Gripping Books

Saints Astray

2012-02-12T13:13:00.000-08:00

Title: Saints Astray
Author: Jacqueline Carey
Series: Santa Olivia, book 2
Genre: Fantasy
Published: 2011

Recommendation: For those who enjoyed Santa Olivia.
Rating: 7/10

Summary: Having gotten out of the Outpost, Loup and Pilar give statements to politicians in Mexico and reunite with Loup's cousins. Loup is offered a job as a bodyguard and starts a training program together with Pilar. However, their adventures are just beginning.

Reactions: I reviewed Santa Olivia in 2010 and remember enjoying the first book quite a bit. Looking at my first review, I see that the title for the sequel has changed since (from Santitos at Large), though the old title describes the current book pretty well too.

The book picks up where the previous book left off and continues to follow the adventures of Loup and Pilar after they escape from the Outpost. However, unlike the previous book, I didn't find the current one nearly as engaging. In my mind there were two major annoyances. The first one is the sugary sweet romance between Loup and Pilar. They sex each other non-stop and we get to see it in detail way way way too often. For a relationship that's not changed throughout the book, there was really no reason to tell readers about their sex lives every 5 pages. They love each other, we get it, move on already.

My second annoyance with the book is the relationship Loup and Pilar have with their employers. The president of the company who keeps flying out to meet them and the trainers just didn't strike true with me. They didn't feel like realistic characters and that threw me off at various points in the book. I thought the motivation for hiring Loup is pretty realistic -- who wouldn't want a super-strong, super-fast deceptively small girl as a bodyguard? But their amazing treatment by the company seemed a bit over the top.

Ignoring those two gripes, the book itself was quite entertaining. Loup and Pilar get in a bunch of scrapes. I liked their relationships with the band they are guarding and their missions before the band. There are plenty of funny, touching, and poignant moments and we get to see some of the old crew from Santa Olivia. However, I didn't enjoy it as much as the first book and I am not sure if I would pick up the next book in this series (if such were to be written).

January Recap

2012-02-01T21:50:00.000-08:00

January is the month when all the gyms get busy with people working on their New Year's resolutions. For me, I hit the "reading gym" and pulled out with 6 books finished this month. This is more books than I've read in any single month last year, though I have to blush at including a couple of really quick reads in here.

There are quite a few books on this list that came from other bloggers' best of 2011 lists and hence I've had a lot of fun reading this month. My favorite book of the month is To Say Nothing of the Dog with Among Others coming in a really close second. It's not that common for me to find a book I enjoy enough to give it a 9 star rating, but to find two in the same month is really great. I just hope this won't spoil me to expect as much from the rest of this year's reading.

Another achievement this month is that every single book I've read is by an author whom I haven't read before. Hence I am making a dent in both my "new author discovery" resolution as well as the grand total.

Having started out the year this well, February might end up a grave disappointment, but I am hoping for the best and starting on Jacqueline Carey's Saints Astray, which is the sequel to Santa Olivia. I enjoyed the first book in the series, so hopefully the sequel will not disappoint.

On a slightly different topic. John Scalzi plans to donate all earnings from e-book sales this week to Planned Parenthood cancer screening program for those who cannot afford these procedures. Scalzi is an amazingly talented writer and I would urge you to buy his books regardless. However, if you buy them this week, I feel your money would be very well spent indeed.

Happy February, everyone!

Among Others

2012-01-28T14:25:00.000-08:00

Title: Among Others
Author: Jo Walton
Genre: Fantasy
Published: 2011

Recommendation: Absolutely worth reading.
Rating: 9/10

Summary: Mori is a Welsh 15-year old girl who gets to meet her father for the first time and is immediately sent off to an upper-English boarding school by her aunts. Coping with the death of her twin sister, Mori reads an inordinate amount of science fiction.

Reactions: I ended up with mixed feelings regarding Among Others. It's certainly not a typical fantasy book. The reason I even call it fantasy is because the primary fantastic element of the book is that Mori can see and communicate with the fairies. It makes for a really interesting twist, but was really somewhat secondary to the character development that happens during the book.

First, I need to get off my chest the two reasons that this book doesn't rate 10 for me. The first is the literary technique used by the author to continually mention Mori's traumatic past without providing the comprehensive picture of what happened. I understand why it's done, but found it somewhat irritating to get the information doled out in tiny pieces and yet continually touched upon. As a reader you can figure out just enough of what happened but without getting that feeling of closure and knowing.

Which brings me to the second problem I had with the book. The book moves along on a very stately pace, in the form of Mori's almost daily diary entries. However, when it comes to the ending, we get a rather rushed and to me a somewhat baffling resolution. I was very happy with the book until the very end and then I was just left gaping and feeling the story didn't sufficiently build up towards the ending.

Other than the two gripes above, I thought Among Others was absolutely wonderful. It's told from 1st POV presented as Mori's diary and her voice is both sympathetic and believable. I could really identify with her and thought that the author captured a smart but lonely and bookish teen down to the roots of her hair. I don't think you have to have been one yourself to really like Mori's courage and good sense. At the same time, she is not at all perfect and comes off very realistic in her coming-of-age story.

There are some really good quotes in the book too:

"Bibliotropic," Hugh said. "Like sunflowers are heliotropic, they naturally turn towards the sun. We naturally turn towards the bookshop."

I don't know about you, but that generally describes my shopping patterns pretty well indeed!

The other enjoyable part of the book is that there are lots and lots of references to classic science fiction novels and Mori's musings on them. The book is set in 1979-1980 and I haven't read a number of classics that they mention (though now I have lots of notes on which ones to take a look at). But some of the classics have a place in my heart like Zelazny's Amber series and it's very gratifying to see Mori pick them up, enjoy, and dissect them. Though only the first three books of the series are yet published at the time. (I checked the dates and the first five are all published by 1980, but I guess not in England yet).

All in all, it's a very well written, whimsical tale of a girl's coming of age story that I wholeheartedly recommend. I don't believe it's a series, but if it was, I would be happy to go back for more.

A Fog of Fury

2012-01-21T14:26:00.000-08:00

Title: A Fog of Fury
Author: Jon F. Merz
Series: The Lawson Vampire Series
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Published: 2011

Recommendation: A quick fun urban fantasy novella.
Rating: 7.5/10

Summary: Lawson is a Fixer for a supernatural government organization that sends him to settle a dispute in a backwater town. He brings along his guest Jack who has some skills of his own.

Reactions: I grabbed this novella opportunistically since it was a free download and I needed some airplane reading. I haven't read any other books in the series, but it wasn't too difficult to figure out what's going on though I am guessing there's more to the backstory.

On the surface it's a fairly generic urban fantasy series. It's modern, there is a mystery, there's a main hero with special powers. It has a noir feel to it and it seems fairly similar to other works like this. However, the plot moves well and the writing style is easy, so I found it to be an excellent book for my travel.

I also rather enjoyed the main character. He stood out to me as a fairly well developed and credible tough guy type. He had enough uniqueness about him to make reading interesting and wasn't so ridiculously overpowered that there wasn't any suspense.

A Fog of Fury is a fun, quick novella that's perfect for an engaging read on a plane ride. I might even pick up another book in the series for the way back.

Heat Wave

2012-01-18T01:12:00.000-08:00

Title: Heat Wave
Author: Richard Castle (fictional)
Genre: Mystery
Published: 2009

Recommendation: For hardcore Castle fans only.
Rating: 7/10

Summary: Nikki Heat is a NYPD detective, who has the journalist Jameson Rook tag along on her cases to help his writing. In Heat Wave, she and Jameson investigate the murder of a real-estate tycoon who falls to his death from the 6th floor of his apartment building.

Reactions: I have to start by saying that I've resisted buying this book for quite some time. I watch the TV show Castle on regular basis and I noticed this book in the stores when it first came out and thought it was pretty cute. The cute part stems from the author of the book being Richard Castle who is a fictional novel writer on the TV show. That's a pretty cute marketing move, taken all the way. There is no mention of the real book author and the biography on the back is the biography of fictional Richard Castle.

I resisted buying the book because I assumed that like all other books based on TV/movies it would be pretty bad. However, looking for some light reading a few days ago, I came upon the book again and this time decided it was just what I was in the mood for. Turns out, it's not nearly as bad as I feared and it fit the entertainment bill quite well.

Having said that, this is hardly a book I would recommend buying to someone who has never seen the show. It reads almost as a show episode in book form. The emphasis is very much on the action, you get into the characters' heads as much as you would by reading their facial impressions on the show. There's a very similar level of banter and the mystery is about as involved as one on an episode of Castle.

Altogether, it's quick fun book which follows the characters very, very closely to those of the show. Mr. Castle becomes Mr. Rook (hah!) and detectives get new names, but otherwise it's business as usual. I would say this would only be of interest to the fans of the show -- the ones who just can't wait for the next episode.

The Tiger's Wife

2012-01-15T21:02:00.000-08:00

Title: The Tiger's Wife
Author: Tea Obreht
Genre: Fiction
Published: 2011

Recommendation: A slow literary narration about life in Balkans and the little moments in life.
Rating: 8/10

Summary: Natalia is a doctor in her 20's telling the story of her grandfather's life and her own childhood after her grandfather dies. The story takes place in an unnamed Balkan country and examines the wars, the encounters with the deathless man, and the story of Tiger's Wife.

Reactions: There have been no lack of reviews for this book. I would classify it as fiction, but there are mythical elements to the book that could earn it a "magic realism" qualification that may have prompted so many folks in the speculative fiction community to read it. That and the endless glowing reviews that the book receives. Since I received the book for Christmas, I decided to see if it would live up to expectations.

The book is certainly evocative. The language is rich, descriptive and detailed. The author captures the atmosphere on the pages of the book. The only problem is that all the descriptions are getting in the way of plot progressing at any reasonable rate. I noticed at page 99 that up to this point, we've only been introduced to main characters and started out on the first encounter with the deathless man. I felt like prodding the author with the sharp stick to keep going at this point. Fortunately, the book does pick up pace as it progresses.

There is a lot of culture and mythology in the book that's familiar to me. In some ways it worked well because I could relate to the book, in others it irritated because of the above-mentioned abundance of descriptions. If someone spent three pages describing a typical American living room to you, chances are you would wish for it to go a bit faster too.

I felt that to me there were parts of the book that were brilliant and touching followed by parts that felt unmotivated or disappointing. I loved the stories of meeting with the deathless man, I loved the bit with the elephant. On the other hand, there are lots of places in the Tiger's Wife storyline that I found illogical (e.g. the circumstances under which she becomes married) and certain other behaviors in the village.

Altogether, I felt the book was a mixed bag, but there are bits of the book that I felt captured feelings or ideas so well that it made for worthwhile reading despite the parts I didn't enjoy as much. I would recommend the book to those looking for a book about people connecting and who are not afraid of long descriptions.

To Say Nothing of the Dog

2012-01-08T12:03:00.000-08:00

Title: To Say Nothing of the Dog
Author: Connie Willis
Genre: Science Fiction
Published: 1998

Recommendation: Funny, delightful, and fast paced. Recommended for those who like to read about time travel and laugh.
Rating: 9/10

Summary: Ned Henry is a historian in 2057 who is travelling back in time in search of the bishop's bird stump lost in an air raid on the Conventry Cathedral in 1940. Having been at it for awhile, he is sent back and rerouted to Victorian England to rest and fix a small incongruity introduced by another historian who brings a cat over to the future. Needless to say, rest is difficult to find in peaceful Victorian England.

Reactions: I don't remember where I first heard of this book. However, it's been sitting in my amazon wish list for a long time until someone at a New Year's party mentioned it to me again, praising the book. I promptly downloaded it to my Kindle and started following the adventures of Ned Henry.

If I had to use on word to describe the novel it would be delightful. It's such a fun, whimsical book with a strong sense of irony that it just keeps tickling the funny bone and I may have not stopped smiling the whole way through.

The story is told from the first person narration of Ned Henry who just keeps getting into one scrape or another in Oxford of 1888 in hopes of repairing a mistake that may change history. The plot moves along a lively pace and kept me reading late at night rooting for the characters to make things right.

The cast of the book is a pretty varied bunch whom Ned meets in the vicinity of Oxford. There's Terence St. Trewes, an Oxford student who invites Ned to share his boat going down the Thames; Cyril the bulldog who accompanies them; Princess Arjumand the cat who is changing history; exceedingly silly owners of the above-mentioned kitty and many others. I enjoyed them all, each one is a foil for common Victorian characters, but at the same time with plenty of individuality to spare.

"God is in the details" is the motto of Ned's employer in 2057 who is doing a cathedral restoration project. And I would say this applies to the book itself that has so many fine touches in it, that I couldn't help, but love it. There are old-fashioned chapter starters that tell you what will happen in the chapter without actually revealing anything. There are numerous references to historical events, figures, literature and quotations that add to the atmosphere and make this time-travelling romp much more fun than others I have read.

It probably helps to know something about the book Three Men In a Boat, to Say Nothing of the Dog by Jerome K. Jerome as there are numerous references to it. But I haven't read it myself, though I rather want to as the aftermath of reading this book. There are also lots of references to Agatha Christie mysteries and a number of other books, so I think everyone will find something they recognize and relate to.

All-in-all, this science fiction comedy seriously exceeded my expectations by being funny, charismatic, having a quick moving plot and plenty of literary references. I would recommend it to anyone with a sense of humor in a heartbeat.

Looking forward to in 2012

2012-01-03T12:30:00.000-08:00

Many of the series that I have been following have either released their last book last year of have gone on a hiatus (Scott Lynch, where are you?). So there are only a handful of 2012 releases that I am actively awaiting.

The first on the list is the 3rd book in Galen Beckett's series about Mrs. Quent called The Master of Heathcrest Hall. I have enjoyed the second book in the series and I am looking forward to the conclusion of the series coming out on March 27th.

The second one is a new book by Carlos Ruiz Zafon coming out sometime in the summer of 2012. The Prisoner of Heaven returns to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books and Sempere bookshop. Since The Shadow of the Wind was a book I gave 10 stars a few year back, I'll definitely be looking out for this one.

Finally, the last book I am looking out for in 2012 is the City of Dragons by Robin Hobb. It's coming out on February 7 -- but I am slightly apprehensive about it. I think it's once again got split into two volumes and I may choose to wait for the fourth book to be released before getting this one. Reading a book with a story arch that doesn't wrap up is just not a lot fun. Still, Hobb is consistently on top of her writing and having read almost everything else published by her I find it hard to stop now.

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On a separate note, there's also one movie that I am looking forward to -- The Hunger Games! I really enjoyed the books and the trailer looks pretty awesome too.

Leviathan Wakes

2012-01-02T02:00:00.000-08:00

Title: Leviathan Wakes
Author: James S.A. Corey
Series: The Expanse, book 1
Genre: Science Fiction
Published: 2011

Recommendation: A decent space opera, but not outstanding.
Rating: 7/10

Summary: Detective Miller is a seasoned cop working on Ceres. He gets assigned to find and return the daughter of a wealthy family who ran away from home. Following the leads, Miller ends up in the middle of the war between planets. Jim Holden becomes a survivor of a water-hauler Canterbury with a small crew when they are attacked by unmarked vessels. This act of aggression begins a war that Holden will be in the middle of.

Reactions: I have been seeing this title pop-up in a lot of places, but didn't pay too much attention until I saw it on sale for Kindle for $2.99. Since I just got a Kindle Touch for Christmas, that seemed like a perfect opportunity to try out both the device and the book.

The book received a number of positive reviews in the blogosphere, but I probably would have avoided it if I had first read a review that mentions the fact that the book involves vomit zombies. I am really not a big fan of horror, but zombies in particular tend to put me off. Still, zombies in Leviathan Wakes weren't too bad since they arrived pretty late in the story and weren't too prominent.

Most of the book is spent switching between the stories of Miller and Holden. The two men are pretty different, but both are tough types prone to going on risky adventures. Miller is a character taken straight from noir detective fiction, while Holden is something like Malcolm Reynolds of Firefly, but without the witty banter. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Firefly acted as somewhat of an inspiration for Holden's ship. There's an amazing pilot who is not hardened to violence, the strong-female XO, a mechanic whose penchant for women and drink strongly reminds me of Jayne.

Unfortunately, the book doesn't have the brilliant dialogue of Firefly and while the personal character stories were interesting, I found my interest in the plot flagging somewhat midway through the book. I felt the book ended up being drawn out a little too long and would be much more appealing if it was 200-pages shorter.

Altogether, as it says on the cover, the book involves lots of kicking ass and lots of space opera. There are politics and there are battles and there are crazy unbelievable maneuvers. I think some readers may find the book more fun than I did and for those who like space operas I would recommend it to them. However, I felt overall the book lacked something to make it outstanding and I finished it with a sense of dissatisfaction. Not dissatisfaction with the plot conclusion, but with the overall impact of the book.

New Year Resolutions

2012-01-01T12:47:00.000-08:00

It's that time of the year. Time to set goals for 2012. I am not going overly ambitious this year, but hoping to do more reading in the year to come than I did in 2011. So, in short my goals are:

1. Read 42 books.
2. Discover 15 new authors.
3. Read at least one book published before 1900.

These should not be incredibly difficult to meet, except that I better get cracking on that reading. Perhaps to meet my reading goals I ought to set so goals like, watch at most 6 TV series at a time. But since I love discovering new TV series (and I am re-watching Firefly for the 7th time), that's not going to happen. So instead I decided to set myself some fitness goals this year, which I am recording here so that I cannot back-out of them:

1. Do a clean climb of a 5.11b
2. Do 20 pull-ups in a row

I have high hopes for 2012. I hope it will be the best year yet with more reading, climbing, working, gaming, and friends. Now I am off to make some tea and continue reading Leviathan Wakes.

The End of Year Wrap Up

2011-12-31T23:00:00.000-08:00

The clock is counting down to the end of 2011. Now, I am ready to sum up this year of reading and tell you about my favorite books this year. It hasn't been the strongest year for me, I didn't finish a lot of reading goals I've set for myself, but I had a lot of fun reading and that's what really counts, right?

Without further adieu, top 5 favorite books read this year:

1. The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss - review
I have been waiting for this installment in the Kingkiller's Chronicles for a long time and it was well worth the wait. Amazingly well-written, immersing epic following Kvothe's adventures. It's a must for anyone who loves epic fantasy, character-based stories, and good writing.

2. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami - review
This atmospheric science fiction novel set in 1984 Japan won my heart this year through its amazingly windy plot and literary references.

3. The Prestige by Christopher Priest - review
Two magicians vie to discover the mysteries of each other's special techniques. Somehow I missed the movie, but the book is excellent in its own rights.

4. The Local News by Miriam Gershow - review
A heart-rendering story of a sister coping with the mysterious disappearance of her older brother. Touching and impossible to put down, this is my favorite non-genre reading of the year.

5. Ship Breaker by Paolo Baciagalupi - review
An apocalyptic young adult fiction about a boy who has to survive by scavenging on the old oil rigs and his adventures after he discovers a ship crash on his shores.

Now let's see how I did on my goals this year. The first one was to finish 48 books this year. I fell really short of the goal and only completed 36 books, so 3 per month instead of 4 I wanted to do. The second goal was to read 20 new authors. Looking back, I've read 13 new to me authors, which is not too shabby given that I didn't even come close to my total book goal. My third goal was genre diversity, here's a summary of the genres I read this year:

Science Fiction - 13
Fantasy - 8
Young Adult - 6
Fiction -2
Mystery - 2
Urban Fantasy - 2
Children - 1
Romance - 1
Steampunk - 1

I did get at least 7 different genres, but only 3 of them have at least 3 books read in them. Ack!
It's quite interesting to notice that for the first time this year science fiction has overtaken fantasy in the book count. I've been finding myself reading more and more science fiction lately and this trend is likely to stay in 2012.

A few other reading stats: 13 of the books I read were written by women and 26 by men. I read 4 books released in 2011, 9 released in 2010, 3 in 2009, 5 in 2008, 9 in earlier 2000s, with the oldest book being published in 1892.

All in all, it has been a long year with its ups and downs. I hope the next year will bring lots more exciting books to read and I am ready for it with my newly minted Kindle Touch. Thanks to everyone who's been reading my reviews. Happy New Year!

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

2011-12-25T19:06:00.000-08:00

Title: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Detective short stories
Published: 1892

Recommendation: A classic collection of detective stories, entertaining and well worth reading.
Rating: 8.5/10

Summary: A collection of 12 stories dealing with various cases of Sherlock Holmes, narrated by Dr. Watson.

Reactions: No, I did not go to see the latest Sherlock Holmes movie in the theaters. I was somewhat annoyed by the first movie, where Sherlock Holmes just runs around and punches people. Instead I decided to pick up this collection of short stories and re-read them since it has been a long time since I have read them.

Each story in the collection is narrated from the first person view of Dr. Watson who assists Holmes in his cases. Mostly he seems to tag along, exclaim in amazement at deductions, and congratulate his friend on the amazing deductive abilities. Still, the cases themselves are quite entertaining to follow and I would always try to predict the outcome before the story would tell itself. Sometimes I succeeded, and sometimes not, but either way I had an entertaining time reading this classic.

In complement to the reading, I also started watching the BBC series Sherlock, which is a modern day interpretation of the story and one I found rather better than the movies. Hence my holidays have been shrouded in enjoyment of mystery. I would definitely recommend this collection and the show to anyone who has only seen Sherlock Holmes through the lens of the recent movies.

The Knife of Never Letting Go

2011-12-19T21:17:00.000-08:00

Title: The Knife of Never Letting Go
Author: Patrick Ness
Series: Chaos Walking, book 1
Genre: YA fiction
Published: 2008

Recommendation: Interesting science fiction YA novel, but you better be prepared to read the whole series because the first book ends in cliffhanger.
Rating: 7/10

Summary: Humans have left Earth and moved to a faraway world to colonize. A second wave of immigrants is coming, but what they don't know is there is a virus on the planet that infects every man and broadcasts their thoughts all the time. Now a boy from a colony and a girl from the scout mission must make a journey to warn the settlers.

Reactions: I have seen this book pop-up on a number of blogs and decided to give it a try. I like the premise of the story, and found the mechanics and consequences of mind sharing that's limited to men only pretty interesting. As you may imagine, it creates quite a bit of tension between genders, and some entertaining situations.

The main characters are an almost-teenage boy named Todd and a girl from the second wave of immigrants, Viola. Todd is a pretty sympathetic character, he runs around, makes mistakes, acts in not-so-smart ways, but also has a big heart. Viola, on the other hand comes off pretty reserved, and to me she doesn't feel entirely authentic. Together with Todd's dog Manchee, who can also talk, they spend the majority of the book running away from people fighting them.

The plot moves quite briskly and has a surprising amount of violence for a novel aimed at 13-year olds. People get stabbed, tortured, killed, kicked, drugged, etc. I am surprised the two characters are still able to move at the end of the novel. The writing itself is easy to read and the reading goes quickly. The book does employ a very irritating technique of misspelling the words to show off the main character's "uneducated" talking, which I tried really hard to ignore.

So it took me only two sittings to finish the book. Unfortunately, the finish of the book was a big disappointment to me as it ended on a cliffhanger. I found that so entirely irritating, that I am not even sure I will pick up the rest of the books in the series despite enjoying the novel up to that point. I might change my mind eventually :).

All in all, it's a reasonably interesting science fiction YA novel with a cool premise, but rather (overly) violent and with a cliffhanger ending.

The Magician King

2011-12-14T22:21:00.000-08:00

Title: The Magician King
Author: Lev Grossman
Series: The Magicians, book 2
Genre: Fantasy
Published: 2011

Recommendation: Read The Magicians first, if you like it, the sequel is for you.
Rating: 8/10

Summary: Quentin, Elliott, Janet, and Julia are the rulers of Fillory. They have a castle, all the amenities they could ever want, and their every wish catered to. However, Quentin isn't happy and searches for a quest; of course he soon begins a journey with higher stakes than he expected.

Reactions: The Magician King turned out to be everything I expected of the sequel to the first book. It had a combination or magic, heroism, quests, and love combined with grittiness, pain, loathing, etc. This is just the style of the novels, an interesting combination of children book world with adult realities.

At the start the book wandered quite a bit and I didn't see the plot coming together until well into the second half of the book. The first part just felt like Quentin stumbling around getting into trouble one way or another. However, the plot did come together and made a lot more sense in the retrospective of the ending. The ending is indeed quite elegant and I am happy with how the author handled it.

As I read through the book, every so often, there would be a chapter following Julia's life on Earth after her failed examination at Brakebills and before her reunion with the gang in The Magicians. I rather liked her story being told, she turned out to be an interesting character with a lot of flaws, but sympathetic at times. I thought it was an interesting perspective on some of the events we only saw from Quentin's eyes before.

All in all, The Magician King was what I expected it to be. It was well-written and entertaining and gruesome in places, but it didn't blow me away. Still, it's a good read and one I would recommend to those who enjoyed the first book in the series.

Zoe's Tale

2011-12-05T20:24:00.001-08:00

Title: Zoe's Tale
Author: John Scalzi
Series: Old Man's War, book 4
Genre: Science Fiction
Published: 2008

Recommendations: A good stand-alone adventure science fiction, less interesting to those who have read The Last Colony already.
Rating: 7.5/10

Summary: The same story as told in the The Last Colony, but written from Zoe's perspective.

Reactions: When I bought this book, I knew I was buying a story from Old Man's War series written from Zoe's perspective. What I didn't realize was that the story spanned the exact same period of time as The Last Colony.

The fact that the plot mirrored the previous book was somewhat disappointing. While there are several different scenes/adventures that Zoe undertakes that weren't covered by the previous books, overall it was a bit redundant to follow the exact same story as before. I think the book could easily stand on its own, but is a bit less interesting for someone who has read the previous 3 books.

Nevertheless, I did like Zoe as a narrator. We got to learn a lot more about her friends and people who were only minor characters in the previous books. The emphasis in the plot was also a lot more on relationships, and coming of age. I would almost say that this reads more like a YA novel.

All in all, it was a quick uncomplicated read that I enjoyed. However, it wasn't as good as The Last Colony without the scheming and the politics of the previous books. Not to say there was no scheming at all, but it was a bit simpler in Zoe's case -- and also seemed unrealistic to me at times.

Still, Scalzi is undoubtedly a very talented author and I will be certainly reading more of his stuff.

November Recap

2011-12-01T23:42:00.001-08:00

I finished 3 books in November:

My favorite book of the month is without any doubt 1Q84. Having finished this rather long but epic novel, I feel like I am back in the reading mood again and I hope to read a lot more in December. I doubt that I will be able to make my yearly goals, but I hope to make up for the reading drought in October.

I have started reading Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi, to be followed by The Magician King, unless something new and shiny catches my eye. Let the festivities begin.

1Q84

2011-11-30T00:00:00.001-08:00

Title: 1Q84
Author: Haruki Murakami
Genre: Science Fiction
Published: 2011

Recommendation: A fiction immersion experience for those who like the weird and lots of character development.
Rating: 9/10

Summary: Aomame is a fitness instructor in 1984 Tokyo. She takes a taxi to get to an appointment, but the traffic on the highway is blocked. The taxi driver suggests she take an emergency staircase off the highway and she does, ending up in an alternative world on 1Q84. Tengo is a math teacher who spends his spare time writing a novel. He is approached to rewrite a story by a 17-year old and becomes embroiled in the magic of the Air Chrysalis.

Reactions: I bought 1Q84 because of several reviews I've seen of it, extolling its virtues as the best book of the year. I have never read anything by this author before, so I have decided to see for myself what's the story about.

I realized rather quickly that this wasn't going to be a fast-moving story. The story switches between the two main characters each chapter and takes its time to show us the connection between the two stories. The narrative weaves and ducks and detours, but the patterns do emerge throughout the book. And despite 1Q84 not being an action-oriented book, I found myself quite engrossed in the story.

I enjoyed the fact that the book builds a certain atmosphere and immerses the reader into it. We learn everything there is to know about each character, what they think, how they live, how they grew up, and what motivates them. They are not necessarily the most sympathetic characters, but Murakami does make them feel real and quite unique as well. The supporting characters are also amazingly developed, varied and plausible. My favorite was Tamaru, but overall I felt all the characters were quite outstanding.

A lot of strange things happen in 1Q84 world. Worst fears come true. There are two moons in the sky. History changes itself and Little People inhabit the world. When introduced, many of the phenomena don't make sense, but as a book progresses, they tie more and more into a more cohesive whole and get connected in unexpected ways. Of course, not everything is explained and a lot of the events are symbolic -- but they have this special rhythm that makes the book come together.

On one hand, the book felt somewhat slow, but on the other, I enjoyed a number of the detours it takes and took even more detours myself to investigate the references it makes. For example, the book mentions Sinfonietta by Janacek and I ended up listening to the piece to understand the reference better. George Orwell's 1984, Anton Chekhov, and Proust also get more than one mention.

As I was finishing the book, I learned that 1Q84 was nominated for the Bad Sex in Fiction Award. I can see where the nominators are coming from. This is not a book that would get your aroused. But somehow the style in which sex is described fits perfectly with the rest of the narrative. There's a lot of atmosphere and symbolism in it and not a whole lot of fun.

It's not always serious though, I think my favorite excerpt from the book would be the following quote:

There is no other choice -- a perfect example of the process of elimination. So perfect an example, it makes me want to print it up in a pamphlet and hand it out to people on the street. Hi, how are you? Check out the process of elimination.

Some of the passages can be tongue-in-cheek. Certain characters more so than others.

Altogether, it was one of the most interesting books I've read this year and I would certainly recommend it to anyone looking for an interesting and unique read.

Austenland

2011-11-11T23:21:00.001-08:00

Title: Austenland
Author: Shannon Hale
Genre: Romance
Published: 2007

Recommendation: A fun chick-flick with lots of Austen references.
Rating: 7/10

Summary: Jane has almost given up on finding the right man when Jane's aunt buys her a vacation in England. A vacation, involving a stay at Pembroke Park for 3 weeks, immersed in Austen's world.

Reactions: I guess I'll have to confess to reading all of Austen's novels. And liking them. And having that be enough of a lure to have me buy this book, even though it's in the category of books that I consider slightly embarrassing to own. I'll have to hide it next to my copy of Twilight.

All in all, it was actually a pretty fun read. The main character is the every-woman, mostly sane, but not without her own hangups. We get to follow her stay at the vacation resort, playacting the part of an 19th century lady and flirting with actors hired to inspire romance with the residents.

It's a short book, but well-plotted with a nice little twist towards the end. And of course there's the happily ever after. Certainly recommended if you like romances.

Cold Magic

2011-11-06T23:53:00.000-08:00

Title: Cold Magic
Author: Kate Elliott
Series: The Spiritwalker Trilogy, book 1
Genre: Fantasy
Published: 2010

Recommendation: A good epic fantasy intro with a strong female heroine.
Rating: 7.5/10

Summary: Cat Baharal is raised by her uncle's family after her parents died when she was a child. Cat and her cousin Bee lead a peaceful existence until one day a Cold Mage shows up at the door. He presents a contract her family signed many years ago to marry the eldest Baharal daughter; so married Cat is sent of to the far-away Four Moons House where she will learn new truths about herself.

Reactions: I have read some fantasy by Kate Elliott before a long while back and enjoyed it. Then this book caught my eyes with a whole bunch of positive reviews and I decided to give it a go.

After my previous read, I wanted something easy, fast-paced, and fun to read. This book is indeed pretty snappy when it comes to the plot despite being decently thick. And yet, it didn't manage to capture me as much as I had hoped it would.

The characters of the novel are a bit cliche, but with their own personality quirks. Cat is an orphan with a destiny and her cousin Bee is a seer equivalent. Cat's new husband is haughty, but good at heart, while the enemy is cold and merciless. There's a great deal of epic fantasy stamps in the book, which dampened my enthusiasm in reading it. It's not badly written, but I haven't felt like reading traditional fantasy for a while and I found I am still not all that enthusiastic about it now.

On the other hand, the world is a pretty interesting history alternative with Rome and Celts fighting over control in Europe. I found the politics part of the plot to be pretty good, an echo of industrial revolution. There is technology and magic co-habiting the world and I liked the balance that the author strikes between the two.

All in all, it's a good epic fantasy for the fans of sword & magic & politics type books, but it just didn't quite hit the spot for me. Still on the fence on whether I want to pick up the next book in the series.

October Recap

2011-11-01T23:00:00.000-07:00

October has been a pitiful month in terms of reading. I only finished one book, Spirits in the Wires by Charles de Lint. I am currently in the middle of reading Cold Magic by Kate Elliott, but while it's a pretty enjoyable and well-paced book, I just can't seem to concentrate on reading for long these days. Instead, I've been watching a lot of TV & movies. I just hope the reading will go better in November.

Spirits in the Wires

2011-10-17T00:56:00.000-07:00

Title: Spirits in the Wires
Author: Charles de Lint
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Published: 2003

Recommendation: Pass on it. Not worth the time.
Rating: 5/10

Summary: A number of people around the world disappear mysteriously. The disappearances seem to be linked by the fact that the users were checking the Wordwood website at the time. Saskia is among those who disappear, and her boyfriend Christy witnesses it. Now he needs to find a way to bring Saskia back.

Reactions: I thought the book's premise sounded fairly interesting when I picked up this book on the Borders sale. The execution, however, didn't really live up to my expectations.

The story starts out quite slowly. We are introduced to two main characters in the novel Saskia and Christiana who share their life stories with each other. This takes up first 50 pages of the book and there is very little progress to the story.

The story is told in different chapters with the 1st person POV switching between the characters. After meeting Saskia and Christiana in depth, it turns out they are not the only main characters, but there are 4-5 more protagonists who just keep joining the story as it moves along. I think the main reason I didn't enjoy the book is not actually liking any of the characters who were telling the story.

Everyone in the book seems to be in the middle of an existential crisis. And it's really hard to connect with people who are doing little more than complain about not understanding themselves all the time. Or at least I found it pretty hard to connect with them.

The slow pace of the book continues throughout the novel. It took me almost 3 weeks to finish this book because I could easily put it away at any point in time and there was very little bringing me back to it. I think I finished it out of sheer stubbornness and dislike of not finishing the book. Fortunately the ending was a bit more bearable than the rest and some conflicts actually do get resolved.

There is a pretty interesting mix of technology and mythology in the book and I do think there are a few cool ideas there about spirits living where the human attention goes. However, most of the technology mentioned felt outdated to me and I didn't feel these ideas were resolved very well in the book. There are also a bunch of mythical characters who seem like they are interesting, but all of them are very marginal to the overall story.

So altogether this was a rather disappointing introduction to Charles de Lint. I didn't particularly enjoy the style, story, or pace of the book. It wasn't badly written, but I really couldn't get engaged in the story or the characters and I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.

September Recap

2011-10-01T23:30:00.000-07:00

It's fall now, but despite it being a busy month, I actually managed to get some reading done in September.

My favorite this month is actually Neil Gaiman's anthology. I am not typically big on anthologies, but this one really stood out for me. Lots of really good stories. Carl is also reading and discussing Fragile Things this month on his blog, so check that out too.

In addition to all the reading, a bunch of the TV shows came back with their premiers for the season. I am back to watching Castle, How I Met Your Mother, and Community. On top of that, I am trying out the new show Ringer with Sarah Michelle Gellar if only for the actress. The jury is still out on whether I'll stick with the new show. House and Bones should be making their appearances as well in the next month. So lots of TV watching to compete for my attention.

I am now reading Spirits in the Wires, but it has not caught sufficient interest so far and hence it's going quite slowly. Hopefully I can get through it and move on to something with a bit more pace. Ciao.

Q & A with C.S. Friedman

2011-09-24T13:43:00.000-07:00

Event Video: Legacy of Kings by C. S. Friedman from Suvudu on Vimeo.

I have read a number of books by C.S. Friedman over the years. I really enjoyed the Coldfire trilogy as well as her standalone novels. However, somehow I never knew much about the author besides the fact that C.S. Friedman is a woman despite the androgynous name.

So when I stumbled across this video that's been recently shot on her promotional tour of Legacy of Kings, I found it a pretty interesting one in several ways.

On one hand, I found her style of speaking a little offensive. Perhaps it was the irreverence to the writing process and the genre that rubbed me the wrong way. Not even sure why that would rub me the wrong way given that I don't write, nor do I revere the profession as whole, but here it is. The self-congratulation nature of some of her comments grated on me a little bit too.

On the other hand, she does say a lot of interesting things about how she writes, and what's important to her in her writing, and how she gets inspired. And I actually ended up enjoying listening to the Q & A and at the end found that I am probably just as likely to pick up her books as before if not more.

This is an interesting experience for me because on reading a few opinion pieces by Orson Scott Card, I stopped buying his book despite having enjoyed the Ender series. I guess personality differences don't affect me the same way as knowing the author's politics. Hmm.

Blameless

2011-09-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

Title: Blameless
Author: Gail Carriger
Series: Alexia Tarrabotti, book 3
Genre: Steampunk
Published: 2010

Recommendation: If you enjoyed the series so far, this one won't disappoint you either.
Rating: 7/10

Summary: Alexia is pregnant and all of London knows about it. When her parents kick her out of the house on learning the news, Alexia decides to travel to Italy and find out how it's possible that she and Conall sired a child and what that child is going to be.

Reactions: At the end of last book in this series, I didn't think I would be continuing. However, I bought this book on a whim in a Border's sale and actually ended up enjoying it. Perhaps, it's just the matter of mood, but I found this particular installment more witty and less frustrating than the previous novel in the series.

The most distinctive part of the novel is certainly the jokes, puns, and sarcasm that Carriger strews around liberally. It's the sort of voice where you either enjoy it or it grates on you. This time around I snorted at the jokes and altogether finished the book pretty fast. There were a couple of mildly irritating uses of pet names for Alexia by various cast, but beyond that I found the language amusing.

The plot itself is not particularly surprising in its conclusion, but it's a pretty exciting romp and altogether kept my attention well and didn't strain my incredulity too much. A fun, fluffy type of book to read in the last days of summer.

The Player of Games

2011-09-15T00:37:00.000-07:00

Title: The Player of Games
Author: Iain M. Banks
Series: Culture, book 2
Genre: Science Fiction
Published: 1988

Recommendation: A fast, fun science fiction epic.
Rating: 8/10

Summary: Gurgeh is a renowned player of games in Culture. He lives a fairly quiet life, playing strategy games and studying them until his peace is upset by an ex-Contact sarcastic robot, Mawhrin-Skel. And then Gurgeh is off to the far away Azad Empire, where he is to play the most complex game of his lifetime.

Reactions: I wrote half of this review and then lost it in a browser refresh, so this version might end up much shorter than I originally intended it to be.

All in all, The Player of Games is so far my favorite book by Iain Banks. Perhaps my passion for German strategy board games made me relate to this book more than the average reader, but overall I really enjoyed following Gurgeh's story and I stayed up late reading the novel until it was finished.

For me, the best part of the story was following Gurgeh's character transformation as he explores the new world and masters the most complex strategy game he has ever encountered. The plot is well-written and well-paced if a little predictable in places. I could see many of the twists coming, but it didn't reduce my enjoyment of the book.

All-in-all, it's a solid story, full of nuanced characters and game play. It strongly reminds me of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card in its spirit. So, I believe you may enjoy this book if you liked Ender's Game. But regardless, I would recommend The Player of Games as solid entertainment as well as a good character study and even a society commentary.