It's nice to re-read through these early stories and see some of the overall arc that is developed more fully through subsequent work.
What's not nice is that Harry's sexism (misogyny) is even more irritating, because I'm already annoyed with it. The infantilization of Karrin through his eyes is just really irritating.
We start at an abbey set in the future, a future where we have quite literally bombed ourselves (collectively - humanity) back into the dark ages. This abbey's mission is to preserve knowledge from before the "Deluge" (the fiery world-wide atomic war). I found it fun, how, in this new world, knowledge is considered evil, because advanced knowledge and science "brought" the atomic wars. It reminds me how computer ("thinking machines") are banned in Dune (for much the same reason). A monk finds a fall-out shelter belonging to the Saint Leibowitz (the Abbey/order's founder) and moderate hi-jinks ensue.
Hundreds of years later, the story again takes place in the Abbey. Civilization has advanced, we now have kingdoms appearing and warring with each other, and the relative of one of the leaders has come to the Abbey to study (he is obviously a scientist) and electricity begins.
And hundreds of years later, the story is again at the abbey, this time in the far future, where the space age reigns. There are extra-planetary colonies, advance science, and again, nuclear war. The monastery is still on a mission to preserve knowledge, and sends a colony ship off of the planet to preserve it from a likely annihilation. The rest of the short story deals with the monastery's leader struggling with a nearby euthanasia camp and ends with his witness of what he thinks of as a miracle (a mutant, without Original Sin, giving him Communion).
The story has a lot of themes and tidbits that circulate through the three stories, and I found the book both depressing and darkly hilarious. The idea that we are doomed to repeat ourselves, doomed to bomb ourselves back to near oblivion whenever given the chance is both sad, and something I could not quite dismiss. There is enough realism in this book to make it very believable. On the other hand, some of the humor involved - it's funny, but sadly/darkly funny. The poor monk, Francis, dealing with his discovery of the fall-out shelter, the fact that the story involved gets blown out of proportion, and then is not believed cracked me up, but made me feel sorry for him at the same time
The last story - involving euthanasia and the abbot, was rough. I grew up Catholic (though I'm not a believer), and I totally got where the abbot came from with his resistance to euthanasia, but the lack of humanity in opposing someone ending their suffering (I am pro-euthanasia), was a bit harsh. Not that it mattered, with everyone dead.
But this book does what all of the best sci-fi does. It takes ideas and beliefs and plays with them, winking and nodding, showing different sides and trying to make one think or understand on a different level, all while being scarily realistic, but not trying to read deep. On the surface, it's a collection of three short stories about a monastery, underneath, it is so much more.
Wizard Harry Dresden is a police consultant and they bring him in on a grisly, magic-involved murder, while he has a client whose case may or may not be involved with the murder. This book revolves around Johnny Marcone, Victor Sells and ThreeEye "drug" and introduces Morgan (who I adore) and Susan Rodriguez.
Fun times.
Armitage did such a great job, that I actually managed to like the work more than I think I would have without his narration. I still really enjoyed the work, and I enjoyed the different viewpoints and plot points expressed in this novelization.
I liked the change in characters, the outright choice of making Hamlet pretending to be insane (instead of playing the "is he or isn't he" bit out). I liked the political intrigue and how they just fleshed out the characters in a different way than you see in the Shakespeare play.
The afterward was good, too, I really like the authors giving a bit of history and rationale behind their choices.
It's not earth shattering, but very useful, I think.
I'll be checking out his blog and trying to use some of his recommended strategies.
I think that this book is delightfully nuanced - it doesn't club you over the hows, but lets them develop nicely. Everything we had under control (farming carnivorous decorative plants, the space and weapons race) suddenly goes wrong, and we're left in a world where everything goes badly, because of what could be construed as simple coincidences.
The main character was solid, the protag's love interest (I suppose she should be another protag, but this book was written and took place in the misogynistic past) was also good and strong.
I absolutely loved the imagery of the book. The triffids were just plants, carnivorous plants to be sure, but still, just plants. They were the bad guy without having evil intent. So when you see a triffid standing over the body of a boy, it makes the scene that much more sinister.
As always, one of my favorite things about PA lit is looking how people survive, and how groups make it through a bleak landscape. With most of the population being blind, there was a different twist to this book, but one I found to be utterly believable.
I really, really liked this book. It was well paced, well written, and overall just very, very solid.
But it's failing.
I hate this book. I hate this book for ever having been written. I hate people for liking this book and giving it good reviews. I hate the author for having written this book. But mostly, I hate myself for reading this book.
And I have a really strong "What the holy hell!?" reaction to those who love this book. Every five star review just leaves me baffled.
David Wong is a not-terrible writer. I like some of his articles at cracked.com, so I know he's capable of writing a decent article, at least. I went into this book blind. I didn't read any reviews or spoiler myself about it, and therefore I did not have any preconceived notions of what might happen. I do know that there seemed to be a lot of extreme opinions from my friend (love/hate), so I did have expectations that it would be complicated.
But it wasn't. It's a stereotypical "immature boy" book full of penis jokes, farting, "hilarious" dog diarrhea jokes and the like. It is horror/gore porn with a dash of scifi/fantasy. It was dumb, incohesive and just awful. It rambled and does not have any humor that could be remotely compared to something like The HitchHiker's Guide (which is what I read... somewhere). I can't even give it the "it's just mindless stupid for fun" good rating, because I love lots of mindless (or even downright bad) books, but this one? No.
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This book is a hard, pulpy sci-fi novel with other planets, futuristic weapons, aliens and all of the good stuff you expect from older works, and it feels very, very dated.
I'm not saying I hated it, I just really didn't like it.
Hosteen Storm is our savage noble (no, seriously, he's Navajo - she uses "Amerindian" as well, which adds to the dated feel), who is a veteran commando with several animal team members. He's got a couple of meerkats, a puma, and an eagle, and he has settled on another planet not so different from his native Terra, where he can put his talents to use. Oh, and hunt down and kill another man, for vengeance. You don't find out the story until the end (the why of the hunting down and/or what really happened).
In the meantime, he wanders as a colonist, working as a cowboy (no, really!), and runs amok of aliens, including the Xik, who are super bad aliens.
There's a whole lot of stereotype (beyond the whole Noble Savage) with regards to how people act, and how colonizing (and the old west?) should be. It was just really, really tedious to get through for me.
In the end, we're all good (minus one meerkat, which I knocked half a star off for), so the series can continue, but it just felt very forced. And dated (did I mention the dated?). I just didn't enjoy it. I've read a few other of Norton's works and she's always been hit and miss for me, so I'm not terribly disappointed.
This particular book works with the Cinderella trope, and uses Elena (our would-be Cinderella) to show how something known as the "Tradition" uses forces to try to pigeonhole certain people into stereotypes or tropes and how the magic system in this world works. Elena cannot be Cinderella (no prince!) so she is taken by her Kingdom's Fairy Godmother to be trained to be the next Godmother.
This is lighthearted and fun, without being overly silly, and I really like how the world-building was set up and the plot moved along. I'll probably continue with (some) of the works in the series, because they are right up my alley.
I think the only part of the book I found mildly annoying was that as soon as Paks figured out what her "quest" was, I had it solved, and I like my books to be a wee bit more difficult than that.
But we still had the fun adventuring and action and I found it a fulfilling final installment of a trilogy I very much enjoyed (except for the 5 days of torture bit, I get why the author decided to have it happen, but I wasn't so sure it needed to happen)
The plot is fast pace and entertaining... It does feel a bit dated, but not so much so that I find it problematic. If anything, it's just not the current "style" of fantasy being churned out, but it's nice not to read anything gritty and horrible (at least, not constantly horrible). It is the middle of the trilogy, following Paks from when she left the Duke's service in the first book through the discovery (and what happens after) of Luap's stronghold.
While obviously a middle book, it's an entertaining middle book, not dragging at all. Very fast paced, very entertaining and very interesting. This is one of my favorite trilogies and I keep kicking myself for not having read it years and years ago.
I don't know how necessary it really was, as the main characters in the first book are only secondary characters here (and not really very critical). Alec, one of the main characters in the first book is the crazy Duke who wages (financial) war on his family thanks to some unresolved issues he has with his sister. After breaking his sister's family's bank, a resolution is reached where his niece is sent to him to be trained as a swordsman.
She must now live at the periphery of society instead of taking part in it (much to her initial annoyance) and learns to live as the gender bending family member of a crazy rich (and powerful) man.
She makes friends, engages in bits of the machinations of the nobility, and in the end is the duchess.
I didn't really like this novel as much. I don't know if it's because I was already bored with the style of storytelling from the previous work (the writing, in and of itself is decent enough), or what, but I just wanted to get through the book. Everything Katherine (the niece) gets or does seems to be at the whims of the males or with their "help" - so instead of having a strong female character, or at least something that could have been made into an interesting look at gender politics, we have an almost boring story of "how female characters get pulled around and everything they do or get is through male agency"... The sexuality and debauchery of the first novel is here, again, but doesn't get terribly interesting (indeed, one of the most important plot points is a rape used as a power play).
The ending was super disappointing and anticlimactic. Everyone gets their happy ending without much difficulty and everyone rides off into the sunset happy (or gets their comeuppance, whichever we're supposed to want).
All in all, a bit disappointing. I think if I wanted a seriously mindless easy read, this is the way to go, but that's not where my head-space was.
So I picked up this book, Gaiman junkie that I am, and during the introduction, he drops that this is the second in the Riverside series, so back to Audible I go to get this.
And I listened.
It's not my preferred style of audiobook, with multiple narrators. I'm a little peeved that the multiple narrators are not used throughout the book, but only during passages deemed important or those with heightened tension. You have Kushner giving the audiobook it's "regular" read for most of the book (and she is good), but then the characters have their own voices. It's just... odd. And I don't like the sound effects (swords clashing, walking, horses, shouting). I eventually got used to it, but I would not recommend this book in this format.
Onto the actual substance of the book - I don't think this is fantasy, strictly speaking. It's much more historical fiction/romance set in an imaginary time & place. There's no magic or anything otherwordly that distracts from the main story line.
We have the set up of the nobleman/aristocracy who run an unnamed City and the people who live in it. One of the main characters, Richard, is a swordsman, which nobles will hire out to duel, challenge others on honor, be honor guards for weddings, etc.
Richard is living in the poorest area of the city with his lover, Alec. He is engaged by noblemen to do different killings/duels.
The other part of the story line is the shenanigans of the noblemen and their maneuvering around the political and social sphere.
The world building was really good. The writing was solid and very easy to follow. I can't say that I just adored this book, but I was interested in it, and the political machinations of the characters and how Richard was caught up in it, but I was not interested in any of the characters (well, except maybe the Duchess). Richard is a sociopath who is in love with Alec, for no reason I can discern, and Alec is a troubled, cynical, and really annoying youth who I neither like nor care about.
I did like the politics and social maneuvering, and I think this book lives up a bit to the idea that it's an Austen-esque take on a fantastical society. It gives the foibles, humor, mockery and silliness of antiquated situations, which was cute (best word I can think of there).
I was a little bit peeved, though, because while the book was very open with male non-heteronormative behavior (apparently homosexual behavior among men was nothing to raise an eyebrow at and quite common), you don't see any glimpses of these kind of relationships between women, and women were still stuck subservient in a very strong patriarchal system.
I had a hard time wondering why we couldn't have stronger women, lesbian relationships, or a more egalitarian system while we're totally accepting of (male) homosexual behavior, and from a woman writer, no less.
I don't know, the story was interesting, interesting enough that I was curious about what happened next and immediately started The Privilege of the Sword, and I did like it overall, I think.
In this novel, we experience the same sort of modern/historic double story, with Nicola and Rob as our modern day couple (who, of course, aren't together, but, spoiler alert - will be, eventually, we all know it). Nicola is an art historian/dealer with a Russian history (her grandfather and mother escaped the USSR). Rob is a Scottish policeman/constable? (I'm already getting fuzzy on the details). But wait, they met while taking part in a study about psychometry. You see, they can see into the past. So we're psychics. Rob is more powerful, Nicola has to actually touch objects to see their pasts.
She inadvertently touches something that gives her a flashback of Anna, the "abandoned" daughter of the first Slains novel, who would be part of the romantic duo we'll focus on in the past. In the historical flashback storyline, we're treated to St. Petersburg during the reign of Peter the Great and Catherine I and the marginal part that Russia played in the Jacobite rebellion. Anna (of course) meets a dashing rake, and navigates the society among the Jacobites that have fled to Russia. Cue angst among misunderstood characters.
I am an utter junkie for anything Russian, and I'm just going to say that I'm disappointed. There is lot less historical "meat" in this novel than there was in the first one, with most of the novel just being about Anna maneuvering about in life with a couple of adorable plot!twists! and more of the "fade to black" romance that I really don't enjoy.
It's still a solidly written book, and I think the biggest issue I honestly had was that the narrator for this novel (audiobook) was not nearly as good as the one for the first one.
All in all, I'm pretty done with this series. I picked up The Firebird because Russia. And I got the first book so I could get the background before checking out the second, but I don't find myself compelled to continue.