Category: Books

This was a reread; while I didn’t recognize it by title, I suspected it was a reread as soon as I saw the cover. It took about a half a chapter to be sure, but memory was hazy and I remembered enjoying it, so I continued.

It’s a good book, slightly mystical, but all in entirely discountable ways if you want to cling to rational explanations. The star of the book is Sam, who is being a shit to the people he loves. He drives off to drive up the coast and get out of the sun. In alternating chapters, we see snippets of his mother July’s life (and eventual death).

Both POV characters are sympathetic, even when they’re being terrible. The author did a great job of writing them as engaging, very flawed but very human. Along the way, the minor characters are all interesting and slightly skewed from normal. Haley and Sam finish the novel in a potentially good place, but their history makes me wonder if they can last.

An amusing Mouse with Swords book, Redwall is well written but clearly pitched at younger readers. I enjoyed it in general, but found that the straightforward plot and excessive praise for Mattias. Several points amused me as an older reader… where the simplistic charm of the series fell too far short of my expectations.

This would all be easily solved by reading the book earlier. It’d make a good book to give less proficient readers.

The nature of the animal societies is quirky and hard to nail down– very much a humans in furry skin, with some elements altered to fit the reduced size, while others remain proportioned as in our world. It’s also semi-medieval, but has a number of other elements that are out of time. In the end, it’s probably best not to concentrate on the details and investigate them for consistency, but just to enjoy the yarn for a good tale told around a campfire.

Brandon Sanderson, the author of the last Wheel of Time book, has a long blog post up about A Memory of Light. As he reread the series and took note of the plotlines remaining to be closed, the book kept ballooning. In the end, it looks like the final “book” will be three books. They’re currently looking at publication of the first chunk this year (November of 2009), with the remaining books probably coming out in 2010 and 2011.

He does a great job of explaining how this came about and gives us a glimpse at the way authors, editors, publishers, and booksellers interact and direct changes back and forth.

I enjoyed Mistborn very much, and look forward to these novels, despite falling off of the Wheel of Time wagon some time ago. It sounds like there’s a plan, which has me excited and waiting for November. Maybe now I’ll get around to reading Knife of Dreams….

The Iron Hunt is a good book with a fascinating main character and several good supporting characters. While it’s superficially similar to the “WoD knockoff” books that I’ve been burning out on, several interesting twists are made to the setting and characters that keep it from being a playground of wizards, werewolves, and vampires. I found this via Scalzi’s Big Idea piece by her.

The biggest element keeping everything together is that there aren’t dozens of splats. The foes are demons, though they aren’t ‘traditional’ demons with red skin and pitchforks. They are very alien like, though possession is the heart of their power and influence.

Maxine Kiss is a solid, conflicted character, with a huge responsibility thrown at her. She’s the last of her bloodline and is the “jailer” of the demons. In ancient days, pacts were made with some demons that have served her family for generations…

The book has an open ending, so I expect to see other books in the series later. This book is relatively complete despite that open ending, with several other interesting elements. I like the debate over salvation, whether the demons can be reformed at all. The nature of the prison is interesting, though its scale makes it very difficult to convey.

Despite a few glitches, I really liked the book. I look forward to the next.

I was clued into the Hostile Takeover trilogy by this Big Idea piece over on Whatever. It sounded like a fun book to investigate– a anarchical paradise in the middle of a huge confederacy. I was limited by the local library’s supplies however.

Partisan is the second book in the series. The local library doesn’t have books one and three, so that’s where I jumped in. The book is written well as a semi-stand alone; while it’s clear that the characters have had some recent and strong shifts in relations [in book one], their current situation is clear. The book suffers a bit as a mid-trilogy book, since the main plot is a traditional middle book “the recent victory only defeated a small arm of the overall plot”. There are a lot of strings that lead forward, implying that the last book integrate those loose threads and drive to an explosive conclusion. This book certainly primed me to look for the last book in the trilogy [Revolutionary]– or to buy the whole trilogy (which I now see is reprinted all under one cover).

The characterization was a little flat– the big swings don’t seem grounded in the character as developed in this book– but I can understand that the character grounding was developed in the first book. In general, I liked the book, and look forward to seeing what he’s doing now.

Regenesis felt like an even stronger book than its famous predecessor, Cyteen. While still far more political than action packed, the characters develop in reaction to events, rather than over long periods of time, which makes it feel like the exciting period of Ari Jr.’s life.

The Union undergoes tremendous challenge with Resune’s special status at risk– but finally justifying itself. The cracks in the system feel realistic, with a good exploration of the damage cynical people (and groups) could do with the trust based government previously described.

Several elements of the previous book come into focus or are better explained in the context of this novel. Similarly, there’s no need to walk through a child’s upbringing or walk the “genius but still a kid” line– though Ari is quite precious as an 18 year old.

The book remains sympathetic to Justin and explains Jordan’s motivations (and misunderstandings) quite well. It’s not perfect, but it was an awfully good excuse to hop back into this interesting universe and world.

The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia by Laura Miller

This book is an interesting look at CS Lewis, Narnia, and is a great example of how to look at a book. The author shares her memories and experiences with Narnia, and mixes in bits of interview and first hand research to round it out.

I learned quite a bit about CS Lewis and his friends (including Tolkien). I had no idea that he whipped out the Chronicles so quickly, and during such a stressful time in his life. The author’s efforts reveal a much more complete vision of Lewis– fortunately not all worshipful or intended to drag an idol into the mud.

It moved quickly and was as interesting to read as a novel, which counts as high praise from me.