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.

The Swoop, P.G. Wodehouse

The Swoop:  Or, How Clarence Saved England by P. G. Wodehouse is a comedic novel about how a single boy scout is forced to save England when having disbanded the military, England is simultaneously invaded by 9 nations.

Started:  8/15/2011
Completed:  9/14/2011
Recommendation:  Fun story, rather dated, but a good laugh and the audio from libravox is simply fantastic.
Recommended By:  Nobody, I'd always wanted to read a book by Wodehouse.
Review:


This book is largely silly.  The discussions of the diplomats, however are excellent as they embody the ridiculous obtuseness of language used by diplomats in a truly hyperbolic manner.  While the book seems stilted by today's standards, it was a fun book to hear and the time investment is trivial.

The Thirteen Gun Salute, Patrick O'Brian

The Thirteen Gun Salute by Patrick O'Brian is another (#13) in the stories of Captain Jack Aubrey a fictitious British sea captain.  I picked this audio book up from the library to listen to during trips to and from the office

Started:  8/15/2011

Completed: 10/12/2011

Recommendation: Beach book

Recommended By:  Nobody, but I did enjoy one other of O'Brian's novels.

Review:

This book is largely an action novel with a little bit of spice in the characters of the Captain and the Doctor.  Their relationship is explored but as this is such a small part of a much larger series, it is only incrementally addressed.  It was OK as a listen on a trip or something like that, but I wouldn't put the time in for reading, I don't think.  There are lots of "lulls" between the "storms" and so the action is clearly segmented into regular routines. Lots of ropes are left in an untidy mess at the end of the book as the next book is clearly in the offing.

Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri is a lauded collection of short stories.

Started:  9/17/2011
Completed: 9/30/2011
Recommendation: Not even for the bathroom
Recommended by:  The quotation from the back of the book by Amy Tan convinced me to give it a try.
Review: 


So, I had no trouble putting this book down.  Amy Tan and I disagree.  I plugged away at it diligently, though, eschewing most other reading because I was convinced that if I let it sit too long, I would not continue to read it.  The writing was excellent.  Some of the descriptions were outstanding.  The plots pretty much sucked.  There was a lot of character study, but it seemed to me that each story was busy expanding upon the basic character with which the story began.  Some new and interesting details were presented, but, by the end of the story, I didn't feel as though I knew the nature of the person any better, just some more details in a made-up life.  The plots of the stories didn't seem to go anywhere (and they probably weren't supposed to go anywhere) and that is a difficult thing for me to enjoy.

"A Real Darwhan" was a decent social commentary, but it completely lacked punch and was oddly juxtaposed with "The Treatment of Bibi Haldar."  "Sexy" left me wondering if this was just one of many very similar stories about to happen to the same character.  "Interpreter of Maladies" seemed, at best, to be a rueful look at some silly people.  "Mrs. Sen's" was the most interesting story to me but the abrupt ending made the story feel uncompleted to me.  I don't long for happy endings where everything is all tied up, but the character development in this story seemed to move the story along (it felt like a movie instead of a portrait if that analogy makes sense) and just as the story started to gather speed it raced off into a fog.  I felt like the richness of "Mrs. Sen's" was a story that yearned to become a book and was foiled when the author's attention drifted.

The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman is a book by an author I enjoy.  It has received more awards and honors then you can shake a stick at (see the labels).  This is a children's novel, but has moderate appeal to adults as well.

Started: 7/30/2011
Completed:  8/10/2011
Recommendation:  Very Good Read
Recommended By:  A neighbor who is a huge Gaiman fan
Review:  This is a good, quick read.  Gaiman, as ever, introduces a series of interesting characters and develops them nicely.  His obsession with death is well explored in this book about a boy growing up in a grave yard tended by ghosts.  The literary device allows him to explore many centuries of life in England and also allows him to explore quirky characters without feeling like he has gone out on a limb.  A good read for any young adult, but it does require a certain willingness to wade through the first few pages of PG rated murder.  As with virtually all children's books these days, the parents are killed in the opening scene.

The Sardonyx Net, Elizabeth A. Lynn

The Sardonyx Net by Elizabeth A. Lynn is a book about science fiction slavery.

Started:  8/11/2011
Completed:  8/21/2011
Recommendation: Not recommended
Recommended By:  I like John Varley's stuff and had read some of Lynn's stuff, so when Varley had the recommendation on the front cover, well, that seemed like recommendation enough.
Review:  The adventures of a sadist slaver.  Ugh.  This book has little, if any redemptive quality.  I had hoped for some sense of the horrors of slavery (there is plenty of that) and how slavery doesn't work.  Instead, this book is a half-hearted effort to both condemn slavery and to demonstrate that it DOES work.  Yuck.  I'm disappointed that Varley gave this book a recommendation.  The scifi components are marginal at best in my opinion.  This could just have easily have happened in the 18th century with very little change to the plot.