03.03.10
Posted in Reviews at 11:14 pm by Fiona
Avempartha by Michael J. Sullivan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I read the first book in this series because I wanted to help out a new author, and our Goodreads Fantasy Book Club was reading it. I enjoyed the first book, but was somewhat ambivalent about it. I was interested in giving the series more of a chance so I nominated this book a couple of times and the rest of the group voted for something else. THEIR LOSS!! Avempartha is fantastic! It builds on the story set out in The Crown Conspiracy yet really takes off. I had a hard time putting it down and going to sleep each night I so wanted to find out what happened next. I felt Michael’s storytelling just blossomed. I loved the new characters and how they were introduced into the story. I love how he keeps peeling away new layers to the main characters, Hadrian and Royce, like an onion. I’m so glad I have Nyphron Rising so I can tear right into it and have a feeling it’s going to be agonizing to wait for book 4, but I’m hanging on to this wild ride all the way to the end.
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01.26.10
Posted in Reviews at 8:00 pm by Fiona
An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I have long been a fan of this series by Diana Gabaldon so having another chance to visit with Jamie and Claire and Brianna and Roger was wonderful. I was, however, rather disappointed that my visit was continually interrupted by Lord John Gray, his son, and numerous new characters introduced in this book as well as characters brought into the Outlander series from the Lord John books. If you haven’t read the Lord John books, you might want to consider doing so before reading this one. I would have been completely confused by who and what Percy was all about had I not read them prior to An Echo in the Bone.
If you are a big fan of continuity you will find yourself in a great deal of discomfort with An Echo in the Bone. Gabaldon jumps all over the place! One minute you are in 1777 Fort Ticonderoga with Jamie and Claire, the next chapter you could be in 1980 Scotland with Briana and Roger followed by a chapter in 1777 with William. Then just when you get used to that, the book just stops! No ending, no resolution to half a dozen story threads she had going, no hint of what’s to continue on in the next book it just stops like hitting a brick wall. For these reasons I have rated it the lowest of all seven Outlander books. I will still continue to read this series because I have so much already invested in these characters, but I really hope the quality of writing in future books goes back up to Gabaldon’s previous standards.
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12.07.09
Posted in Reviews at 3:31 pm by Fiona
Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4.75 of 5 stars
The more I read Brandon Sanderson, the more I like his work. He invents such interesting systems of magic and fantasy worlds! He writes wonderful female heroines with their own inner conflicts that are so believable. I’m really anxious now to read The Gathering Storm and the other final installments of the Wheel of Time that he is finishing from Robert Jordan’ notes. Harriet McDougal did an excellent job of choosing Sanderson to be the guy to do it.
Warbreaker captivated me from the very first page and kept me held till the very end. In the final 50 pages I was trying to figure out how he was going to wrap this story up in the next few pages, but he managed to do it without seeming rushed at all. It ended right when it should have.
Sign me up for the Brandon Sanderson fan club because this is one author whose books I will buy every time a new one comes out!
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08.26.09
Posted in Reviews at 2:38 pm by Fiona
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I have seen so many people praise this book that I just had to read it. I’m still trying to figure out what they found so fascinating about it. I managed to slog through it, but I really wouldn’t say I couldn’t put it down. I kept reading and hoping I would have some sort of “aha!” moment, but it never happened for me. It was just okay as far as I’m concerned. It was well written, in the style of the period, but the plot and story arc had little conflict.
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04.01.09
Posted in Reviews at 1:15 pm by Fiona
Drood: A Novel by Dan Simmons
rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is the first book I’ve read by Dan Simmons but it certainly won’t be the last. I was drawn to this particular book because of my love for the works of Charles Dickens, but I knew I had to read it after attending a book signing where Mr. Simmons talked about the book and its “unreliable” narrator, Wilkie Collins. I was not disappointed!
The richness and depth of Mr. Simmons research and prose is exquisite. It is the sort of book one must immerse one’s self into. I nearly felt the stays of my Victorian corset poking my ribs it is so spectacularly reminiscent of the writing styles of the period. The story is redolent with details sorely missing from more modern twenty-first century works. I particularly like the way it left me with things to think about for days and days after reading the last pages. Each reader gets the ending they want, really. It’s brilliant the way Simmons doesn’t tell the reader the ending, but lets you imagine your ending. I would venture a guess that if you asked ten different people the ending, you would get then different answers. That, is true artistry.
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02.11.09
Posted in Reviews at 7:36 pm by Fiona
The Crown Conspiracy by Michael J. Sullivan
rating: 4 of 5 stars
My original assessment of this book stands, it’s too darned short! It’s a nice story, I just wish it would have been fleshed out more. Unfortunately, it, like so many other great stories, fell victim to that “first publication by a new author” problem that so many writers fall into these days. Publishers don’t want to take a chance on a new author by publishing a true epic fantasy of 300,000 or more words so they put the word out that they want 80,000 to 100,000 word manuscripts and that’s what they get.
Michael’s writing is good. The story is interesting. It has a few twists and turns, but not as many as I would have liked, but those would all take words and when trying to keep within such a meager word count cannot be done. I really wanted to learn more about the religion in this world that built such a political system allowing for the long term development of Percy Braga’s ascension aspirations. I wanted to understand how the monks of Myron’s monastery fit into everything. I wanted to know more about the magic system that produced a wizard such as Ashrendon. I wanted to know more about the Dwarves magic and skills. I wanted to know more about Arista’s sorceress training. And I don’t want to have to read the next ten books to learn these things.
There were a few points in the book where I felt as though I was getting an information dump rather than being shown why things were the way they were, such as the whole back story on the Pickerings. Again, showing takes more words than telling. I almost feel as though I read the “abridged” or Reader’s Digest version of the story and secretly hope one of these days I will stumble across the complete unabridged version that will make my heart soar because even though I felt things were abridged, I fell in love with the characters and story.
J.K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was within the “first publication by a new author” guidelines, but as her story about young Harry caught on, her books grew and grew to where by the 3rd and 4th book she was putting out 300,000 plus word volumes. I can only hope Michael’s books catch on enough that he can grow to larger and larger volumes because he certainly has the talent to do so. And speaking selfishly on my part, I’d like to read what he can write once he no longer has any sort of word count restrictions imposed on his work because like I already said, he’s a good writer!
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02.04.09
Posted in Reviews at 5:14 pm by Fiona
A Song for Arbonne by Guy Gavriel Kay
rating: 5 of 5 stars
I enjoyed this much, much more than Tigana. Where I felt the writing was a bit choppy in the beginning, either I got used to Kay’s style or became so swept up in the story it didn’t matter. I loved all the twists and turns the story took, the subtle discoveries of hidden agendas and politics, the world, the sociology of the people, gee I think I just loved it all! I particularly liked the sociology of the Arbonnais people with their love of music and the concept of “the court of love”. I particularly enjoyed how good won out over evil in the end and the happy ending (yeah, I guess I’m just a romantic at heart) but even that happy ending took some fascinating twists and turns. Kay is such a marvelous storyteller! He is also a penultimate writer. There were so many times I would encounter anywhere from sentences to entire paragraphs or pages that I wanted to strike through with my yellow highlighter as spectacular examples of beautiful prose. I know it’s early in the year, but this is the best book I’ve read this year!
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12.18.08
Posted in Harry Darrow at 5:43 pm by Fiona
It’s been a year since one of our brightest lights extinguished. Harry Silverglat Darrow left this world far to early. As Hillary Clinton taught us, it takes a village to raise a child. Well, I’d like to call upon the village to help me with a project. Harry’s daughter, Tess, was only 5 years old when her father died. She will not get the benefit of knowing the many sides of her Dad, but she could if we all would share with her the Harry we knew.
Over the next year, I’d like to put together a book of our collective memories of Harry Silverglat Darrow. I’m looking for photos, artwork, and especially stories to share with Tess so she will have a permanent record what a wonderful guy her dad was. I will compile all of these into a beautiful hard bound book that she will be able to read whenever she wants to feel close to her Dad. I’m hoping for participation from classmates at Shawnee Mission East High School, Carnegie-Mellon, Kansas University, Hudson Scenic, Wolfe Productions, any of the various film companies where Harry Art Directed, and friends.
If you have anything to contribute, please email me or comment here on my blog and I’ll contact you via return email. Please pass this on to others who might have something to contribute!
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12.06.08
Posted in Writing, grannie's sayings at 5:17 pm by Fiona
My grannie had a magnificent collection of proverbial sayings stored in her head. When I was little, it was like having my very own Chatty Confucius talking doll. I’d do something misguided and it was like pulling her string because out would come one of these sayings. One of these sayings that I heard often was “you only get one chance to make a good first impression”. It wasn’t that my grannie was obsessed with what other people thought as much as she was obsessed with living up to her own standards of being the best that she could be. She would have made a great Marine!
It’s because of this saying from grannie that I am often shocked and amazed by some people who claim they want to be writers. I mean, really! Are these people serious? I see them in writing classes all the time. The ones who don’t know the difference between there, they’re and their, or just don’t care enough to worry about using the right spelling. They seem to think that some editor is going to rescue their poor spelling and word usage. Well I have news for them! They won’t even make it out of the review pile. Why should they when there are so many other writers who have taken the care to put their best foot forward?
I’m currently taking Terry Spears’ Happy Hookers online class and one of my fellow students wrote this sentence in one of her assignments:
The piece you typed is from the beginning of the first chapter, so not really your first impression as their is a prologue.
How ironic that this person is actually writing about first impressions, isn’t it? If I were reviewing manuscripts for a publisher and encountered this, it would go straight into the rejection pile with a pithy note “learn to spell”.
My grannie felt that being sloppy when it wasn’t important only guaranteed you would err sometime when it was important. I have to agree with grannie.
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11.21.08
Posted in Reviews at 4:06 pm by Fiona
King of Sword and Sky by C.L. Wilson
Rating: 5 of 5 stars
It’s really a shame that these books are classified as Romance, because I feel they would find a much larger audience were they not. Cheryl Wilson has crafted a marvelous fantasy world complete with all the elements including a language for her Fey. Her characters are complex and her pacing is some of the best I’ve seen. Yes, there are romantic elements, but they are not gratuitous at all and add to the complexity of her story. I found myself many a night staying up to read far later than I should have because I just couldn’t put it away. My only complaint is Book 3 ends on such a cliff-hanger I will surely perish waiting until June to get the next installment! (Like that is a complaint, ha ha ha!)
If you have shied away from this series because of the classification, don’t! Lord of the Fading Lands, Lady of Light and Shadow, King of Sword and Sky and Queen of Song and Souls belong in Fantasy Realm Royalty.
Beylah vo, Cheryl!
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