Wit'ch Fire, James Clemens

Wit'ch Fire by James Clemens is a fantasy novel that is played as a translation of a banned book.

Started:  10/4/2011
Completed:  10/19/2011
Recommendation:  Not worth the time
Recommended By:  Amazon offered this book for free on the Kindle
Review:


First of all, I found the use of apostrophe (wit'ch, d'warf, etc) to be annoying.  It might have been tolerable had it separated the traditional stereotype from the races in the novel, but, it doesn't.  A wit'ch is hated and considered to be allied with evil.  A d'warf knows about caves and tunnels and is short and stocky.  An og're has a hard head, speaks slowly, and is ugly.  That leaves the apostrophe...ANNOYING.  The concept of magic acquisition reminded me of a thumb lock in D&D (you had to stick your thumb into a lock to unlock it and it might get cut off, you might get poisoned, or you might unlock the chest) which was an interesting way to go about seeing magic strength, identifying former wizards of various flavors, and making the hand a little more powerful then ever before.  So, that was mildly clever and a good addition to the book.

Without a doubt the evil creatures in the book are pretty inventive, believable within their scope, etc.  There is one set of creatures that lays waste to armies and generally wreaks havoc, but the heroes of this book kill a bunch of them in a series of "lucky" events.  The fact that so much action takes place over such a short period of time and that the characters are constantly tired yet always up for one more enormously draining fight hurts the book seriously.  The typical cat-and-mouse games played by the evil guy against the young hero (sort of a Batman kind of things where just killing him wasn't nearly as good as setting up an elaborate trap from which he always escaped) are rampant and also annoying.  Let's see, I can fly, I put armies to death, I've got poisoned talons, I've got the heroine in my grasp...hmmm...what will I do?  Oh, yeah, play around and give her a chance to escape.  Also, for the most part, any character you haven't seen before is about to die (sort of the Star Trek red shirt guys).

Kudos for the evil creatures.  They are remarkably nasty, incredibly detailed, and have very good single points of failure.  The rest of the book is, well, not worth the read.  I can't imagine that the series is worth the breathtaking struggles where the heroine almost gets caught time and again before she goes postal on the bad guy.  The minor plots all are explicitly minor.  I don't really care if the guy who lived 500 years ever makes good on his error, I don't care why the book was banned or what was so controversial about it, I don't care if the naiad recovers her tree, I don't care if the ogre saves his people, I don't care about the elf looking for his king, and, most of all, I care nothing for the heroine who has her bodice torn early in the book, but never seems to need to cover up (and who is torn by using her magic, but seems to be fine with her friends all but dying around her until she antes up).

The Persuader, Lee Child

The Persuader by Lee Child was a book that I downloaded for my Kindle because it was free.  I realized that I had a ton of these free books and had read very few of them, so I downloaded the Kindle app for my phone and decided to read this one because it was the oldest.

Started: 9/15/2011
Completed: 10/4/2011
Recommendation:  Decent beach book for guys.
Recommended By:  Nobody, free from Amazon
Review:


This book is a pretty quick read.  The broad formula of an action novel is employed.  Guy gets into trouble, but it clever enough, shoots straight enough, or capitalizes on someone else's mistake often enough to get out.  The hero of the novel is the typical gritty ex-something who now employs all his ex-skills to get stuff done that the other ex-guys aren't allowed to use.  He generally gets the girl and somehow maintains the moral high ground despite basically being in the business of killing people.  This is a traditional Western wrapped in a twentieth century skin.  The plot has the occasional surprise, but is almost entirely predictable.  There is sufficient gore to get one to believe the bad guys are, at core, evil.  There are conflicted characters all over the place, but, in the end, everyone who should, does the "right thing."  So this book won't challenge your intellect and the dialog is outright stupid (e.g. "I'm just a guy"), but those are some of the qualities that are fine in a beach read.  The pacing is good and there is an on-going rescue/tension that makes you want to pick the book up and overlook all the stupid stuff.  Maybe this is just a beach read for guys.  If you can't find it for a couple of bucks, it isn't worth the investment and I certainly wouldn't spend my time reading the whole series.