DNF at about 20%. I read a few chapters of this book last night, and I just wasn't feeling it at all. First person present tense didn't help, nor did DNF at about 20%. I read a few chapters of this book last night, and I just wasn't feeling it at all. First person present tense didn't help, nor did naming the kingdoms after seasons and having the racial makeup of each kingdom fit its season, which just seemed juvenile and gimmicky. Not only are the main kingdoms called Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring, but their capital cities are named--wait for it--Juli, Oktuber, Jannuari, Abril. Add in a love triangle, and I'm moving on.
A lot of my YA fantasy lovin' friends really like this one, so if you like the genre, don't let my opinion stop you. I'm an outlier on this one....more
Grimspace is what this novel calls the hyperspace dimension used for FTL (faster than light) travel between star systems. Ominous, no? Certain humans,Grimspace is what this novel calls the hyperspace dimension used for FTL (faster than light) travel between star systems. Ominous, no? Certain humans, like our main character, Sirantha Jax, carry a gene that enables them to guide space ships through grimspace. But Sirantha has been involved in a tragic and mysterious crash that killed everyone aboard her ship except her, and now she's in custody and being blamed for the crash, and is undergoing psychological torture treatment. When a tough-looking stranger shows up and offers to break her out if she helps his cause, Jax decides she has nothing to lose. And so begin her wild adventures across space with an unusual set of crew mates.
This is a fun science fiction space opera type of story, but truthfully? What it felt like was an urban fantasy, even though there's no magical fantasy element and very little urban about it. But there's a smart-mouthed kickass heroine, lots of humor and sarcasm, non-stop action and adventure, and a strong romantic component to the story. Which isn't a bad thing, if that's the kind of book you're looking for. I liked the older main characters who are both damaged in their different ways, but good people at their core. Bonus points for being the first book in a series, but not having any cliffhangers at the end.
It was an exciting roller coaster ride and I had a lot of fun reading it. This one goes in the "not deep but fun" category. Even though it's written in first person present tense, which is a narrative style that always annoys me, the plot was gripping enough that I didn't even realize it until I read a friend's GR review that mentioned it. I had to go open the book up again to see if it was really true. It just goes to show if the story is compelling enough, normal rules may not apply.
Content note: violence and death, scattered F-bombs and a mildly explicit sex scene....more
Man, I blitzed right through this book both times I've read it. It's an incredibly quick read, in the tradition of the old pulp science fiction space Man, I blitzed right through this book both times I've read it. It's an incredibly quick read, in the tradition of the old pulp science fiction space opera novels, but with a kickass heroine rather than the guy this book would be about if it were written 50 years ago, and better technology.
Deviana Morris is a private mercenary soldier, one with super-high-tech-gee-whiz space armor and weapons that makes her the physical equivalent of any guy. Both her armor (Lady Gray) and her weapons (Sasha, Mia and Phoebe) have names, and she loves them more than any person in her life. Devi also has heaps of ambition, and what she wants most in life is to be invited to join the Devastators, the most elite armored unit on her planet. She's looking for the quickest way to become a Devastator, and taking a job as a security guard on a particularly dangerous trade freighter spaceship, the Glorious Fool, with its well-connected captain, promises to get her to her goal soonest -- if she can only survive.
The danger on the Glorious Fool turns out to be no joke. Captain Caldswell has a way of finding trouble and sending Devi and her partner Cotter (a macho dude with a huge set of armor and an ego to match) right into the worst of it. There are some weird characters (including a couple of aliens) on board the ship, and the ship's cook is a hot guy who's a bundle of mystery coated with sexiness and topped off with danger.
Devi has a take-no-prisoners attitude and a love for combat, and she has the guts and assertiveness to fit her role as a professional armored soldier. She also fights at the drop of a hat, drinks too hard, and unapologetically sleeps around. If you enjoy that kind of kickass main character, this is a very fun read, though it's not really deep or meaningful in any way, and the science part of the science fiction is pretty soft stuff. The mystery that slowly develops is an intriguing one with several facets to it ... but you won't get the answer to it in this book. Fortune's Pawn is the first book in a trilogy, and that is one serious cliffhanger at the end of it.
As much as I enjoyed this exciting space opera adventure with a large side of romance, it wasn't quite enough to send me diving into the next book (the mixed reviews for the rest of this series didn't help). But if I ever get a library card again, I'd be inclined to check them out.
I've loved this author's book Then There Were Five for many years; it's a charming, old-fashioned tale of four siblings who live in a country home, duI've loved this author's book Then There Were Five for many years; it's a charming, old-fashioned tale of four siblings who live in a country home, during WWII. One of my GR friends alerted me to this 1951 sequel, which I had never heard of before, but luckily for me my local library had a copy.
In this book the three older children have left for boarding school, leaving the two younger siblings, Miranda (Randy) and Oliver, morose. But they soon receive a letter with the first clue in a treasure hunt, and life immediately looks brighter. The hunt will end up taking them the entire school year and the whole length of the book.
This is a sweet and somewhat humorous story, but it didn't have quite the impact of Then There Were Five. The treasure hunt and its many mysterious clues that Randy and Oliver have to solve got a little tiresome, though the middle grade set may find it more interesting than I did. What I loved the most were the charming descriptions of small town life in a simpler time. This series is a great nostalgia trip.
So I'm not entirely certain about Angelfall but I was having loads of fun searching for pics of Hot. Warrior. Angel. Dudes. for this review.
Yo[image]
So I'm not entirely certain about Angelfall but I was having loads of fun searching for pics of Hot. Warrior. Angel. Dudes. for this review.
You're welcome.
All hell broke loose on Earth six weeks before our story starts. It's unclear who's the ultimate bossman of the angels here (they have some unseen supreme being giving them orders; I am presuming here that it's not really supposed to be God, though the whole thing raises interesting Biblical questions) but someone has given the angels orders to blow up cities and take over earth. Now the angels are in charge, living it up like gangster dudes and using people for nefarious purposes. Humans are in hiding or serving the angel society.
Penryn, a 17 year old girl, is trying to take care of her disabled sister Paige and her mentally ill mother--an extremely tall order. They oversee a fight between angels, in which one angel gets his wings cut off, and Paige gets kidnapped by another angel.
[image] Belial, the fallen angel. The angel of hostility. "All his dominions are in darkness."
Paige saves and then takes hostage Raffe, the angel who has had his wings, cut off, figuring he's her best bet for finding and rescuing her little sister. They lug the wings along, hoping that at some point they can be reattached. Apparently - and conveniently - the normal rules for needing to reattach appendages within an hour or so do not apply to angel wings.
[image] The archangel Raphael, who protects travelers and performs healings
So Raffe and Penryn begin the trek to the angels' aerie to try to save Paige and, also, Raffe's wings. Various adventures ensue, some intriguing (I really liked the hidden human rebellion subplot) and some really horrific.
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There are factions among the angels. Penryn and Raffe need help, but it's hard to know who to trust.
[image] The archangel Uriel, who watches over thunder and terror
Especially when they're still trying to figure out if they can trust each other.
So, I had some issues with this novel:
I wanted more world-building: how on earth did the world fall apart so very quickly? What's the deal with the angel society? Why did they attack anyway, after so many millennia of watching over earth?
I wanted angels that weren't quite so ... human? I thought their culture and interests should be more alien and different. This angel culture suffered a little in comparison to the more creative world in the Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy.
I would have liked writing that had more depth and was more layered. What you see here is pretty much what you get.
And my final beef: the budding relationship between Raffe, who seems to be immortal and (at least) thousands of years old, not to mention a powerful captain of many angels, and Penryn, a 17 y/o human girl. Leaving apart the two different races thing, that's a hell of an age and power differential. I don't want to hear anyone complaining about Twilight's piddling 100 year difference ever again.
But there were also several things I liked: Penryn's martial arts and self-defense skills. Loved this, especially since it had a basis in lots and lots of training her paranoid mother insisted on her getting. It didn't just spring forth out of nothing.
Penryn's damaged mother was a great character - I also wanted to know more about her. I'm hoping there's a really fascinating backstory that will come out later, about what really happened when Paige was injured.
The turn toward horror in the last part of the book was unexpected, and a nice twist away from what otherwise might have felt like a standard paranormal romance tale.
Overall a fun read (I would say "and light" except for the pretty gruesome horror element), enough to maybe suck me into reading the sequels to find out what happens.
This is a marvelous short fantasy novel - I absolutely loved it!! Very possibly my favorite of all of Sanderson's works that I've read.
Wan ShaiLu, a mThis is a marvelous short fantasy novel - I absolutely loved it!! Very possibly my favorite of all of Sanderson's works that I've read.
Wan ShaiLu, a magical forger of art and other valuable things, is captured and put under sentence of death for her crimes. But Shai is given an opportunity to escape her sentence: she is charged with magically forging a new soul for the kingdom's assassinated emperor, whose body had been healed but whose mind was permanently destroyed by the attack. Shai is given only a hundred days to accomplish this near-impossible task. And there are those waiting to kill her if she makes a wrong step, or trying to subvert her task for their own selfish purposes.
It was all fantastic: the characters, the complex motivations, the layered storytelling, the intricate magical system built on Chinese-type stamps. [image]
There are some fascinating touches that add depth to the story. One of my favorite bits is how Shai uses her Forging talents to turn her grim prison room into a lovely chamber, including a cracked glass window:
Attempts to Forge the window to a better version of itself had repeatedly failed; each time, after five minutes or so, the window had reverted to its cracked, gap-sided self.
Then Shai had found a bit of colored glass rammed into one side of the frame. The window, she realized, had once been a stained glass piece. It had been broken [and] rather than repairing it as it had been meant to be, someone had put ordinary glass in the window and left it to crack. A stamp from Shai in the bottom right corner had restored the window, rewriting its history so that a caring master craftsman had discovered the fallen window and remade it. That seal had taken immediately. Even after all this time, the window had seen itself as something beautiful.
Or maybe she was just getting romantic again.
I love what this book has to say about the nature of art, and souls, and how people affect each other.
He found himself weeping.
Not for the future or for the emperor. These were the tears of a man who saw before himself a masterpiece. True art was more than beauty; it was more than technique. It was not just imitation.
It was boldness, it was contrast, it was subtlety. ... It was the greatest work of art he had ever witnessed.
I'm also amazed at how much Brandon Sanderson packed into 167 pages. I would have enjoyed reading more, but really, this felt like the perfect length for this story....more
Amazing fantasy, incredible world-building, complex characters, creative magic systems ... this book pretty much has it all!
December 2018 group read wAmazing fantasy, incredible world-building, complex characters, creative magic systems ... this book pretty much has it all!
December 2018 group read with the Buddies, Books and Baubles group. Thanks to Sarah and the group for motivating me to read it when it’s been sitting on my Kindle for, like, a year.
It's entirely possible that I'm as much of a curmudgeon as A.J. Fikry.
Reading a book about a bookstore and books and the people who love them seemed It's entirely possible that I'm as much of a curmudgeon as A.J. Fikry.
Reading a book about a bookstore and books and the people who love them seemed like a can't-miss proposition. And, in fact, there were parts of this book that I liked very much: the police chief who unexpectedly turns himself and most of his force into readers; the subplot with the theft of Poe's Tamerlane: Poem; the brief chapter intros where A.J. talks about various stories.
But overall the novel just felt a lot more superficial and clichéd than I was expecting or hoping. And then the ending doubled down on the sentimentalism with an overused trope ((view spoiler)[death of a main character from cancer (hide spoiler)]).
I'll confess that I'm a person who cries way too easily in sentimental scenes in movies or books. (One of the more embarrassing moments of my life was when I was on a date and we were watching one of those silly old Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan the Barbarian movies and laughing about how dumb it was, and then the girl dies and Conan is sad and I start to leak tears, hiding my face from my date because I was so mortified that I was crying over this idiotic movie). Just so you know this is coming from someone who easily gets sucked in by sentimentalism. But the ending of this book? Didn't move me in the slightest. I was just mildly annoyed at the over-familiar direction the plot took.
Still, there were some good moments and several delightful scenes, like this description of the book club started by Police Chief Lambiase:
Years ago, Lambiase had had to institute a "leave your weapons" policy after a young cop had pulled a gun on another cop during a particularly heated discussion of The House of Sand and Fog. (Lambiase would later reflect to A.J. that the selection had been a mistake. "Had an interesting cop character but too much moral ambiguity in that one. I'm going to stick to easier genre stuff from now on.")
3.5 stars.
Content notes: a handful of F-bombs and some characters sleeping together, but nothing explicit....more
Simon Watson, a librarian, is unexpectedly gifted with a mysterious old book out of the blue, fro3.5 stars. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Simon Watson, a librarian, is unexpectedly gifted with a mysterious old book out of the blue, from a man he’s never met: a badly damaged record from a traveling circus. In another unanticipated development in his life, Simon enters into a romantic relationship with his longtime friend and next-door neighbor, Alice, though for now they’re keeping it secret from their co-workers and her parents. Unfortunately everything else in Simon’s life is crumbling: his career, as he’s laid off from his job at the library; his house on the edge of a bluff, which is in danger of sliding into Long Island Sound; his relationship with his only living family member, his younger sister Enola, who ran off to join the circus six years earlier. Worse yet, as Simon begins to research and explore the old book sent to him by a collector because it has one of his ancestors’ names in it, he realizes that the women in his family, who have uncanny abilities to stay underwater (working as a “mermaid” in a circus or carnival is a popular family occupation) always drown on July 24. Enola suddenly gets back in touch to let him know that she’s coming home to visit … and July 24 is only days away.
Erica Swyler alternates chapters telling Simon’s story with chapters telling a related story from the past, about Amos, a mute young man who was abandoned by his family as a young boy and is taken in by the proprietor of a traveling carnival. Amos initially acts as a “Wild Man” in the carnival’s freak show, showcasing his ability to literally vanish and reappear before the spectators’ eyes. As he grows older, Madame Ryzhkova, the fortune teller, adopts Amos as her apprentice, teaching him the secrets of the tarot cards. All goes well, until one stormy night an ethereal girl, whose skin shimmers as if made of water, wanders into their midst and joins the group, and Amos instantly falls in love. Madame Ryzkova is certain the girl, Evangeline, is a Rusalka (water nymph or mermaid), but Amos is deaf to her entreaties to leave Evangeline alone.
As Simon gradually finds out more about his family history, the themes and items from the past and current day become more and more intertwined: circuses with power-filled tarot cards and mermaids. Ominous horseshoe crab invasions. Love fraught with tension. Betrayal. Curses.
The main characters in the present day story, Simon and his sister Enola (whose temperament and dangerous fate echo the WWII bomber Enola Gay), are so flawed that they end up not being particularly likable. Simon seems to be compelled to take actions that are self-defeating. Amos and Evangeline are more appealing and interesting, though they each have a tragic streak that tends to tip over into fatalism.
Erika Swyler weaves together several intriguing elements in The Book of Speculation, with some enchanting magical realism touches: tarot cards really work, as do curses. Several characters have rather subtle magical abilities, like Amos’ ability to gradually vanish, Enola’s boyfriend’s electric touch, or the ability to hold one’s breath for ten minutes or more, at least if you have some Rusalka blood.
Tarot cards are a recurring device used to move the plot along. It will help your enjoyment of this book if you’re familiar with tarot cards and find them entrancing; but their frequent use failed to resonate with me, though it might appeal more to other readers.
The fantastical elements, though I appreciated them, didn’t seem fully integrated into the story. The theme of the titular Book of Speculation remains rather obscure, lacking the impact that it should have had. The Book of Speculation is a rather gloomy and slow-paced novel, and in the end it just didn’t all quite come together for me. It was mildly enjoyable, but personally I think it suffers somewhat in comparison to The Night Circus....more
Bleakness. A terrible cliffhanger. Inhumanity and loss and disappointment. Oh, yes, and first person presentPatrick Ness, how could you do this to me?
Bleakness. A terrible cliffhanger. Inhumanity and loss and disappointment. Oh, yes, and first person present tense narration, by a 13 year old undereducated boy.
SO MANY REASONS this book should irk me. And yet.
There's loyalty and love and hope, even in the midst of darkness. There's being a man by being true to your convictions, even if it's not what everyone around you is telling you defines manhood. There's stumbling and disappointing yourself and those around you, but picking yourself up and struggling on, because that's what we need to do.
Also there's some great writing in this book. I didn't always like Todd's backwoodsy narration, but sometimes his descriptions or insights would really smack me right between the eyes.
This book has an interesting science fiction setting: people have come from Earth to settle this planet with two moons that circles a far-distant star. The original settlers were looking for a place to live that would allow them to get back to the basics of life, a farming and horse-and-cart level of existence. But something went wrong somewhere along the way. Todd doesn't really understand this, and a lot of the planet's history is secret and is divulged bit by bit during the course of the novel; I wouldn't want to spoil any of that.
But what Todd does know is that everyone in his town broadcasts their thoughts to everyone else, day and night, waking or sleeping. It's telepathy run amok. Even the animals speak, though in a very animal-level kind of way.
[image]
It's possible, but difficult, to try to hide what you're thinking from other people. And there are only men in his town: no women. (Todd thinks he knows why, but there's a lot that he doesn't understand.) Todd is the youngest boy in his entire town, and in less than a month he'll turn 13 (years run a little longer on this planet) and he'll become a man. Another event Todd wrongly thinks he understands. It's really quite fascinating, how many things Todd is wrong about.
I'm going 4 stars here for an overuse of some tropes that bugged me: (view spoiler)[The religious leader who's totally corrupted, and corrupts the town. A dog's death. D: And the way the whole plot was centered around the journey to a town called Haven, which, of course, isn't. A haven. (hide spoiler)] While I did like a lot of things about this book, I'm not sure I was enough into it to want to read two more volumes of angst and bleakness to get to the end of the story. I'm not dashing down to the library to get the next book, but I might pick it up sometime....more
M.M. Kaye wrote six romantic suspense/murder mysteries back in the mid-20th century, all titled (or in some cases retitled) "Death in ___" and set in M.M. Kaye wrote six romantic suspense/murder mysteries back in the mid-20th century, all titled (or in some cases retitled) "Death in ___" and set in different exotic locations around the world. I binged on them all like so many potato chips. This time we're in beautiful scenic Cyprus, an island off the coast of Turkey and Syria with a large Greek population.
[image]
It's the 1950s, and 21 year old Amanda Derington is traveling on a ship to Cyprus for a vacation. She kindly exchanges cabins with the loud, whiny, miserable Mrs. Julia Blaine, who has a terror of the number 13 assigned to the cabin. Amanda nearly drinks a nice cold drink left in the cabin before realizing it had to have been left for Julia. Julia then comes to Amanda's cabin (to complain about her neglectful husband), drinks the drink and promptly falls dead. I guess the number 13 really was unlucky for her ...
It looks like suicide to everyone, except that Amanda and the mysterious and cynical Steven Howard, who appears in the night to help Amanda out, have some extra clues that make them realize it wasn't. But even after they disembark on Cyprus, the unknown murderer is following Amanda, presumably to tie up the loose end that she represents, in ways that involve hair-raising incidents(view spoiler)[ (<-----intentional pun here, if you've read this book) (hide spoiler)].
[image] Historic Hilarion castle, where ... never mind!
I guessed the murderer in the other two Kaye mystery novels I read before this one, but Death in Cyprus fooled me completely. The clues were there; I just didn't put them all together.
This was an enjoyable, light and quick read, though nothing deep or profound. There's just a dash of romance, but it's nothing to write home about: it's the old-fashioned standard virginal ingenue and the steely-eyed alpha male who takes charge. Given the 1950s publication date I didn't mind it too much, though some readers might. I did want Amanda to be a little less helpless and a little more clued in, but I liked the main characters, in spite of their shortcomings.
A fun murder mystery, in a distinctly old-fashioned kind of way. It gives you a nice historic glimpse into Cyprus as it was in the 1950s....more
Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽
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