Category Archives: Book Reviews

Reviews of books, old or new, that I read

The Once and Future King by T.H. White

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Loved The Sword in the Stone. No plot, but supremely entertaining. They kinda went downhill after that. Especially once Merlin left. A lot of the humor and absurdity that made the first part so good disappeared. And that fit the story, but it was a hard loss still. As it went it seemed to become more and more of an essay on Arthurian legend and less a story. He spent a lot of time explaining the way things were, why characters acted the way they did. At times he even told us outright to pay attention and know what this meant. At one point he pressed on us to know that what just happened was the cause of what would happen later and that this was extremely important. I was not expecting that going in, so it was a bit of a let down.

What I loved, especially early on, was the humor. I just kept finding passages that I wanted to record because I cracked up at them. Again, as the story went on and got darker, that went away. I also liked how it felt like he was just sitting there telling a story. He made references to modern day things and told us how it was similar and differebt than modern day life. It had a real informal feel to it, which I rather enjoyed. Until it became an essay. Again, maybe I just wasn’t ready for it and wasn’t in the right mindset for it, but it started to lose its appeal then. The tone shift fit the story, but still…

The last book did redeem it some. It got off to a rough, very dense, start and ended with the musings of an old man, but in between it got quite personal and emotional. It made me like and care about characters I hadn’t yet liked or didn’t like anymore.

I hadn’t read much Arthurian legend before and my exposure to it is mostly in film and TV (Monty Python, King Arthur, Merlin) so it was cool to read this and see the difference. I always read with my phone by me and I regularly looked up other versions of the story to see how he changed it. I also needed the phone for its use as a dictionary. Whole lotta new words in there and unknown references (still feel like I didn’t understand a large chunk). But it was cool seeing who these characters I’d heard the names of were.

Overall, I give it a 3.5/5. The Sword in the Stone was a solid 4.5 at least and The Candle in the Wind was up to a 4, but I can’t bring myself to rank the rest so high.

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

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2/5 stars. Will not be continuing with the series. I listened to it pretty fast, faster than other books I like more, but my motivation for that was really just to be done with it. “Only this long left” was my thinking on it. I wanted to finish to start another.

For most of the book I didn’t care about a single character. I didn’t like Darrow much. He seemed to always have the answer and could be exactly what the situation called for. I also found the idea of the story intriguing, but did not get invested in it at all. And I think both are symptoms of the writing style.

He told us everything. I think the most common writing advice out there is “show don’t tell.” He did the exact opposite. (You could argue the same about LotR and The Once and Future King, but those feel like a guy sitting around a fire telling you a story he knows, this feels like watching a story through a character’s eyes and he’s telling you how you should interpret everything and feel about it.) Another common piece of advice is “no info dumps, especially in your first chapter.” The first several chapters were one huge info dump. He felt the need to tell us every single thing about the world and characters and their relationships before the story even started. I got so bored in those early chapters. And it didn’t get much better, because, while the story started moving, it still felt kinda like an info-dump because he simply told us everything. Even in the rare time that he did show something, he then immediately stated it. He never left anything implied. Way too many ‘am’s and “beacause’s and ‘is’s. “I feel this” “I am this” “he feels this” “I think this” “I am right”. He force-feeds us everything. He tells you how to feel about the characters, which just makes me feel nothing at all. And he used a lot of similes and statements I think were intended to be literary and smart but just sounded ridiculous to me.

Some specific (non-spoilery) examples:

There was a character at one point that he apparently formed a connection with and she gave him something and he like asked her master to be nice or something in what I think was supposed to be a touching scene. I don’t even remember her name, but I just thought “wait… Have we even heard this girl talk before? But we’re supposed to care about her and their relationship?”

“They are afraid of us.”
“I am angry.”
“I want to punch him.”
All super easy to show through actions and descriptions. And every other sentence was like that.

I didn’t write down the similes I cringed at, but there were a lot.

In one listening session (the last one) I heard the following:
“She smells like smoke and hunger.”
“She tastes like she smells, like smoke and hunger.”
“It smells like earth and siege.”
“He reeks of power like pinks reek of perfume.”
“His pride reeks.” (The same guy who, a few sentences before, reeked of power)
Who can tell me what hunger, siege, power and pride smell like and why he was so obsessed with smells?

Overall, an interesting story, but most (not all) of the characters were bland. And the writing style hurt to listen to. And that made both the characters and story that much more bland. Maybe I’m just too old or something. I won’t tell you not to read it, but I have a long list of books I would recommend first.

Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige

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I enjoyed reading this one. I doubt I will read the rest of the series however. Most (but not all) of what follows is negative nitpicking, but if you want to hear everything wrong I found in a pretty good book, keep reading.

The story was interesting and was definitely an interesting take on the world of Oz. I mean, my experience with Oz is watching the movie a few times over the years, the last time probably 5+ years ago, and seeing the Wicked musical a couple of times, so I have very little to compare to, but I found it interesting nonetheless. I can’t really fault the story itself much, but honestly, I just didn’t get that into it, I can’t really put my finger on why. I think I just felt sorta swept along, like Amy wasn’t really that engaged in the whole thing, it felt sorta detached. And in some places it moved slow, in others it was really fast, in a way that pulled me out of it a bit. A way I described it when I was about a fifth of the way through the book (before I got to some of the stuff that went really fast, like her training) was “the writing seems to take a sudden turn sometimes, where I feel jarred. I feel it has moved really fast while also moving quite slow. Not a ton has happened of import I feel like, but so much has happened.” And I stand by that. The first part of the story felt like it was jamming so much in, trying to rush us through the world to show us as much of it as she could before actually getting to the story. None of it felt info-dump-y as it was all done through narrative, but the narrative did very little for the plot. I mean, we met a character that seemed like they would be important, then the character was unceremoniously killed off pretty quick, with barely a mention the rest of the book. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for killing characters (and the darkness and gore and violence in this book was surprising and awesome) but it really, again, just felt like it had no point. And the author just kinda herded us from one this to the next without time to absorb any of the things that felt like they had no real point to them. She painted a very intriguing picture. That we saw nothing of the rest of the book.

I also didn’t really like the romance. The book being a YA, the whole thing was a given, but I think she could have handled it better. It feels like it was just thrown in almost as an afterthought. It had little effect on the story and happened quick and predictably. I don’t know how it progresses through the series, but so far it feels forced and inconsequential.

There were some instances, too, where I felt pulled out of the world ((hang with me, I’ll get to some of the good things)) because of something that happened or was said. One that stuck out was “Oz History 101” was used as a joke I believe. And that felt out of place. This fantasy world exists alongside ours and has people from our world in it, yes, but the use of how we name classes (correct me if I’m wrong on the origin of that cliché joke) still felt out of place.

I do like the grayness of the story. The question about what is Wicked, what is Good. The main character doing some “bad” things. The bad guys seem totally evil, but the good guys aren’t your classic heroes. And you can’t be sure of anyone’s motivations, or, sometimes, even what side they’re on. Add onto that how brutal and violent it is and you’ve got exactly the kind of thing I like. And the magic was really interesting. How it worked, what it was. I enjoyed reading about it.

I’m going to get into some specifics now. Spoilers (and nitpicking) ahead.

One thing that had me really confused was the plan. It seemed to me that they sent Amy to the city to figure out how to get close to Dorothy and kill her, but then Nox said they had a plan already. They definitely should have told her a bit more, given her a clearer vision of what her role was. Because I had no clue. I imagine this is answered, at least in part, later, but I don’t know why they needed her at all. If Jellia was there, with close access to Dorothy, and they were able to sneak into the ball and eliminate magic, why not just do that and have Jellia slit her throat?

There were issues with the writing itself too. For the most part it was fine, but I kept record of many of the issues. This is where the nitpicking comes into play. Read if you want. Otherwise, just know that I enjoyed reading it, but the other books in the series will not move to the top of my reading list.

A couple of times the writing contradicts itself from one sentence to the next, like the author was trying to make a contrast, but to me it just came off as a mistake
Star ran off but she knew it would be back. The next time the rat is mentioned, it was somewhere on her person again and squealing.
“…and he shut right up. She cut him off…” she isn’t cutting him off anymore if he already shut up. pg. 88
She describes the Scarecrow pretty much how I envisioned him and in a way that is perfectly clear who he is. Then she says he is twisted and warped into something she hardly recognizes. Which is it? This description that is obviously him or “something I hardly recognized?”
She fell asleep, woke up, tried to find the door, fell asleep again, woke up and then “after all the hours locked away in here, al alone, it really did help just to have him sitting next to me.” Felt way too quick. If we were supposed to feel like she was trapped for so long it was good to have another person, it should have been drawn out longer. I got no sense that she was in there for a super long time. Pg. 101
She goes on this big heart-felt thing about how she never liked the rat, but now it had been her companion and she wanted to protect it. I feel it was a little undeserved. I never got much emotion from her on the rat, good or bad. Pg.107
She could feel the cold of the knife in her hand. Last we heard about the knife it had come clattering out of her hand. Pg.117
“What had I gotten myself into” used twice in 3 paragraphs. To me, twice feels redundant. 3 or more feels like intentional repetitiveness. but twice on the some page, then no again, comes off as poor writing. Pg117
She is specifically identifying stone as opal, she is saying she hit him in the solar plexus. This feel forced. I doubt very many high school girls would both see a rock and go “I think that’s opal” and hit a guy and say it was his solar plexus. We have no reason to think she would know about either of those things. She hasn’t identified any rocks before Pg 144 & 149
I call BS on her kicking him in the stomach and making him stumble and surprising him. A kick, especially one hard enough to make a guy stumble that wasn’t even affected by her hardest punch, would not surprise the trained fighter. Kicks take time and hard kicks have obvious warning signs. He should have seen it coming a mile off Pg. 149
Glamora explaining she and Glinda were connected, now they don’t seem to be. Then says there’s a chance killing her would kill Glinda too. Which brings up 2 questions: 1) if you aren’t connected anymore, then it wouldn’t, right? I think it is poor order of dialogue. 2) If that would kill Glinda and you are happy to make that sacrifice, why not commit suicide? Maybe she’s not sure. Pg 174
“I couldn’t help Nox, and Nox couldn’t help me” then half a page later he helps her and they have a short conversation without any indication that the fighting had let up Pg 233
“And then we were surrounded” then, farther down on the same page “we were surrounded” Pg 233
She’s using her knife, then later on the page it says she pulls it out. Theoretically I can make an explanation for that (she dropped it and it vanished, then she retrieved it again), but it doesn’t say it in the page and we aren’t told anywhere if it disappears when dropped so… Pg 233
How did Astrid’s absence go unnoticed?
Dorothy looked at Amy with a Permasmile, then, a couple of paragraphs later, frowns. I was under the impression one couldn’t frown with Permasmile. Pg 315
The whole thing with her getting into the Scarecrow’s lab felt real easy and convenient. She found it no problem. Started the fire no problem. That worked. She got to the greenhouse no problem. The crows did nothing until it was too late. All too easy.
She describes Pete in a way that clearly shows he looks better than usual. Then says “he looked better than normal” explicitly. Feel redundant Pg 385
Wait… so, she is just wearing a different face? How did people not recognize that her voice was different? Pg 402
Pretty sure up to this point just the movie had been mentioned, but suddenly she’d read about this her whole life? Pg 430

Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen

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I must say, I was skeptical going into this one. It isn’t my typical read and I was somewhat opposed to the whole thing. It started out rough. Between my reservations going in and the older writing, it was hard going at first. It wasn’t until about halfway through that I began to appreciate the read. All throughout I still had some difficulty with the writing and often had to reread pieces, but I got into the story and wanted to keep reading. Much of it is now antiquated, but it still felt very real, especially the characters (and as someone who mostly sticks to sci-fi and fantasy, who am I to complain when the world of the story doesn’t match the world I live in?). I could really understand the characters and what they were experiencing, but at the same time be kept guessing. Austen does a great job of having us see the world and other characters through the same lens as Elizabeth, with our opinions changing as hers do. That leads to revelations that are often easy to see coming in other works, but I didn’t actually expect. Sometimes I like to feel smart by predicting what happens, but in a book where little in terms of action takes place, it is the mystery of what will be revealed next that kept me reading. I was surprised at how fast I got through it (once I reached the point where I was interested). I can’t say this genre will become my primary reading, but I was pleasantly surprised by this book and I am a bit more open to different genres than I was before. If you’re a guy that’s skeptical about reading these kinds of books, I suggest you give it a shot.

Those of you that have read Pride & Prejudice, did you like it? Did that surprise you?

The Lost City of Z by David Grann

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I could not put this one down. I wanted to, but I just could not stop. That is very rare. Even books I thoroughly enjoy I can usually put down pretty easily unless I am right near the end or at a cliff hanger. Something about this story and the history in it just held me captivated. Remarkable the things these people did and what I previously knew barely scratched the surface. Still does no doubt.

Grann does a great job dividing the narrative between his own story of discovery and the story of Percy Fawcett. He keeps it professional but still gripping the entire time. He clearly did a lot of research to get the facts straight and he lays out a brilliant tale of a man consumed by obsession. The detail about the Amazon and the feats of the men that explored it is quite enthralling. It does little to make me want to go there myself and imitate them, but it does give me a greater respect for those that do.

I recommend this book for. . . everyone. It is an enjoyable read and informative. I am certainly going to be watching the movie sometime in the near future.

The Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn

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One of the better Star Wars EU stories out there. I’d been told for years I needed to read it, going back to when I was first obsessed, somewhere around Episode 3 coming out I believe. It mostly lived up to the hype. I like the way Zahn writes, it is very much my style. A few things he does kind of bug me, but they were small and merely a matter of taste. I did catch a couple of mistakes that were missed in editing, but those are easily forgivable.

The story itself was pretty good. It had a nice pace that kept me reading. There were possibly too many coincidences and characters showing up at the same places at the same time. Pretty convenient. But maybe that’s just the Force at work.

The characters introduced were mostly good and the ones from the movies felt true. I did have a problem with Pallaeon though. He seemed to be there strictly for the purpose of making Thrawn seem like a genius. He does nothing but marvel at Thrawn’s insight and carry out Thrawn’s orders. I understand the need to show us how smart Thrawn is, but I feel like they could have made the character showing us that brilliance a little more necessary to the plot. If we took out his parts, the story would play out exactly the same. And Thrawn himself, while pretty cool, was maybe too smart. There were a couple of times where I thought it was just too much. At least Zahn did give him a couple of failures.

Overall, a pretty good series and a must read for Star Wars fans. I prefer it to much of the new canon, even if there were inconsistencies from it coming out before the prequels were fully planned.

Wrath by John Gwynne

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A fitting end to the series.  I am sad to see that it is over.  I will miss the story and the characters (those that are left).  The ending was very satisfying aside from one part that felt a little too deus ex machina for me.  There was a little hinting to it (something Gwynne does well) but it still saved the day a little too suddenly.  On the other hand, this is one of the few stories I have read or watched lately that I did not feel like the climax was rushed and too easy.  Gwynne did a great job upping the stakes and suspense and drawing out the scenes that needed drawing out.  He didn’t rush to the conclusion.  The story moves around in surprising but fitting ways.  He brought all the characters together for a natural and epic finale. 
He stayed consistent in his writing, which means I have the same general complaints as the previous books.  But at this point I have accepted it as just part of the story and it doesn’t really bother me anymore.
I highly recommend this series to fans of fantasy.  It has everything you could want, giants, magic, angels, demons, swordplay, betrayal, deception, massive and epic battles.  Exactly what you look for in a fantasy.  This series has given me plenty of ideas for my own writing and provided me with many hours of entertainment to boot.  Thank you Mr. Gwynne, these books are going on my VIB (very important book) shelf.

The Loyal Nine by Bobby Akart

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Not impressed.  By the end of the prologue (which in itself was a poor choice) I knew it wasn’t going to be great,but I made myself keep reading, hoping I would be surprised.  I wasn’t.  The writing was very unimpressive.  On one page he used the word “soldier” ten times.  One right after the other.  It did not flow well.  It used a lot of direct thoughts that were out of place and redundant.  It restated a lot.  I really don’t need to know what kind of car every character drives and what coffee they drink and the exact square footage of their apartments.  It brought in so much unnecessary information in the most awkward way.  He would have someone say something that sounds completely unnatural and was clearly something understood by all the present characters, so it was done simply to inform the reader.  So many words and scenes that could have easily been cut out and only made the book better.  And the dialogue was structured wrong sometimes.  That annoys me.  That should be one of the first things a writer figures out before they start writing.  Make I’m being unfair.  Maybe it was typos.  Maybe.  And one more thing that annoyed me to no end in the beginning was his unwillingness to name the characters.  I believe that, unless you have a really good reason (he did not),the POV character should be named right away.  He went pages without naming some characters.  That led to an over reliance on “he” and ridiculous nicknames.  

Besides the writing being bad, the story wasn’t even good.  It was way too political.  To the point where it literally went to political speeches many times throughout.  I realize that is kinda the point of the book, but it was just exhausting.  It maybe is meant to teach people, but I think that most people would just get annoyed and stop reading.  I almost did.  But maybe I just am not the right audience.  I prefer to read fiction for the story, not to be preached at.  Sue me.   If you want a political message in a book, try and be at least somewhat discreet.  Don’t make one of your characters a professor who literally gives political lectures in your book.  In doing that, Bobby tried too hard to show how smart he is.  Not just on political topics, but on locations and objects.  Too much irrelevant detail about things that have no bearing on the story.  And the story itself was pretty boring.  Maybe if the entire series was cut down to a reasonable length and all the excess was chopped, it would be good, but the way it is, I was bored.  I really was.

So no, this was not a good book.  I will not be reading the rest of the series.  I probably should have seen that coming.  Any series that has 6 books come out in little over a year cannot be well written.  Tell me if I’m wrong, but that raises a red flag for me.  But hey, if you want a political lecture with a storyline and don’t mind bad writing, this is the book for you.  Not the book for me.

Tarkin by James Luceno

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​I enjoyed this one largely because it gave more information about the Star Wars universe and characters.  At times, I felt the characters didn’t quite match their movie conterparts, but, for the most part, I think it was well done.  The story wasn’t anything special, but it was enjoyable, which basically describes most of Star Wars, aside from the obvious shockers.  The world is what is more enjoyable to me, the overall story and the detailed races and planets, not the individual, isolated stories.  I don’t have a lot to say on the writing; it was good.  Mostly easy to understand, but with some flourish with the language, sometimes maybe unnecessarily so.  Not exactly how I would write it, but that is not a critique, it is a fact for everything I didn’t write.  Mostly the writing just disappeared into the story, which is a sign that it is good.  Overall, I think the book was done well and is an essential book for people wanting to understand the new canon.

Eon by Greg Bear

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I’m not really a hard sci-fi guy.  I’m just not smart enough for all the science.  Reading this book made me feel a little bit dumb and was definitely a brain workout.  I also prefer to read books for their story and hard sci-fi has a tendency to pause the story to explain the science, I feel like.  Some people with more scientifically inclined brains enjoy it I am sure, but I am not a fan.  It probably didn’t help either that I kept getting distracted while reading it, especially in the beginning, so there were a number of things that probably would have made more sense had I not been distracted.  Although, despite all the science explanation, I still have questions, mainly how the Stone’s presence affects gravity on Earth if at all.
In terms of the actual writing, I am not a huge fan.  I don’t really like the point of view.  I like very limited third person and first person.  This was less limited.  It felt like it was following one person, but then it would be focused on another person only to revert back.  Again, it is a personal preference, but I did not really enjoy it.  The action felt removed at times, like we were disengaged and being told through an outside observer rather than being made a part of the story, they happen so matter-of-fact-ly.  Again, personal preference and the story wasn’t focused on the action, so it was understandable.  Some of the reactions and interactions didn’t feel real, however.  There were a few times I thought “no person ever would say that or be that cool.”  Maybe I just haven’t been around the right kind of people, but I was doubting.
The story was good.  It was a step away from my usual conflict and war-based stories, but It was pretty good.  There didn’t really seem to be a whole lot of buildup throughout, which felt a little off, but, again, it might just be that I kept getting distracted, so I wasn’t fully engaged in the story.  The beginning of the book and the end are very different.  So much happens throughout.  That is a little overwhelming and makes some of the major events feel less important, they are just kind of drowned out.  
Overall, not really my kind of book, but it was good.  If you enjoy hard sci-fi, then I’d say read it.  If you don’t like hard sci-fi, it is your choice.