Book report
Books, books, books. Without them I'd get more sleep. Or at least make more progress on my Netflix queue.
We begin with Diana Rowland's Touch of the Demon. This is the fifth novel following Kara Gillian, a rural Southern cop with a penchant for summoning demons (read "extra-dimensional entities" not "evil fallen angels"). The last book ended with Kara herself being summoned into the rarely visited demon realm, and not by any of her usual demonic partners. We resume moments later as Kara finds herself at the mercy of the demon lord who's apparently got a beef with her for something that happened a few hundred years ago.
There are lots of new revelations about demon culture and history, but the book still didn't fit well into the series. I think most of that was the complete separation from the settings and characters from the other books. Aside from one memorably unpleasant torture scene, I found myself overall going "meh". Maybe the next book will bring the threads together, but this one felt like the middle book of some completely different series.
Next up is the sprawling REAMDE by Neal Stephenson. I almost didn't read this one because of the daunting size and uninspired jacket copy, but I'm glad I did. It's set in the modern era but centers around a World of Warcraft competitor built to be extra-friendly to teenage Chinese gold farmers. A computer virus titled REAMDE encrypts its victims' data but promises to hand over the keys... if the victim delivers the ransom as in-game gold. What follows is a multi-country ramble involving Chinese hackers, Russian mobsters, British spies, Islamic terrorists, aging bikers, eccentric authors, a medium-sized pile of dead people, and a grumpy ex-pot smuggling Midwestern super-rich game designer. The plot coincidences are contrived to point of absurdity, but it was still fun.
Turning to the illustrated side of literature brings us to Dollhouse Volume 1: Epitaphs by a bunch of folks headed by Andrew Chambliss. This graphic novel continues the Dollhouse story (mostly) after the events of the TV show. That is to say, after all the episodes except for the two season finales that jumped forward into a post-Apocalyptic world where the mindwriter tech had destroyed civilization. These stories occur right as the first wave of destruction hits... a robocall that turns everyone who answers it into a mindless killer. The story mostly follows a handful of new characters who've avoided having their brains rewritten as they try to survive. As the story progresses, some figures from the show turn up as well. If you enjoyed Dollhouse it's interesting enough, but I wouldn't pick it up as a standalone.
Eoin Colfer wraps up his Artemis Fowl series with The Last Guardian. I'll give it this... it was tons better than the tired Atlantis Complex that preceded it. All the same, I think it's good that he's putting the series out to pasture. Recurring villain Opal is back with a plot to destroy humanity and only the usual heroics of Artemis and his crew can save the day. All the series regulars show up to do their things. The actual climax is pretty good, but the contrived scenario drained away some of the coolness.
And, on the subject of final books in a series, we have A Memory of Light, the fourteenth and last giant tome in the Wheel of Time series. This is mostly Brandon Sanderson, of course, but chunks of the resolution were dictated by Robert Jordan pre-mortem. It's big in scope, concept, and (of course) size. Rand will confront the Dark One! Armies will clash! Secrets will be revealed! Most of the main characters will live through it! (That's not really a spoiler, and you know it.)
There was a lot to like here. I was particularly impressed by how he managed to give the impression of both large scale and careful maneuver to the war. It was believable that the Light commander really was engaged in a complex dance of multiple engagements rather than the usual heroic-stand-at-the-ramparts-against-endless-enemy-waves that's typical of quest fantasy. Virtually every character got at least some "screen time" which is amazing given how many secondary and tertiary characters Jordan spun out during his bogged down middle books. There were some very creative uses of magic for military purposes. There are some deliberate ambiguities in the ending which Sanderson says were dictated by Jordan and he will not be explaining, but for the most part things got a decent wrap up.
I have to confess, though... enjoyable as I found the book and the series, my main feeling is relief that it's finally done.
There are a few more left on the list, but that enough for tonight.
Total for the year: twelve
This entry was originally posted at http://squidminion.dreamwidth.org/364875.html.
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comments there. You could add one via OpenID.
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We begin with Diana Rowland's Touch of the Demon. This is the fifth novel following Kara Gillian, a rural Southern cop with a penchant for summoning demons (read "extra-dimensional entities" not "evil fallen angels"). The last book ended with Kara herself being summoned into the rarely visited demon realm, and not by any of her usual demonic partners. We resume moments later as Kara finds herself at the mercy of the demon lord who's apparently got a beef with her for something that happened a few hundred years ago.
There are lots of new revelations about demon culture and history, but the book still didn't fit well into the series. I think most of that was the complete separation from the settings and characters from the other books. Aside from one memorably unpleasant torture scene, I found myself overall going "meh". Maybe the next book will bring the threads together, but this one felt like the middle book of some completely different series.
Next up is the sprawling REAMDE by Neal Stephenson. I almost didn't read this one because of the daunting size and uninspired jacket copy, but I'm glad I did. It's set in the modern era but centers around a World of Warcraft competitor built to be extra-friendly to teenage Chinese gold farmers. A computer virus titled REAMDE encrypts its victims' data but promises to hand over the keys... if the victim delivers the ransom as in-game gold. What follows is a multi-country ramble involving Chinese hackers, Russian mobsters, British spies, Islamic terrorists, aging bikers, eccentric authors, a medium-sized pile of dead people, and a grumpy ex-pot smuggling Midwestern super-rich game designer. The plot coincidences are contrived to point of absurdity, but it was still fun.
Turning to the illustrated side of literature brings us to Dollhouse Volume 1: Epitaphs by a bunch of folks headed by Andrew Chambliss. This graphic novel continues the Dollhouse story (mostly) after the events of the TV show. That is to say, after all the episodes except for the two season finales that jumped forward into a post-Apocalyptic world where the mindwriter tech had destroyed civilization. These stories occur right as the first wave of destruction hits... a robocall that turns everyone who answers it into a mindless killer. The story mostly follows a handful of new characters who've avoided having their brains rewritten as they try to survive. As the story progresses, some figures from the show turn up as well. If you enjoyed Dollhouse it's interesting enough, but I wouldn't pick it up as a standalone.
Eoin Colfer wraps up his Artemis Fowl series with The Last Guardian. I'll give it this... it was tons better than the tired Atlantis Complex that preceded it. All the same, I think it's good that he's putting the series out to pasture. Recurring villain Opal is back with a plot to destroy humanity and only the usual heroics of Artemis and his crew can save the day. All the series regulars show up to do their things. The actual climax is pretty good, but the contrived scenario drained away some of the coolness.
And, on the subject of final books in a series, we have A Memory of Light, the fourteenth and last giant tome in the Wheel of Time series. This is mostly Brandon Sanderson, of course, but chunks of the resolution were dictated by Robert Jordan pre-mortem. It's big in scope, concept, and (of course) size. Rand will confront the Dark One! Armies will clash! Secrets will be revealed! Most of the main characters will live through it! (That's not really a spoiler, and you know it.)
There was a lot to like here. I was particularly impressed by how he managed to give the impression of both large scale and careful maneuver to the war. It was believable that the Light commander really was engaged in a complex dance of multiple engagements rather than the usual heroic-stand-at-the-ramparts-against-endless-enemy-waves that's typical of quest fantasy. Virtually every character got at least some "screen time" which is amazing given how many secondary and tertiary characters Jordan spun out during his bogged down middle books. There were some very creative uses of magic for military purposes. There are some deliberate ambiguities in the ending which Sanderson says were dictated by Jordan and he will not be explaining, but for the most part things got a decent wrap up.
I have to confess, though... enjoyable as I found the book and the series, my main feeling is relief that it's finally done.
There are a few more left on the list, but that enough for tonight.
Total for the year: twelve
This entry was originally posted at http://squidminion.dreamwidth.org/364875.html.
There are
comments there. You could add one via OpenID.
Or you can comment here if you'd rather; it's okay.