Category Archives: Books & Book Reviews

In the mood for a circus?

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The Night CircusThe Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was an elegant and romantic read. I know that’s likely the last thing you’d expect to read in one of my reviews considering a large amount of the other things I review, but it’s true. I consider this a very mood oriented waltz through an era when the traveling circus was bigger than it is today.

I liked the main characters very much. This is the sort of circus I could imagine a young Ray Bradbury going to that became the fuel for his nostalgia based stories involving a carnival or a circus performer. The descriptions always upheld the mood.

The downside is, what if you’re not in that mood? What if a slow, romantic rivalry with a pretty clear path to the reader (if not the characters for some reason) is not what you’re looking for? That’s the only real danger here.

I think if you’ve read Shades of Milk and Honey and enjoyed it this is very much a book for you.

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Dealing With Dragons

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Dealing with Dragons (Enchanted Forest Chronicles, #1)Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a fun book. It is certainly a book for a younger audience, but the author tells a good tale and doesn’t let the audience restrict the work. I am also very, very glad that my daughter read this. The lead character is a fun and strong example for girls. If you’ve got a middle grade reader this is a great book for them to pick up. I might even read on in the series with my daughter. It could be a lot of fun.

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Things Explained

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Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple WordsThing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words by Randall Munroe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thing Explainer is such an appropriate title for this book. It is not a sit down and read it cover to cover kind of book. You could do that, but it’s not linear. I like it much better as a pick it up and learn about something book. Pick a point and see how (insert thing here) is explained in words everyone can understand. Fair warning – you may have to think about the words and the way they’re used to describe things. Do you know what a shape checker is? Fun, interesting and filled with detail. Fantastic book.

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Lies

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The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1)The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out why I didn’t love this book. It’s a fantasy, it’s got a clever character, it’s got clear world building – in short it’s got a ton of everything I really like.

And somehow I only mostly liked it.

I thing the biggest trouble I had was that the really solid world building was as much a character as any character in the book. It became distracting. The elder glass towers were mentioned all the time and were great visuals that didn’t mean anything in the end really.

I became confused on one or two occasions when the point of view would flip. I figured it out quickly enough, but it was another distraction and it slowed me down. I think the interludes, when Locke was just a kid could have become their own book. Maybe not, but I think there’s more story there.

It IS nice to have a fantasy story where the hero isn’t secretly a prince and isn’t a mighty warrior that can battle any foe with his mighty sword. The Thorn survives on his will and his luck and if you’re into a protagonist like that you might just enjoy this one.

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The Top! (ish?)

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I got this infographic thing in my e-mail box the other day:

1percent

I’m not really sure what to make of it. I mean, sure it’s cool and all but how is the “top 1%” figured out? I saw an estimate that Goodreads has somewhere in the area of 50 million users. IF that’s true being part of the top 1% is interesting, but it puts me in a group with about 500,000 other people. Not nearly as special as it might sound.

It’s also interesting to see the review of mine that got the most attention was related to Star Wars ~ and was 6 years ago. This is one of those good / bad things depending on how you want to look at it. Hopefully I’ll see another one of these in the future. Could be a neat way to look back at some of what I’ve done. Goodreads doesn’t catch everything though. I do put my reviews up at MilSciFi from time to time as well (when the book fits). I’ve posted my review philosophy there, but I don’t know how many folks have ever managed to get over there to see it so I thought I’d re-post it here. Pop over and check out MilSciFi too!

Review Philosophy

It’s important to start by stating the fact that I am a fan first. Yes, I help to publish a monthly fanzine. It’s also true that I’m an author and artist when I can squeeze that in along with my day job. It’s important to state these things because I make every effort to be honest and fair with my reviews. If I like something, I’ll tell you. If I don’t like something, I’ll try to figure out what it is exactly that bothers me, but I’m going to say I don’t like it. I don’t intend criticism to be personal about any author. I know how hard it is to make it work when you’re writing a novel.
I intend to stick with the five star rating system. I’ve always considered stars to be very limited, but I can’t really come up with a better system on my own. I’ll make them work. I am a terrible grader, in that I don’t consider average to be a horrible thing. I don’t just give five star ratings away. I consider five stars to be something rarely achievable. I also believe a book has to have gone really wrong to end up in the one star category. I can only recall two I’ve read that have landed at a single star. Getting it really right is tough, but it’s just as challenging to get it really wrong.
An example is probably best here. I would give The Hobbit five stars. The writing style struck a chord with me. The story is one that stands up to a reread despite the fact that I read it the first time when I was nine or ten. I’ve gone back and read the book more than once. The depth of world building shows through the writing without becoming a bludgeon. I feel that is a standard for the full five star rating. It moved me. It changed something in my outlook and really made me think. I haven’t put any others up to that level yet. I say “yet” not because I haven’t read other excellent and moving books, but because I’m not going to rate backwards in time. I will only rate/review a book should I read it *again*. While I consider The Good Earth another five star book, I’m not going to put something like that out for consideration until I read it again.
Having said all that about stars, I will also be upfront about any book (or books) where my own work shows up. Pretty easy to say that a book of my own, or an anthology containing a story of mine would get a five star rating from me. You should know that up front if I expect you to care about my reviews. I’ve seen others that give everything they read a four or five star rating. I don’t give those reviews much weight. I don’t expect you would either.
That’s my non legal disclaimer. I’m a fan. I try to be fair about what I read. I can’t wait to see the next cool story headed my way.

Hel

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Dark Currents (Agent of Hel, #1)Dark Currents by Jacqueline Carey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If not for the urban fantasy book group I find it unlikely I would ever have picked this book up. They were the catalyst on this one – and it turned out pretty well.

I know it’s only 3 stars, but that comes up as “liked it” on my little hint window and I think that’s a fair description. I might even go to 3 and a half. I liked it. It was a light and fast read. One aspect that made the story easier for me to move through was that the characters seemed their age. I often struggle with supernatural folk that seem to land in a young adult human age category with their attitudes, speech and mannerisms – and this book really nails it. Creatures that are older and stronger act that way. They seem alien and act differently than we would expect from a human at that age. Well done.

I thought the world building was interesting. I suspect since this was the first in a trilogy that there was a lot of set up in this book. There were a lot of times I wanted something more or something deeper and didn’t get it.

All in all, if you like urban fantasy you’ll probably really enjoy this book.

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Slim

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Sandman Slim (Sandman Slim, #1)Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The hero of the story isn’t really a hero. I understand there are a number of people out there that appreciate the anti-hero, but I am not one of them.

I would describe Sandman Slim as a blunt object. He’s single minded and terrible to the people he should keep close. He is unlikable. He doesn’t consider his actions – I think you could pretty easily call him a sociopath – and he just charges ahead to maim and destroy.

There are parts of this story I found to be quite interesting. I struggled with the setting. The author made it very real, but mixing it with an unlikable hero soured me on the location.

When I finished this book I thought this was like Constantine without the redemption. I’m not rushing to grab the next one, but might give some of the other work by this author a shot. He’s got a writing style I can get into, just not for this story.

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Re-reads

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I’ve been meaning to track down the relatively recent Shannara television program. I struggled when I realized I don’t have MTV as a channel in my television line up and had totally failed to notice that. Then it came to me… I can always catch up with that later but right now I still have the book. The real, actual paperback novel.

I picked this book up when I was a kid and devoured it. I think I was 10 at the time and I recall doing a diorama of one of the scenes for a book report at school using Star Wars action figures and a shoe box. As an adult I seem to recall that it was very much like the Lord of the Rings series I was so enamored with, but all the details were fuzzy. I decided I’d go and pull it from the depths of the library and read it again.

I tried that with the very first Dragonlance book a while ago and met with… minimal success. As it turns out my ten year old self and my self now have spectacularly different taste in writing styles. I’m wondering what I’ll see and how I’ll react to reading this book again after more than 30 years have gone by since I first read it.

What’s your experience been like with re-reading your favorite works?

Sword and Stones

In the bones

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California Bones (Daniel Blackland, #1)California Bones by Greg Van Eekhout
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I actually heard a story by this author on a podcast. IF you haven’t heard of the podcasts from Escape Artists you should go and listen. Why? Because you’ll find authors of works like this. A really cool book. I enjoyed it and will track down other works by this author.

I liked the world building. Magic comes from bones. Dig them up or take them from other magicians – they’ve got magic. Put all this in an alternate California that has broken away from the United States. You get a number of familiar pieces along with all the new bits just waiting out there to be discovered. It was a fun, quick read for me.

Is this a book without problems? No. There are things I question. There are small things that don’t really work right in my mind. I’m sure there are parts that won’t add up if I give them more thought. The key is I *didn’t* think of them while I was reading. I just blasted right through to the end.

I definitely recommend picking this one up.

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The watch

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Night Watch (Watch, #1)Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko

It was really interesting to read something from a non-American author. It was very easy to see the Russian – particularly post cold war era – point of view. It is worth the read for that alone. Get a different perspective on the things.

The main character was difficult to pin down for me. I couldn’t get a grasp of his age. I also got (after many repetitions) that he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be on the side of the good guys. He wasn’t sure they really were the good guys – and neither was I.

This is a book that’s worth the time to check it out. Having said that, I got the book as part of a bundle with the next two and I’m not in a rush to read the other two. I might – they’re hanging out there – but one might just be enough.

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