The Death of Kings, Bernard Cornwell

The Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell is the next book (sixth) in the Saxon Series.  I have enjoyed this series and picked this book up to hear during the commute.

Started: 5/16/2013

Completed: 5/21/2013

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By:  Next book in a series I have enjoyed

Review:

Uhtred saves England again.  I wasn't as happy with this book as I have been the previous.  It feels to me that the trap/retrap almost die/survive story lines are starting to be worn thin.  Whether the trap is sprung on a bridge or on a battlefield, the effect is pretty much the same.  This time Uhtred has to deal with prophecy on top of the usual battle in the shield wall.  A potential interesting diversion (a woman effectively leading an army) is handled in a few sentences instead of delved into in detail which does not bode well for this particular woman having a future.  Ragnar the Younger and his family are also relegated to the dust of several books ago and I miss the richness they brought to the tale.

Voyagers, Ben Bova

Voyagers by Ben Bova is a sci-fi novel I picked up to listen to during the commute.  I really didn't know anything about this particular book when I picked it up, but I have enjoyed Bova's work in the past and I remember him as an editor of the magazine "Omni."

Started: 5/8/2013

Completed: 5/14/2013

Recommendation: Not recommended

Recommended By: Nobody

Words I looked Up:

scud -- Move fast in a straight line because or as if driven by the wind.

Review:

It turns out that this is the first book of a trilogy, but I have no interest in reading the remaining two novels.  I have a tremendous respect for Ben Bova but he is far from a good romance writer.  In and afterword, Mr. Bova described this trilogy as a love story, but the "love" part of the story was clunky and useless.  The romantic story was not particularly compelling and seemed to  be both awkward and uncomfortable to me as a reader.  The decisions made by the protagonist, Keith Stoner, seemed to be stereotypical and not the decisions of a real human being.  His actions were so robotic as to suggest that he no other choice every step of the way.  To my way of thinking, a romance is about making choices (both good and bad).  This reads more as a bad comedy fraught with mistaken intentions.  The backdrop of the Cold War was also rife with good guy/bad guy stereotypes leaving the background characters as flat.  Having said that, there were two characters who were really interesting.  The NATO scientist was extremely well developed and the nature of his story (describing it would be a spoiler) was really well conceived and portrayed remarkably well.  The evangelist was given short shrift in the book in my opinion and was a wonderful character to have investigated more, but he remained flat.  I think that including him in the book was a really good idea and helped round out the plot.  I think that addressing more of his story would have been very rewarding.

I would not recommend this book.  It is not really an interesting look at interaction with ET and the lugubrious romantic plot seriously detracted from the novel.

Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman

Fragile Things:  Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman is a book I borrowed from the library to occupy me during my commute.  I have read several other books by Gaiman and enjoyed them, but I try to steer away from his horror.  This book seemed to be outside of the horror range.  The book won the Locus Award for best collection and one of the stories, "How to talk to Girls at Parties" was nominated for the Hugo Award, "Sunbird" won a Locus award for best short story, "Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House of the Night of Dread Desire" won a Locus award for best short story, "A Study in Emerald" won a Locus Award for best novelette and a Hugo Award for best short story, "Closing Time" won a Locus Award for best short story, and "October in the Chair" won a Locus Award for best short story.

Started:   5/3/2013

Completed:  5/8/2013

Recommendation: Mild recommendation

Recommended by:  Nobody

Review:

For the most part, this book is striking.  The story telling is rich, as one would expect.  The collection of stories is a little obtuse and they don't seem to go together to me.  There is one story about a boy who runs away from home ("October in the Chair") that is not horror, but is truly haunting and will still flicker at the edges of my mind long after I heard it.  There is something to be said for hearing a tale told by the author and the audio version was done by Gaiman.  None of these stories is particularly uplifting ("Harlequin Valentine" is about as close as it gets and that story stretches the concept of uplifting to near breaking), but they are also rarely outright depressing.  In his other books, Gaiman has tread this line well and this book is no exception.  Gaiman's original intent was to write a series of short stories that exposed people trying to be remembered ("October in the Chair" certainly did that for me), but he acknowledged that the collection had a life of its own and did not really end up doing that.  "Sunbird" also grabbed my attention and held it in a steely grip but, while I absolutely enjoyed the telling, upon completion I wonder how long this story will stick in my mind.  Another of the stories dipped into his American Gods characters and had a familiar flair perhaps because the characters had a certain familiarity.  In general, I enjoyed the stories and would recommend the book as a diversion.  I'm not convinced this is Gaiman's best work (but that is a very high standard against which to measure anything), but it is enjoyable.  My only reservation involves his ending to the Narnia stories ("The Problem of Susan") which was very off-putting to me for several reasons not the least of which was adding a graphic sex scene to what has long been considered a series of children's books.  I'm not a prude and didn't find the other sex that occurred in some of the stories (the American Gods characters surely made me uncomfortable, but that is, largely, the idea) particularly offensive, but here it felt like Gaiman was just using the sex to shock the reader and it is a shock I could have done without.  For that reason, I can only offer a mild recommendation.

The Last Believer, Jerome Komisar

The Last Believer by Jerome Komisar is a book written by a friend's father.

Started: 1/17/2012

Completed: 4/1/2012

Recommendation: Mild recommendation

Recommended By:  Author's daughter.

Review:

This is not my genre, so it hard for me to tell how this book stacks up.  I thought that the character of Illya (The Last Believer) was reasonably well developed by the time the story was over.  I found the plot rather straight-forward and found the sex uncomfortable (maybe because it is written by a friend's father).  Most of the characters were shallow who did not develop over the course of the novel which takes place over a fairly short period.  I was a little uncomfortable with the frequency with which I was told how to react to something that a character said or did as opposed to letting the actions stand for themselves.  The middle section felt abrupt, like it was a much longer novel that was cut short.

The Druids, Peter Berresford Ellis

The Druids by Peter Berresford Ellis is a non-fiction account of the historical Druids.  I bought this from a yard sale some years ago as a follow up to Freeman's book.

Started:  12/31/2012

Completed: 4/3/2013

Recommendation: Good beginning, but I gave up before the end

Recommended by:  Nobody

Words I looked up:

autochthonous -- indigenous or native
primogeniture -- The right, by law or custom, of the firstborn to inherit the entire estate, to the exclusion of younger siblings.

Review:

Really good, clean set of arguments debunking some of the positions commonly held about the Druids. The author then goes one step further and starts generating his own unsubstantiated views in much the same manner as the views he debunked.  I really thought the first half was good, but got frustrated with he long steps in the second half.

The Broken Kingdoms, N. K. Jemison

The Broken Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin is the second book in the inheritance trilogy.

Started: 2/5/2013

Completed: 2/13/2013

Recommendation:  Not as good as the first, but a book that stands on its own outside of the trilogy.

Recommended By:  Nobody

Review:

Not quite as interesting as the first as the interplay with the Gods is less in an odd sort of way.  This book takes place 10 years after the previous book and looks at a largely new cast of characters.  The writing is still solid, but a lot of the novelty is lost.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N. K. Jemisin is a book I stumbled across in the audio section of the library while looking for something to occupy me during a long drive.

Started:  1/15/2013

Completed: 2/2/2013

Recommendation: Fun Read, worth the time

Recommended By:  Nobody

Review:

The female protagonist was nice and, frankly, the female characters seemed to dominate both the book and the story lines.  Most of the fantasy I read is swashbuckling male stuff, but it was nice to see a new angle.  Don't get me wrong, plenty of sword and sorcery remain for those who live on that, but there wasn't any "save the princess."  In some ways this story reminded me of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant in that the protagonist was weak.  In this story, however, the protagonist is compelling and her story doesn't leave you hating her (like Covenant).

A lot of the story focuses on mortals interacting with gods and the interactions are largely reduced to mortal comprehension.  The author gives a nod to this in the last chapters and offers a reasonable explanation although it was uncomfortable until the explanation was given.  I understand why the author waited, it was pretty necessary for the story, but it stretched my ability to suspend disbelief.

The prose was not compelling, but the audio version brought life to some dreary interactions and while it created some confusion when the protagonist was talking with herself (or sort of interacting with someone else in the future while treating the story as a retrospective) it could be confusing, I'm not at all clear how that could be clarified.