonder that this trilogy ended up spawning the Fantasy Genre as we know it today.

The reason this doesn't get more than 4stars from, and never will, is all the blasted songs and poetry. Sometimes they contained pertinent information to the current story and other times they were simply a history lesson and at others they were just an expression by the character. You never knew which. I ended up just skipping them, plot points be forsaken.

Anyone who reads Fantasy should read this trilogy. Period.

★★★★☆

Fellowship of the Ring (2012 Review)

Tuesday, September 03, 2019

Od Magic ★★★★★

Title: Od Magic
Series: ----------
Author: Patricia McKillip
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 328
Format: Digital Edition

Synopsis:

Brenden Vetch saved most of his village from the plague but he couldn't save his parents. He learned the magic of plants all on his own and now he wanders, listening to what the plants tell him. One day a woman named Od appears before him and tells him to go to her school in the big city, as she needs a gardener. He'll know the entrance by the sign with the boot on it. Sick at heart and ready for a change, Brenden goes and finds the door. He enters, meets a wizard and finds out that only very special people ever find the door with the boot on it. All the other students enter through the front gate.

The King of the city, and his ancestors, started the school in honor of Od when she saved the kingdom hundreds of years ago. Slowly they have usurped its powers and decreed that only magic they control is allowed.

A wandering magician enters the city, only to entertain. But circumstances set the king off so he sets his own wizards on the trail of the magician to either control him or remove him and his troupe (said magician performs magics of illusions for the crowds) from the city.

At the same time the princess is to be married off to the head wizard, a man who is controlled completely by the rules of magic that the kings have set up. When she realizes this wizard will never allow her her own small magics taught her by her grandmother, she runs away to find the wandering magician to learn outside magic and to gain her freedom. This sets the King off even more.

At the same time Brenden accidentally shows what he is capable of to the head wizard. Realizing what he has done, Brenden runs away. The Head Wizard chases after him.

Everybody ends up in the North Country where there are 8 Stumps, which are beings of immeasurable power but who are afraid of humanity. Turns out Od is their representative to Humanity so they can all co-exist. Brenden must help the human magicians look beyond the limits they've set for themselves so that they won't be afraid of unknown magic.

My Thoughts:

This hit the spot. I really needed a good book after the stinkers I had last week. I slid right into the rhythm of the story like sliding into silk pajamas. My mind and senses felt caressed by the writing. It was just plain soothing.

There was a LOT going on. Brenden's story, the wandering Magician, the Princess, the Stumps, Od herself, and all of the side characters swept along by each of the main characters. In a good way, it was easy to lose myself in the story. But I never felt like McKillip lost a thread or made a mistep there. Each character was balanced within the overarching plot and at no time did I ever feel like a particular point of view was too long or too short. It just flowed together perfectly.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, every sentence of it. I had no issues with anything, well except maybe for wishing it was slightly longer, but I feel that way about every McKillip book. Of course, she writes just the right amount for the story she is telling.

If you haven't started to read McKillip's body of work by now, then nothing I can say will galvanize you. You won't get any contempt from me, just pity. And trust me, getting pitied by me means you're pretty low on the totem pole...

★★★★★

Od Magic (2005 Review)