26th July, 2007
Ysabel
Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay
Picked this one up on a recommendation from Amazon. After having read it, I feel like the book would be much more at home in the Young Adult section, not in Adult Fiction where it currently resides (at my library, at least).
Set in modern day France, Ysabel is the story of two star-crossed teens, boy and girl, who meet in a cathedral. Myths and legends spring forth during their time together - seems it is the right time of year for supernatural events - and no one seems too upset by this. Boy saves girl in the end and here we are.
Easy reading pretty much sums up the book, and, really, I’d probably enjoy it more were I 20 years younger. A decent tale, but nothing special.
3/5 gogs.
Posted at 12:57 pm | Comment (0)
25th July, 2007
Pandora’s Star
Pandora’s Star by Peter F. Hamilton.
I’m not sure what to think of Hamilton’s writing. I read Fallen Dragon (a fun summer read, chock-full of suspense and derring-do) and was reasonably pleased. Then I picked up the Night’s Dawn series and felt like smashing my face with a brick. Seriously, do not waste your time with Night’s Dawn. I made it to book 5 of 6 and felt like jumping off the nearest cliff just to make it end. I think the part where Al Capone’s “ghost” became a main character (no, really) is the point that I went for the hot-needles-in-my-eye treatment…
Getting back to the point of this post; Pandora’s Star, is it any good? In a word, kinda. The book starts out with some good ol’ sci-fi. You know, a star-flung civilization, interesting technologies, intra-species discord, aliens, mysteries, that kind of stuff. This goes on for, say, about a third of the way in and then my friends, it gets assy. Hamilton falls back into his create-insipid-one-sided-characters mode and attempts to write believable conversations about personal and social issues. In this, he fails. Hard. Thankfully, there isn’t as much of this tripe as there was in Night’s Dawn, but it’s still there. I found myself skimming through those chapters in order to get back to the main plot (which, after all is said and done, is decent enough to hold my attention).
This is part one of a two book series. Will I read the next one? I dunno. Probably at some point, but I’m not in much of a rush to do so. This book would have been far better had they edited out about 20% of it.
3/5 gogs.
Posted at 8:18 am | Comment (1)
25th July, 2007
Kansas
What else is there to say? Someone, or something, isn’t happy with the state.
Old school. [via ectomo]
’nuff said.
Posted at 7:11 am | Comment (0)
13th July, 2007
Best. News article. Ever.
British forces have denied rumours that they released a plague of ferocious badgers into the Iraqi city of Basra.
For some reason, I’m beyond tickled when hearing the phrase “a plague of ferocious badgers”, especially knowing that it was published in the BBC News. I can’t wait to use this in everyday conversation. (You’ve been warned.)
Posted at 10:15 am | Comment (0)
12th July, 2007
The Name of the Wind
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.
I have three words for you: Buy. This. Book. I’d add a forth word (Now) but I really don’t like the prices of hardcover editions. One thing of note when you rush out to buy it, the book has two different covers in the US. I have no idea why. I read the edition with the “alternate cover”. The one that is pictured above is the “non-alternate” version or something. You can see them (and the U.K. cover as well) at the official website here.
Anyway, enough of that. This is a most excellent book. It is set in a fantasy world, but, really, it could take place anywhere and it would still be fantastic. Mr. Rothfuss has a wonderful knack for storytelling. Intelligent, witty and engaging dialogue with characters who really seem alive. Both laugh-out-loud moments as well as teary-eyed ones can be found within. I zipped through this ~650 page monster in 3 days and was left wanting more. Did I mention that this book was really good?
Fortunately, there will be more as this is the first book in a trilogy. Unfortunately, the 2nd book won’t be out for a while (Amazon is showing a release date of April 1, ‘08). I’m hoping this is just a cruel, cruel joke and it will be released sooner. Of course, I’ve also been hoping to become filthy rich and that hasn’t happened yet, so… yeah.
I am going to mark down the book just a smidgen due to some repetitious phrases and there are a couple of areas where the story feels a little loose (but hey, this is only his first novel). Aside from that, it’s damn good.
4.8/5 gogs.
[edit] Oh, and hey, he’s got a blog. Very amusing. Me likey.
Posted at 8:29 am | Comment (1)
5th July, 2007
Horizon Storms
Horizon Storms by Kevin J. Anderson. The third book in the Saga of the Seven Suns.
The book starts out with a recap of what has happened in the first two books of the series. This is a good thing as 1) it had been a while since I had last read book 2 and details, hell, even sub-plots, can easily be forgotten and 2) this is a broad-ranging space opera oftentimes with 10 or 15 stories progressing at the same time. Briefly, humanity has charged forth, experimenting with unknown alien technology and accidentally destroys an entire planet full of (now hostile) aliens. Oh, snap. Throw in plenty of deception, aggression and mystery, a handful of other races and sentient robots and lots of ancient history amongst the aliens and you’ve got yourself a story.
This book didn’t really grab me as the 1st book in this series (and, to a lesser extent, the 2nd book) did. I felt myself pushing forward to simply finish the book, not because I was terribly interested in what happened within, but just to get it over with. This book would benefit greatly from a Cliff’s Notes edition.
Another problem with so many stories occurring in parallel, some of the chapters were short. Really short. Only two or three pages short. I think one of the reasons I wasn’t into the book as much was due to these short-ass chapters. There wasn’t enough wordspace per time segment to build up the atmosphere and capture your attention.
I probably won’t be picking up the 4th volume in the series anytime soon.
2.5/5 gogs.
Posted at 8:18 am | Comments (2)
5th July, 2007
Dammit, I’m getting old.
I told some kids to get off my lawn yesterday. For real.
To be more precise, I told them they weren’t allowed to bring their 100 pound dog into the yard when my daughter was out. They promptly ignored me, hence their resulting ejection from the pastoral expanse that is the Gogyard.
Damn kids these days.
Posted at 8:05 am | Comment (1)
3rd July, 2007
Thinking of you
I saw one of these buses on my way home from work last week.
Yeah, I laughed. - -
Posted at 9:57 am | Comment (0)
