Ryan
Reading through Goblet of Fire, I got a strong sense that with this book, JK Rowling stopped writing novels that were meant to just be novels, and started writing novels that were meant to become movies. The opening World Cup action, as well as the very visual nature of the tri-wizard challenges, would seem to confirm this. Despite this, though, the book still manages to be somewhat intriguing, and the ending of it sets a very definite tone that remains with the series until it reaches its conclusion.
As we head into the second half of the Edge of Victory mini-series, the story starts t o focus a lot more on Anakin Solo. Unfortuately, Anakin is possibly my least-favourite character in the entire series, so I figured that this would make this book a real slog through. Keyes does a really good job of developing Anakin's character, though: by the end of the book, I found him somewhat likable, and appreciated that he now has a bit of a character that's unique and separate from his siblings.
On the surface, it seems as though Zen and punk would have absolutely nothing to do with one another. The most common image that we usually have of Zen in the West is a serene, quiet, calmness, while punk is usually associated with the exact opposite of that However, over the course of the book, Warner paints a very convincing view of Zen as DIY religion - he makes a point to constantly stress the nature of Zen as a religion of questioning, searching, and thinking for oneself, rather than allowing others to determine what ‘truth' is. [return]If you're the type of person who has an interest in either Zen Buddhism or punk rock, this book would definitely be recommended - it helps give a fuller view of both of the two subjects.
One of the things that I initially really liked about the NJO series is that the Yuuzhon Vong were completely and utterly alien - that we weren't given any real introduction to them, and didn't know what they wanted. While that was good for the initial novels, it wouldn't be sustainable over the course of the full cycle of novels, so the Edge Of Victory duology comes at a perfect moment.[return]Basically, with this book, we learn a lot more about the culture of the Vong, and we explore how the Jedi are affecting the Vong. I'm always hesitant when sci-fi stories feature ‘warrior cultures', so it's good to see that they have a more varied culture than that (because let's be honest, a culture devoted entirely to warfare would be unsustainable, and would also never develop proper spaceflight technology, as well). The only downside to this book, I would say, is that the Vong biotechnology is a little too deus ex machina - it seems that they can grow whatever they need, whenever they need it, and that reduces some of the tension from the story.
The Hopeless Savages series takes an interesting twist in the third and final (?) volume, which finds Twitch and Arsenal taking their respective boyfriends (who happen to be brothers) with them to Hong Kong so that Arsenal can take part in a martial arts tournament. Once there, however, they get involved in a plot straight out of a Jackie Chan movie, with items being surreptitiously placed in people's belongings for safekeeping, leading to action-packed chase scenes and fights between members of MI6, gangsters, and Our Heroes. [return]While not as character-based as the last installment, this one still gets top marks from me. The characters are all still written as well-rounded, 3-dimensional, non-stereotypical individuals. The art was really good, as well - Christine Norrie does a great job of drawing characters that are obviously related to each other, while at the same time retaining individual characteristics.
Company tells the story of a man named Jones that starts working for a company named Zephyr that provides training services. He's not there long, however, before he discovers that there's more to Zephyr than meets the eye ...
I thought this was a fantastic book. On one hand, it had the same type of “offices are crazy” comedy that you'd find in Office Space, or an episode of The Office, but at the same time with a more bitter, angry edge to it. Barry's main objective with the novel seems to be a reminder that capitalism can't exist without an underclass - one character muses that there would be no point in being rich if there wasn't an underclass to lord it over.
I think that, when thinking about the Potter novels, it's necessary to think about the first three as a trilogy in their own right, and somewhat separate from the rest of them. Several key, defining elements of the Potter mythology (such as Dementors, Patroni, and Sirius Black) are brought in in this volume, and there's a strong sense of danger and intensity throughout it that the first two books really lacked. One of the strongest in the series, for sure.
I'd always kind of looked at Kirby as comics' version of, say, Bill Haley - an important player in the development of the artform, but not much else. His Thor, for example, I found atrocious. Reading New Gods, though, was a complete turn-around for me in regards to the man and his legacy.
The basic plot: Ragnarok has already happened, and the “old gods” have all died out. In their wake, however, the New Gods have formed on the twin planets of Apokolips and New Genesis. (Bonus points if you can guess which one is the ‘good' planet and which one is the ‘evil' one). The two planets are at war, and Earth has just become their latest battleground.
The series mainly focuses on Orion and Darkseid's battle for Earth, but throughout that, Kirby manages to throw out insane, cosmic ideas while still being able to muse on things like the nature/nurture debate and the impact that war has on a man's soul. Reading stuff like this makes me want to write big, goofy space opera stories; I suppose that providing inspiration like that is a bit of a testament to the strength of Kirby's work here, as well.
Okay, here we see the Harry Potter series start to get serious. Harry returns for his second year at Hogwart's, only to find the Heir of Slytherin has plans to open the Chamber of Secrets and bring murder and ethnic cleansing to the school.[return][return]I'd say this is my favourite of the Potter books. Full of intrigue, mystery, and blood, it takes the fairly shiny world we were introduced to in the first book and tussles its hair a bit. Voldemort's character is explored a bit further, and Harry starts to learn more about his past.
So, in anticipation of the final Harry Potter book coming out this summer, I decided to re-read all of the Harry Potter books as preparation. On second reading, it's somewhat obvious Rowling was only really concerned with world-building in this one. The plot seems fairly minor compared to what comes in later books, and the characters all seem to be archetypes, rather than fully fleshed out characters. Still, good for what it does, I suppose.
Basically, I ran out and picked this book up as quickly as I could after watching the excellent film by Christopher Nolan. Of course, having seen the film spoiled the ending for me a bit, although knowing the ending allowed me to enjoy the ride for what it was, rather than trying to figure out what the secret of the film was.[return:]The basic plot: two Victorian-era magicians from differing backgrounds feud, and become obsessed with being better than each other, regardless of the personal cost. It's a terribly harrowing story, watching what depths the two men will sink to in order to achieve greatness, and seeing how terribly obsession can destroy one's life.
One of the most fascinating thing about the story is the structure of it - the entire story is told through a succession of memoirs and journal entries, which allow us to see greatly differing interpretations of the events of the story.
If you had to choose between reading the book and seeing the film, I would recommend the film; however, I would definitely recommend experiencing both to get the ‘full experience'.
This was something a little off the beaten path for a Buffy novel, as Buffy and most of the rest of the cast from the show doesn't really appear in the main story at all. The novel springs off of a brief story element from one episode of season five (later picked up in one episode of season seven) about Spike fighting an African-American slayer named Nikki Wood in New York in 1977.
Being a book taking place in New York in the late 1970s, and featuring a main character who is black, the book is very heavily influenced by blaxploitation cinema (Shaft and Cleopatra Jones and whatnot). There's plenty of talk about how The Fuzz is nothing but a bunch of jive turkeys, and most of the vampires in the city seem to double as gangsters and pimps. Basically, if you like that type of film, and have any interest in the Buffy ‘universe', you should be able to get a huge kick out of reading it - DeCandido really seems to relish in being able to tell this type of story. I also appreciate the fleshing out of slayers other than Buffy herself - there's this grand fantasy universe that's been created by Whedon, and it annoys me sometimes that it focuses too much on a single blonde girl in California.
An earthquake happens in Tokyo, and as a result, an elementary school is swallowed up by the ground, and reappears in this odd, limbo-esque place. A good idea, but the actual book seems to be little more than set-up for the following parts of the series, and gore for the sake of shocking gore. Don't think I'll be continuing with this series.
The Scott Pilgrim series appears to get more and more bizarre with every passing volume. I don't say that as a bad thing; O'Malley's sense of humour seems to revel in this (who knew vegans had special powers?), which makes Scott Pilgrim & The Infinite Sadness the most enjoyable edition in the series to date.[return:]This volume also advances the plot significantly, as we see not only the third evil ex-boyfriend, but also Scott's evil ex-girlfriend, Envy Adams, who seems to know more about Ramona's past than Ramona would care for her to.
I've got this new “life project” thing that I've started up, whereby I am going to try to read at least one piece of literature from every nation on the planet. Orhan Pamuk's Snow was the first book that I read as part of that.
The point of saying this is to point out that this is not the type of book that I would normally read. While I do occasionally read novels that would be categorized as “capital L” literature, they are usually ones of an older vintage; classics, if you will. It was in that personal headspace that I sat down to read Snow.
Plot-wise, Snow centers around a poet named Ka, returning to Turkey from political exile in Germany, ostensibly in order to investigate a series of suicides among “head scarf girls” in the village of Kars.
Simply put, the book was a masterpiece of desolation and isolation. Throughout the novel Ka must come to grips with not only the head-scarf girls, but through them, his own feelings about his homeland, his religion, and his own emotional landscape. Pamuk's Turkey is a country caught in the crossroads - caught between Europe and Asia, between “secular humanism” and radical Islam, and between love and apathy. It's a fairly difficult read, but overall, it's well worth the experience of reading it.
I'm not going to lie; one of my main motivations for reading this book was knowing that I could get a free copy of it as an ebook from the author's website. I mean, it also seemed to have some interesting subject matter, but that ease of accessibility pushed me over the edge, and gave me a chance to read it over the Christmas holiday. And I'm really glad I did.[return]Depending on the type of person that you are, the ideas of “fraud”, “graft”, “comic book back-issue pricing”, and “political donations” might seem like they're worlds apart. If you're someone like Rick Dakan, however, they make perfect sense together, and form the basis of a fast-paced, exciting caper novel.[return]The novels' protagonist is Paul Reynolds, comic book auter and video game designer who we meet in the process of being given the bum's rush by his former business partners. He happens to meet up with Chloe, a self-described modern-day pirate who offers to help him “get even” with those that wronged him.[return]What follows after that is a standard sort of caper tale, lovingly dipped in geek culture. If you're the sort of person who likes both of those things, you'll probably really enjoy this book. The characters are believable, sympathetic, and enjoyable; the plot moves along at a fast pace, with just enough twists and turns to keep you guessing about where it's going next. [return]On the other hand, if you don't know what an FPS is, or haven't heard about open source movement, this may not be the book for you.[return]
I think I'm getting ready to give up on the whole “Star Wars Expanded Universe” thing. It really seems like they're trying to stretch the story out as far as they possibly can, and deal with minutiae rather than fleshing out the main storyline and then resolving it in an interesting manner. When I see a story title like “New Jedi Order”, I expect to see Jedi ordering shit around, not the adventures of Han Solo and the Space Gypsies!
Sean Cullen is a very funny, very bizarre man, and this, his first book, really showcases what he's capable of. This book features orphans, sweatshops, piracy, cheese, monkeys, and many other disparate elements, all brought together with surprising coherency by Cullen's signature style of humour. Definitely worth a read, although the plot itself is rather straightforward, and Cullen definitely shows that he's a first-time author with this work.
I was fully prepared to be disappointed by this book, for several reasons. First of all, the last book, A Storm Of Swords, ended with a very large cliffhanger and I knew that it was a cliffhanger that wasn't going to be fully explained/explored in this volume.
Additionally, I knew that in general the story was not going to feature the characters that I was most interested in (namely Daenerys, Theon, Tyrion, and especially the whole issue of Jon and the Night Watch). That being said, the volume was surprisely enjoyable, and helped to better explore the entirety of the Seven Kingdoms. There was tons of action in the first three volumes - I was actually a little set back by the amount of violence that was featured in the series altogether. This volume takes a somewhat quieter approach - characters die, but most of the death takes place off-page. Perhaps this means that A Dance With Dragons is going to feature much higher levels of action.
Plot-wise, only certain amounts of progress are made of advancing the plot. We learn nothing more about the advancement of the Others, and no word is made of Daenerys' flight towards the west. Instead we get political maneuverings in King's Landing, and Sam's travel from The Wall to Oldtown. What we do get is quality material, though - I was on the bus when I got to the part of the story that featured Cersei's downfall, and I almost started cackling with joy to see her get her final comeuppance. Also of interest was the expanding story of the Seven Kingdoms, as we learn more about the cultures of both the Iron Islands and of Dorne. Interesting material, definitely, but material that feels much like it is build-up for the eventual landfall of Dany from the east, rather than material in its own right.[return:][return:]One of the benefits of the multiple-POV perspective that Martin employs is that it allows the reader to learn about characters not only from how they see themselves, but how they are viewed by those around them. Cersei Lannister, the most prominent character in AFFC, is the most obvious example of this - when she was presented mostly as a scheming mastermind, but in her POV chapters, she's seen as someone almost paralyzed by paranoia. Similarly, we see Jaime as either a sterling knight (from Brienne's perspective) or a craven weakling (from Cersei's perspective). When we see Jaime's one POV, though, we see that he thinks he is how Cersei sees him, but he hopes to become what Brienne believes him to be. It's a very effective literary technique, and easily builds suspense and complexity to a story of this size.
Reading Neal Stephenson's The Cryptonomicon was, simply, a divine reading experience - must have been the most fun reading a book I've had in a long time. Stephenson always has this skill of taking several different story threads, seemingly completely unrelated to each other, and then combining them together in ways that are completely novel, and yet at the same time make complete sense when you look at them in retrospect. This skill is especially notable in Cryptonomicon, because the stories start out separated not only in place, but in time, as well: we start with a US Marine, Bobby Shaftoe, fighting World War II in Shanghai; Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse, a slightly-autistic American math wizard who attends Princeton and is a contemporary of Alan Turing; and Randy Waterhouse, a hacker and computer geek engaging in a new e-business endeavour at the end of the 20th Century. The ways in which these storylines dovetail themselves is an amazing feat of plotting - I couldn't help but think that reading this would be akin to watching Haydn compose a piece of music.
As far as the plots are concerned, I don't want to give away too much to anyone that might eventually want to read the book. Let's just say that, like Stephenson's other books, this one can safely be said to have it all: hacking, cryptography, Nazis, gold, Nazi gold, action, suspense, computers, sex, comedy, haiku, oddly-named Welsh stereotypes... all that and yet I've barely scratched the surface.
One of the reasons I think Stephenson's work is so wonderful is that, although he's a science fiction writer, he never forgets that the ‘fiction' should be primary to the story, and that the science in the story should serve the fiction elements. At the same time, though, he manages to balance this with science that is completely believable and well thought-out; the only other writer that I can think of that can make the process of reaching scientific conclusions that thrilling is Robert J Sawyer, which definitely puts Stephenson in august company.
I'm seriously considering lifting my current book-buying embargo to pick up Quicksilver, the next part of Stephenson's epic. I don't know what it is that would cause an author to write an 1,100 page novel, and then think “what I really need to do now is discuss those same ideas without the limitations of a single novel”, but this is one time that I am really glad that he did.
Mindscan is the latest from Mississauga author Robert J. Sawyer, and continues with his tradition of using cutting-edge science to deal with contemporary moral issues.[return]Telling the story of a near-future where a process is discovered that can ‘scan' a person's brain and download a perfect copy of it into an artificial body. The artificial body then takes over the person's life, and the ‘shed skin' of the original person is sent off to a retirement community on the far side of the moon.[return]As always, Sawyer writes a tale here that uses science to further its plot and resolve some of the central issues of the book; however, at the same time, he does it in a way that remains accessible to people who aren't fans of science fiction. Much in the same way that George R.R. Martin is said to “write fantasy for people who aren't fantasy fans”, Sawyer writes for the mainstream reader as much as he does for the science fiction fan.
When is a Star Wars novel not a Star Wars novel?
That seems to be one of the questions raised by Republic Commando: Hard Contact. On the surface, it very much seems to be one - you have a group of Commando clone troopers trying to rescue a young Jedi from a Mandalorian warrior, and the Clone Wars are very actively happening in the background of the novel's action. Despite these surface similarities, however, the novel bears very little in common with the rest of the Star Wars universe, and what is the “house style” of the EU (Expanded Universe) novels in general. If a few names and titles had have been changed, this could have very easily been an ‘original fiction' title, rather than a tie-in novel. For all of the stories that have been written in the Star Wars universe, most of them have focused very heavily on the ‘Star' portion of the title, with little if any focus done on the ‘Wars' part. Hard Contact changes that by delivering a story of military sci-fi, focusing on an elite group of Commando clones.
Throughout the course of the novel, Traviss does a very good job of developing all of her clone soldiers as distinct individuals. In other parts of the Clone Wars saga, the clones exist more or less as cyphers; in addition to sharing a genetic code, it appeared that they all shared a character (or lack thereof). One of the themes that Traviss explores is the idea of finding both a culture and an individual identity, and the difficulties that would be associated with that, when there are millions of others who share both your physical form and most of your personal past. [return][return]I generally try not to be a snob when it comes to liscenced material, but in the past year I've read a few that were really a chore to get through. Hard Contact is the exact opposite of that; with or without the Star Wars name attached to it, it was a really enjoyable piece of fiction writing.