The Eyes of the Dragon review

One TBR read down! Heh :D

Stephen King is of course, best known for his horror novels, but once in a while he takes a look down a different aisle, tests out the goods.

The Eyes of the Dragon can be found down one of those offshoot aisles.

Written, apparently, for King's daughter who didn't like horror stories, The Eyes of  the Dragon is definitely a departure.

Not that that's a bad thing. Not at all because The Eyes of the Dragon is great. If it has to be categorised, I would say it's YA Fantasy. It's actually a very straightforward fantasy novel, and I mean that in the best possible sense of the word.

It's set in a magical kingdom, where king Roland is a foolish if kind king, with two sons - Peter and Thomas - and a shadowy magician adviser called Flagg.

When Roland is murdered, Peter is accused of the crime and imprisoned in The Needle.

Peter is, of course, innocent, and Flagg is determined to make mischief.

There's something oddly comforting about The Eyes of the Dragon and I can't quite put my finger on it. It feels like the narrator is telling you the story personally, and all of the elements are familiar, and it just all pulls together into a cosy, remarkably readable whole.

Three short reviews

Three short reviews

Another short reviews post so soon? Well, yes. I’m on holiday, and also on a bit of a reading streak, so I’m getting through some books at a pretty steady clip.

And, I believe I’ve said before, I’m lazy. So short reviews it is.

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion.

Ah, the zombie love-story with a twist. In that it’s the zombie, R, who falls in love with the living girl, Julie … after, that is, he eats her boyfriend’s brain.

Zombies, remember?

Something big and bad has happened, and the world is divided into the Living and the Dead. The Living are confined to large Stadiums (actual sports stadiums), with occasional foraging trips into the dead city, where, of course, the Dead tend to be waiting.

R is slightly different from your average zombie. He seems to still have goals and aspirations, despite well, being dead, and also not remembering anything about his life. And then he meets – and rescues – Julie, and everything changes.

I did enjoy Warm Bodies. I liked it a lot. Lol that’s profound, isn’t it?  There’s lots to consider in such a short book, of course there is, especially given the subject matter, but at its heart, it’s a zombie-meets-girl love story, and although it hints at some profound changes beyond the scope of it, that story is the heart of it. (Could my sentence structure BE more awkward?)

Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth

I always forget – until I read another one – what a weakness I do have for fairytale retellings.

Rapunzel gets the treatment in Bitter Greens, which is set in 16^th and 17^th century Italy and France.

In 1697, Charlotte-Rose de la Force has been sent to an isolated convent by the King of France, for licentious behaviour. Charlotte-Rose – used to a life of luxury – has a difficult time adjusting, until one of the older nuns begins telling her a story of a girl called Margherita, who was locked in a tower 100 years ago by a witch …

Bitter Greens weaves the stories of the three women – Margherita, Charlotte-Rose, and Soeur Seraphina – in a truly compelling tale of magic, love and redemption.

Recommended. And then recommended again. :D

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by  Brian Selznick

Hugo Cabret is unusual, in that it’s really part novel, part graphic novel, with about half the book taken up with pictures and sketches, which you do have to pay attention to because they fill in for part of the action.

I’m torn on Hugo Cabret, to be honest. I really want to see the movie, because in the book, neither Hugo nor Isabella, are particularly appealing characters. The story itself – of Hugo being fascinated with clocks and automatons without really knowing why, until he meets an old toymaker – is interesting, even though, for me, it feels a bit rushed.

Overall, good, but for me, not great.

Short reviews; bad language; my friend on Twitter

Last one first. My friend and workmate, George, joined Twitter this week, here http://twitter.com/dbfn

I take full responsibility for it, and you should all go check her out. She's funny, politically incorrect and has an awesome cat. But don't tell her I told you.
On to the short reviews. I finally, finally!!!! finished Slash, and Brideshead Revisited. I wasn't doing much reading last week, what with the Idol result bringing me way down, man; but I fought my way through. Worringly, my fan-girl obsession with Adam Lambert has not abated. My inner 15-year-old is now ascendant. Sigh.
This time on to the short reviews, really.
First, Slash, which he co-wrote with Anthony Bozza. It's a real rock n roll ride, and there's no way of writing a review of this somehow, without saying fuck. However, unlike in real life at the moment, I'll try and limit the bad language.
Here's the thing. The book is really fucking cool. It just … is. It's this incredibly wild ride and slide into the world of rock n roll, and the heyday of Guns N Roses who were, as I remember (I was a teenager at the time) THE biggest rock band. So the stuff towards the end of the book, which isn't gone into heavily, about the legal wranglings and the fights and such, is a real shame. Not only is my inner 15-year-old ascendant at the moment, but my inner (okay, dormant) rock chick is also demanding to be heard now that I've finished the book. Unfortunately, my iPod doesn't run to rock much _ I have two Led Zeppelin songs (and one of those is the one Adam Lambert did on Idol) and some scattered Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Sigh.
Oh, right, the book. It's really well put together; cohesively written, and obviously very personal to Slash. If rock music is your thing, or autobiographies, or hell, just a really great story, then I can thoroughly recommend picking it up.
Switching gears, the other book I finally finished this weekend was Brideshead Revisited. And I no longer have the urge to swear, but put on a dress, sit up straight and have tea and cucumber sandwiches. It's a lovely read but it's starting to fade a little bit, already. Insubstantial, perhaps.
It's all about memory, and perception. Charles Ryder gets drawn in to the Flyte family, first by second son Sebastian, who has Demons on his back, then daughter Julia, who doesn't know what to do with her Demons.
It begins during World War 2, and Charles is in the British army. His company has just requisitioned (or whatever you call it) the stately manor of Brideshead, which leads him back over his time with the Flytes and the profound effect they had on his life. It's a stylish read, I think, but perhaps not as deep as I wanted it to be.

Short reviews

Short, because the books are backing up a little. How, may you ask, can you have read three books in the past week, yet claim to have lost your mojo?

I have no idea. But that's the way it works.

Let's get started, shall we?

First: The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E Pearson

Jenna wakes from a coma with no memory of her life before. Something, however, is not right. She's recovering incredibly fast, and her grandmother seems to hate her. The family lives in an isolated area, and it's not long before Jenna suspects that it's because of her.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox is a short novel, but it certainly packs a wallop. The central theme, or question of the novel is: what truly makes us human? Jenna discovers that, after much sneaking around and surgical hijinks on the part of her parents (the novel is set in a slightly scary future and Jenna's father develops an even more scary bio-gel) there's only 10 percent of her original brain left. Which leaves Jenna with a deeply fundamental question: Who am I?

It's a very thoughtful, and thought-provoking read, although I thought it ended slightly on a down note.

Next: The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

The first adventure featuring Hercule Poirot, and where we meet his sometimes-Watson, Captain Hastings. Poirot is a Belgian refugee in an English village, while Hastings is staying at the manor house. Where, of course, there are Currents. This being an early novel, it's very easy to see where Christie's themes _ secrets, seemingly impossible mysteries and yes, even some social commentary _ started. As she goes on, she hits her stride more and more, but it's always fun to go back to the early days.

Lastly: Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella

Iactually finished this in a couple of days; it was a pretty quick read. And, I have to say, I enjoyed it more than Kinsella's Shopaholic series. Lexi Smart wakes up in hospital, with no memory of the past three years. She thinks she's a loser, with a loser boyfriend (whose nickname is actually Loser Dave) and a crappy job.

However, when Lexi wakes up, she finds out that she's a driven career woman with a movie-star handsome husband and now she's the boss.

It's fairly light-hearted, and a pretty fast read.

Kittens and rainbows. :)

The Heretic Queen plus Dragonlance shortie

I had one of those "is it me?" moments with The Heretic Queen. I enjoyed Michelle Moran's first novel, Nefertiti, but wasn't in love with it. And I had a similar reaction to The Heretic Queen, the sequel.

The trouble is, most of the reviews I've read are pretty glowing and it makes me wonder why I had such an "eh" reaction. That maybe I'd missed some kind of secret awesomeness somewhere. It's possible.

Anyway. Historically speaking, Nefertari was the wife of Ramesses II, also known as Ramesses the Great. He ruled ancient Egypt longer than just about anyone and instituted massive building programmes.

However, I'm getting off-track. I do find Ramesses' story fascinating but this is meant to be Nefertari's story. And it's fine as far as it goes. It's well-researched and gives fairly vivid descriptions of what life might have been like. But I can't get ahold of the characters. For such a vivid historical figure, Ramesses is reduced to little more than a king pawn between warring queens.

Warring queens that I felt were barely sketched in themselves. Nefertari is the narrator of the story, and although her historical origins are lost to time, in The Heretic Queen she is the niece of the notorious Nefertiti and carries that burden ... and carries it ... and .. have you ever wanted to say "oh, pull your socks up and stop whingeing!" to a ficitonal character? Yeah. I wanted to say that to Nefertari.

The half of the book she's not mooning after Ramesses, she's complaining about her personal history. Sigh. And in between times she's being manipulated like a pawn on a chessboard, which made me feel like I didn't really have a lot of insight into her character.

Having said all that, I read The Heretic Queen in two days. Moran's writing is very compelling and she really knows how to put a story together. I just wish there were a few more ingredients.

I also read Book Three of The Dark Disciple: Amber and Blood; a Dragonlance novel. There have been many, many, many Dragonlance offshoots. The Dark Disciple trilogy follows on from the War of Souls trilogy and picks up Mina's story. It seemed to take aaaaaaaaaaages for Amber and Blood to come out in paperback and I thought I was going to have to go back and re-read the first two books. But my retention was better than I thought :)
I did enjoy Amber and Blood. It wrapped things up nicely, had the required good guys/bad guys/angsts and hand-wringings you'd expect :) It was well-written, well-plotted and easy to read.
If you haven't read any Dragonlance novels, the first one is Dragons of Autumn Twilight. :)

Short reviews

Short reviews

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

I have a friend who is not fond of short stories, because she feels cheated after reading them. I told her she should read this, because each story is complete in and of itself, and it's hard to imagine how or what to add to them to make them better.

Every time I finished a story, that one became my favourite. Until the next one.

Read it. You know you want to. :)


My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike by Joyce Carol Oates

Okay, just typing the title makes me tired. And to be honest, the book did, a little bit, too.
Loosely based on the JonBenet Ramsey case; My Sister, My Love is told from the point of view of the older brother of child skating star _ and murder victim _ Bliss Rampike.
Skyler is 19, very troubled, and trying to make sense of the world.

I liked parts of it, but more parts of it seemed to drag on ... and on and I got a bit fed up, quite frankly and had to keep putting it down.

Took me weeks to finish it!

Three (short) reviews

Momo by Michael Ende
I read this years ago and for some reason it had been tickling my subconscious, so I read it again, and given that it had been many, many years, I could enjoy it as though I had never read it, if that makes sense.

Momo is an orphan who lives in the ruins of a large amphitheatre in an unnamed European city. She has many friends and enjoys her life there; and Momo has a special skill: she listens. Somehow, when Momo listens to you, things improve.

Then, the men in grey come, wanting to steal time and it’s up to Momo and her friends to stop them.

I remember enjoying Momo the first time I read it, however many years ago it was, and I enjoyed it again. Momo’s an endearing character and her friends are well-written. My favourite character is the tortoise Cassopeia, who can see an hour (or half an hour?) into the future and communicates by showing messages on her shell.

Once Upon a Time in the North by Philip Pullman
A very short prequel to the His Dark Materials trilogy, this novella details the meeting between Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrnison.

There’s trouble a-brewing, as always, and Lee manages to get right into the middle of it, without even trying.

Althoug it’s a very short book, it’s also very detailed. I did get a little bored towards the end as one fight sequence seemed to drag on and on, but otherwise it’s a good read.

Odd Hours by Dean Koontz
The fourth in Koontz’s Odd Thomas series. I’ve mentioned this before, I’m sure, but it bears repeating. Odd Thomas is one of my favourite characters. He’s quirky and kind and eccentric and although he seems to be afraid a lot, he doesn’t let that stop him doing the right thing.

Having said all that, Odd Hours feels like a somewhat slight entry into the series. It doesn’t hold up as well as the first three, and so suffers somewhat. Odd’s doing his usual thing _ saving the world from the bad guys, but … there’s something missing somehow.

Odd’s been gone from his home town of Pico Mundo for a while and I keep hoping that the next Odd adventure will bring him home, because the first two books set there were definitely the strongest of the series.

I still love Odd Thomas though. Really and truly.

Hey, look!

Some books! Or what I've read lately:

Duma Key by Stephen King

In his other life, as he calls it, Edgar Freemantle was a successful building contractor. However, a serious accident that left him with one arm, a bad hip and a jittery memory for words.
Alone after his wife divorces him, and hurting from more than the accident, Edgar rents a house on Duma Key; a mysterious and overgrown Florida Key.
There, he finds his passion for art again, starts to make new friends and begins to remake his life.
This, however, is Stephen King. So it’s not your standard remake yourself story. Far from it and it’s not long before Edgar and his new friends are caught up in something big, and supernatural.
The good thing about reading King (apart from Insomnia for me, which I couldn’t finish) is the easy way he tells a story; whether he’s describing Edgar’s interaction with the younger of his two daughters, or the supernatural frenzy in which Edgar paints.
All aspects of the story are compelling at the same level as the strands of past and present are brought together, and Edgar and co find themselves confronting an ancient evil.
The story is interspersed with vignettes from the early life of Elizabeth Eastlake, now an ailing octogenarian, and instructions on how to paint. The vignettes are telling, and almost as compelling, as the main story of Duma Key unfolding.

This Charming Man by Marian Keyes

Paddy de Courcy – personable, charming and one of the up and coming faces of Irish politics, has just announced his engagement.
This news affects four different women in four very different ways.
There’s Lola, for one, who thought she was Paddy’s girlfriend _ until he announces his engagement to someone else. Then there are sisters Grace, and Marnie who remember Paddy for different reasons, and Alicia – the soon to be Mrs de Courcy.
Paddy de Courcy is hiding a very dark secret – one that all four women are a party to; and not just them.
Keyes has a storyteller’s knack with her writing; opening up a dark thread throughout what are some light-hearted on the surface tales.
Very readable.

Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker

The Mister B. Gone of the title is the demon Jakobok Botch, dragged up from Hell against his will. He escapes his captors and proceeds _ along with fellow demon Quitoon _ to wreak havoc on 14th century Europe.
What’s unique about Mister B. Gone is that the narration isn’t just in the first person; he talks directly to the reader and keeps exhorting them to “burn this book”.
Barker’s narration is so vivid, I found myself turning around a couple of times to make sure the demon wasn’t behind me.
Short, but chilling.

A Sandwich Short of a Picnic by Felicity Price
Penny Rushmore belongs to the “sandwich generation” – men and women caught between caring for their growing families and their ailing parents.
Penny also works fulltime and has just lost her husband to that most middle-aged of clichés: the younger woman.
However, when Penny finds a lump in her breast, she’s forced to take a step bac.
Sandwich is a fast, funny read, although much of it is on the surface.

Three short reviews

Storm Front: Book 1 of The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.
Good stuff. An interesting blend of genres, as Harry Dresden is a wizard who also works as a private investigator. When the police have a case they deem “weird” they go to Harry.
On the same day, two seemingly unrelated cases show up on Harry’s doorstep. A woman is searching for her missing husband, and has found something that leads her to Harry, and the police department has a double murder, committed in such a way as to also lead them to Harry’s door.
Soon, Harry is in well over his head.
The blending of genres works pretty well, and Harry Dresden is an engaging character; flawed yet funny.

Star Trek: The Next Generation Q & A by Keith R A DeCandido
Set after the events of Resistance; this is a better novel. The new Enterprise-E crew is settling in and ready for an exploratory mission; which Picard is particularly looking forward to, as it brings the Enterprise back to her roots.
Then Q shows up and everything goes south very quickly.
It turns out that Q isn’t exactly the malevolent mischief-maker that everyone has always believed; it turns out all these years he’s been working to save humanity, with a little mischief thrown in for fun.
Good escapism.

The Six Pack: Various
Short stories from the winners of a competition for New Zealand Book Month in 2006. Five short stories and one collection of poems. Very good, but my favourite story is The Life Coach; funny and light for the most part, with a couple of shadows thrown in for good measure.

Also finished recently: A Pocketful of Rye by Agatha Christie and Jeeves in the Offing by P G Woodhouse. Christie and Woodhouse are my “fill-in” authors, when I can’t think of anything else I want to read.

Whew! That’ll do for now!