Three Book Reviews

Hello one and all! I'm glad you stopped by today. Here's a few notes on books I've read recently.

JK Rowling's The Casual Vacancy. Skip it. Yes, just don't bother. It had a mildly catchy opening scene, but that was the best it achieved in the whole book. She's swapping points of view like she spun the wheel each paragraph or two. Pacing - well... it's too slow and too fast in all the wrong places. If you just want to read about England, politics and juvenile points of view, it'll do it. The climax and ending are a mess. If I hadn't been reading it for our book club, I wouldn't have bothered finishing it.

From the publisher: "THE PASTOR - His wife of twenty-three years has been murdered. His faith in God is crumbling before his very eyes. Now, with his estranged son, he sets out to find the supernatural stones spoken of in the Bible. Stones that will enable the two of them to hear the audible voice of God. Stones that may rekindle their dying faith and love. THE TERRORIST: He has also learned of the stones. He too must find them---but for much darker reasons. As the mastermind of a deadly plot that will soon kill millions, he has had a series of dreams that instruct him to first find the stones. Everything else is in place. The wrath of Allah is poised and ready to be unleashed. All that remains is for him to obtain the stones.With the lives of millions hanging in the balance, the opposing faiths of these two men collide in an unforgettable showdown. The Face of God is another thrilling and thought-provoking novel by a master of the heart and suspense, Bill Myers."

It took a looong time for me to get interested in this story - about halfway through in fact. It's an Indiana Jones style tale of the missing stones from the Priest's breastplate, without the Indiana comedy or drama. There are some really good sound-bites that make you stop and think about your Christian walk, and how our approach compares with others. The characters are predictable, the theological points of view are very stereotypical, and the ending is inconceivable. I also thought the subplot of a man who loses his wife of 23 years suddenly falls in 'love' with a woman he met just weeks after the funeral. I mean, it happens, but it's inappropriate in this story. I give it 2 stars.

From the Publisher: "When abusive parents raise brilliant children, you might end up with a saint, or a killer...or one of each. Little Deadly Things is the place where science meets the psyche, where humanity's future is in the hands of a madwoman and the family that must stop her."

This was an intriguing story, and I had a hard time putting it down. It has a complex plot that was very well edited, making it easy to follow. It grabs your attention and keeps it firmly focused on the plot twists. I know some will dislike the sketchy and somewhat vague description of holistic healing of the rainforest natives, but it moved the plot along at just the right pace without being overbearing. I enjoyed this odd, almost freakish glimpse at a possible future world immensely.


So that's what I've been reading lately. I have a few more books to review, so hopefully I'll be back with those notes, very soon.

~ky

Agatha H. and the Airship City

I picked up Agatha H. and the Airship City based on the synopsis and customer ratings. I was disappointed. I know this story is a graphic novel turned book, and that this was the second in the series (I didn't read the first book). The authors, Phil and Kaja Foglio, first wrote the graphic novel, then produced the novel. You definitely cannot jump into this story in the middle and expect to understand the story. In fact, if you haven't followed the graphic story, the novel is drastically flattened.

Attention Grabber

Steampunkers will be drawn to this story. Dirigibles, mechanical constructs, and scenes filled with rust and random parts abound. The story revolves around those who posses the "Spark" - something of an inherited ability found in the 'royal' families.

Writing Style

I enjoyed the style of writing employed for this story. The phraseology was a bit overdone. I enjoyed the word play, but after awhile it takes the reader out of the flow of the story. You spend a good deal of attention trying to follow the wording, but by the end of the sentence or paragraph, you have to go back and figure out what it said. Distracting!

Character Development

I was most drawn to the monsters, which I found out were a late addition to the story. If it hadn't been for their quirkiness, I would not have been entertained. The other characters lacked depth. They were all very superficial with one sentence definitions that did not develop, sufficiently, later.

There were disjointed things and events that should have been integrated more smoothly into the story. Agatha builds all these things that she doesn't know she built, but they don't come back to the story until the very end. She has this ability to control people and critters, but that is never clarified. Why does she have that ability? What are the possible implications of those little robots? Why is she always showing up in her bloomers? I understand the use of bringing elements around at the end of a story to tie it together, but this was rough. It had more of the feeling of a rushed cramming of things together in too few pages.

Distractions

There are a lot of distractions that bumped the reader out of the flow of the story. The pace is jerky. It's fast in the wrong places. I kept having to page back to re-read segments because the story does not carry you along.

The beginning of the story is about some men in a wasteland. It sounds very interesting, but then the story jumps to a city and the men in the wasteland are never mentioned again, except almost as an aside. I realize that there are bits and pieces that float in and out of sequential novels, but the story for each novel should stand alone. That is my personal preference, and it caused me to not enjoy all these untidy loose ends.

Summation

This book ended. The story did not conclude, it just stopped. I'm sure that was a design to get the reader to buy the next in the series, but it was a big turn off for me. I found myself toying with some of the unique properties of the story but applying them to a different tale in my mind. If I had it to do over, I would have started with the first book, and followed along. As it was, I was too exhausted trying to follow the quirky structure (like one letter per line of a poem!) to want to go back and pick up a multi-book story.

If you are already into the series, I have no doubt you love it. There is a graphic novel component of this story-line that might intrigue you, too, and it's probably the best point to start.

~ky

This review is my own opinion. I would love to hear your reaction to this book or series, but please be conversational if you choose to respond. Thank you!

It's 70 + 7

We had a writing exercise tonight that scared me. I mean, down in the center of my grammatically correct heart scary. Here it is:

Write two sentences – one must be 70 words long and the other exactly seven words. Oh and they have to comprise a paragraph.

Here's what I came up with:

The color etched its way across the frozen indigo sky like a sinuous snake edging through brush on the trail of the elusive soft kiss of dawn, coming to his mind like the number 3, eroding all memory of the last trace of human warmth; draining his heart of every thing that was his soul, every dear piece of happiness, even the last glowing breath of heat in the earth. It was a good day to die.

I was afraid of the run-on sentence, the ever linked by semi-colon drudgery. I was plagued so much by the concept that it was like learning to fly the way Douglas Adams described it in his treasure of a compendium - you try to fall to the ground and miss. While my grumpy self-editor was distracted with the affront of this challenge, my inner self got busy scratching out a convoluted tale. I kind of liked it. 

Ta!

~ky