Month: July 2010

Teaser Tuesdays

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Last Tuesday I slept late and missed the teasing so this week, it’s TWO teasers. And, since I’m reading a non-fiction book and I like the fiction teasers more, I thought I would do one from my current read and one from my next read.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. The idea is to give everyone a look inside the book you’re reading.

Play along: Grab your current read; Open to a random page; Share two teaser sentences from that page; Share the title and author so that other participants know what you’re reading.

First up, The Whale: In Search of the Giants of the Sea by Philip Hoare.

“Perhaps it is because I was nearly born underwater.

A day or so before my mother was due to give birth to me, she and my father visited Portsmouth’s naval dockyard, where they were taken on a tour of a submarine.” (1)

Next on the ever voluminous TBR, Kraken by China Miéville.

“The sea is full of saints. You know that? You know that: you’re a big boy.” (10)

What are you teasing us with this week?

Fire

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Fire

Fire

By Kristin Cashore

Dial Books

ISBN: 978-0-8037-3461-6

4 stars

Fire is a companion novel to Cashore’s Graceling. My review of Graceling is here.

Fire is the last remaining human monster. She is stunningly beautiful with hair the color of flame and the ability to read minds and control a person’s actions. She guards her power knowing how easy it would be for her to take control of others having seen her father, a true monster, do just that to too many people. She has no need or want to be cruel and having too many secrets of her own, doesn’t want to know everyone else’s. Her own pain is enough for her to endure.

She lives in a turbulent time, the king is barely holding on to his thrown, war is coming, and Fire is called the help the kingdom by uncovering a plot against the king. Skeptical at first, Fire finally relents and agrees to use her power to save the kingdom of the Dells.

I was expecting something different with this book, something more along the lines of Graceling I guess. I thought there would be more adventure and action and this one doesn’t have that in the same amounts as Graceling. It’s there, but in an entirely different way. In Fire, we’re introduced to a new world but one just as interesting. The monsters, great and small, roam the Dells, and Fire, ever conscience of her own status as one, does her best not to act like one. Her powers are legendary but she’s never willing to overstep which makes it hard to really look at her as a monster. There’s just too much self control on her part. Fire has her secrets and times she despises herself, especially those moments when she’s truly a monster, and you begin to see just how important her self-control is to her and why.

Fire has more of a romantic aspect to it than Graceling and develops at a slow pace, which with everything else going on, makes sense. I liked the fact that Cashore talked about love, sex, and birth control though. Two people become pregnant and Fire, not wanting children, takes a potion to ensure she never has children believing the world should have no more monsters like her but she suffers when she see her friend’s children, even knowing that her decision was the right one for her. The topic is not dumbed down and in a YA book I can appreciate that. The characters are frank and open about their actions and feelings and the consequences are discussed in a manner that shows nothing is insignificant.

I like Cashore’s writing style, and as I’ve said before, she has an amazing imagination. The world she created for Graceling felt fresh and vibrant and the same can be said for Fire. While all the characters are new there is one that makes an appearance from Graceling. I won’t say (it’s not Katsa) but it adds some missing back story you didn’t get in Graceling. There is supposed to be a follow up to Graceling later this year and I think I’ll be reading it to see what Cashore comes up with next.

Friday Finds – Fantasy Series

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I love a series and I’ve been looking for some new fantasy so when I came across these two authors while looking up a book at my library the other day, I knew they had to go on the list.

The Skewed Throne, The Cracked Throne, and The Vacant Throne by Joshua Palmatier. The series takes place in a city called Amenkor and follows a young girl named Varis who has the ability to see innocence and guilt in colors and develops a knack for murder. She eventually becomes the Mistress of Amenkor and tries to lead the city through political turmoil while fighting to keep the city’s citizens from starvation. When an alliance with another city becomes a possibility, Varis must find an ancient stone throne that was lost centuries earlier to seal the alliance. I tried to sum up each book in a sentence so this short description covers all three books.

Green Rider, First Rider’s Call, and The High King’s Tomb by Kristin Britain. This series is a quest tale with a medieval fantasy setting. In the first book, Karigan is expelled from school, and in a forest on the way home, she finds a Green Rider, a magically bound individual who is carrying a message for the King. She takes his magic brooch and takes over his mission becoming a Green Rider herself. The second book sees tainted magic seeping into the world and Karigan, poisoned by the magic, begins seeing visions of the first Green Rider who tells her how she must overcome a great evil. In the final book, Karigan receives a message from a dead magician and she begins to accept that she is destined for extraordinary things, especially after the god of death’s horse shows up for her.

Find anything good this week to share?

Friday Finds is hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Leave a comment here with a link to your own finds, or share your list at Should Be Reading. Happy Friday.

My Favorite Reads – The Time Machine

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Alyce from At Home With Books features one of her favorite reads each Thursday and this week my pick is…

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells.

From the back cover: When the Time Traveller courageously stepped out of his machine for the first time, he found himself in the year 802,700 — and everything had changed. In another, more utopian age, creatures seemed to dwell together in perfect harmony. The Time Traveller thought he could study these marvelous beings — unearth their secret and then return to his own time — until he discovered that his invention, his only avenue of escape, had been stolen.

My thoughts: I read The Time Machine in 8th or 9th grade and it was my first brush with science fiction. I was fascinated by the idea of time travel and the ability to experience and observe new worlds. Wouldn’t it be amazing to witness firsthand the use of fire and tools by early humans, see dinosaurs roaming vast plains, experience the Ice Age, see humans evolve into what we are today, observe amazing creatures of the sea, see the building of the pyramids, and watch the Great Wall of China emerge stone by stone? Maybe this is why I have developed such a love of historical fiction — it captures a time and place in history and brings it to life.

I’ve read this book several times since my first initial bit of enthusiasm and have liked and enjoyed it each time finding new parts to be excited about. Our version is a bit dog-eared and passages are underlined but it only means that it’s well loved. I also love the cover art work of our little Bantam Classic book. It’s very Salvador Dali-esque. I can’t profess to be a big Dali fan, he creeps me out way too much for me to actually enjoy his work, but I like the starkness of the paining and of course the clock in the background gives it just that little reminder of what you are in for. According to the inside cover, the painting is Gentleman in a Railway Carriage by James Jacques Joseph Tissot.

Deliver Us From Evil

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Deliver Us From Evil

Deliver Us From Evil

By David Baldacci

Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Books

ISBN: 978-0-446-56408-3

3.5 stars

Evan Waller is a monster. A sadistic and ruthless killer, he cares for nothing and no one. His business practices are cold and methodical; money being his only goal. He traffics in women, children, and nuclear weapons and people in the world believe he should be brought to justice. One such person is Reggie Campion, a member of a secret vigilante group. Her group has an agenda and that is to hunt down Waller, show him his deeds, and bring justice. She intends to kill him. Unfortunately, she is not the only person hunting Waller. Shaw, a mysterious operative from an unknown government agency, is also out for Waller. When Waller, Reggie, and Shaw all end up in Provence, the hunt begins.

There is one thing I need to say right off the start with this book — Waller is a great bad guy. He’s cruel, disgusting, scary, cold, calculating, and just so good at being bad that you honestly want him to be dead. And you don’t want his death to be a pleasant or easy one, the guy should suffer. So when two people do try to kill him, you find yourself cheering them on. OK, so I was a bit disturbed by the fact that I was cheering on two characters to take the life of a third but he was that bad!

While it’s an engrossing and fast read, there are a few corny lines and some “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” moments in this book. And it’s a, “I’ve got your back do you have mine?” line that is the culprit I’m hinting about here. Some of the dialog felt odd, old, and a bit bumbling, but this didn’t ruin it. While those hokey lines take you out of the story for a breather, there is enough to pull you back in quickly. This is a story about people out to murder a murderer, and there are a few torture scenes that I could have gone without reading, but they did fit so I can’t say they were too much.

The ending, I feel I must address it. No, don’t worry, I won’t be ruining it by telling you any more than this — for me it felt predictable. I think I was expecting more from the bad guy. Up to this point in the book he had been much more creative and while it’s a fast paced ending, I felt as if it had been done before. There is one more thing that bothered me about the ending but in the spirit of not giving it all away I will say no more than it was just too easy.

Now, you will be entertained by this book, if you like thrillers like this, but once the book is done, you’ll move on to the next easily without lingering. I don’t think this is a bad thing as there are a lot of books out there that I don’t find myself thinking about after I turn the last page. It’s just a warning from me and how I felt, you might have a completely different reaction so feel free to ignore this. If you’re looking for something to keep you busy on a plane or at the beach, it’s not a bad pick.

The Divine Sacrifice

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The Divine Sacrifice

By Tony Hays

Forge Books

ISBN: 978-0-7653-1946-3

3.75 stars

This is the second book in the Arthurian legend mystery series following The Killing Way.  You can read my review of The Killing Way here.

Malgwyn ap Cuneglas is a counselor to King Arthur. He’s asked to accompany the King to Glastonbury Abbey to investigate reports of rebellion. What he finds on his arrival is a dead monk, accusations of heresy, and while investigating one murder, finds himself entangled in a second. The second murder becomes the more problematic one as the dead man is a well-known and revered man of the church. While trying to find a murder, or murderers, Malgwyn uncovers a conspiracy to overrun the church and the kingdom.

I’m not a mystery person but I’ve been trying to read more of them. I always have the same problem with all mysteries though — I spend all my time trying to figure out who did it that I don’t always enjoy the story itself. I don’t have this problem with other genres, although I do read ahead a lot and of course I do that with a mystery too but I just get caught up in it too much. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy this book because I did find it a fun read but I think I’m coming to a realization about mysteries themselves. They might just not be for me.

There was a small thing that did bother me about this book. All the men are rough and stay true to their nature throughout which I appreciate. I don’t expect 5th Century warlords to be overly kind but when an old murder — rape and murder of a young girl actually — is mentioned, it’s treated so casually and coldly that it bothered me. It’s a brutal murder but somehow having taken place so many years ago means nothing to all the people involved. It irked me too much.

I will say this though, I was surprised by who did it in this book. It was hidden well behind a name I didn’t connect. Of course, by this time I was too busy trying to figure out who did it that I had completely overlooked the connection and was annoyed by several of the characters reactions to past events to pay attention to this person at all. Then again, maybe that was the master plan of the author. Overall, this quick read was good and if you like historical fiction mixed with your mystery, it’s not a bad aside.

The Sunday Salon – A Quickie Post

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Yes, a quickie. I’m off shortly to pick up my husband from the airport and I thought I’d do a fast re-cap of this week’s reading. And besides, after writing six reviews this morning, I’m a bit worded out but the good news is that I will have reviews for everyone to read this week. Yea!

This week I read:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling — A re-read but oh so much fun.

The Dead Travel Fast by Deanna Raybourn — A fast read but not bad.

The King’s Mistress by Emma Campion — A heavy piece of historical fiction but I enjoyed it.

Well, that’s it for today. I told you it was quickie didn’t I. 😉

A New Challenge of Sorts – Diana Wynne Jones Week

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There are authors and books that we all have good intentions of reading but sometimes, for reasons completely unknown to us, we never get to them. For me, I’ve always meant to read Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. The book has lingered on my long list of books for, well, let’s be honest, forever. I have no idea why I never picked it up.

Jenny of Jenny’s Books is a huge fan of Jones and is hosting a Diana Wynne Jones Week August 1 – 7, 2010. To participate, one has to read one of Jones’s books and post a review during the week. Jenny has even been nice enough to post lists and descriptions of her books. You can find her lists here and here and here. My only problem, there maybe to many good ones to pick from…

I was going to read Howl’s Moving Castle — and still intend to —- but I have somehow managed to add a few more to the list:

Deep Secret

The Dark Lord of Derkholm

Power of Three

A Sudden Wild Magic

A Tough Guide to Fantasyland

Have you read any of her books? If so, any recommendations?

And, Jenny, if you’re out there, any suggestions?