Tag Archives: books

books, Characters, Fantasy, writing

Authors who changed my life – Sir Terry Pratchett.

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I have decided to start a new series of blog post where I would try to share with you some of the authors who had a significant impact on how I perceive the world. Some of them you will probably have heard of or even read, but others might be a discovery.

 

I want to do this because as authors, we don’t just read books for fun – we usually try to learn something from each and every one of them, even if it is not to make the mistakes that particular author made. But some authors go even further than that. Some authors touch something deep inside us. Their work resonates with something in our hearts and minds and ends up changing us.

Sir Terry Pratchett
Sir Terry Pratchett

For me, Terry Pratchett is one such author. I stumbled into his books during a rather bleak period of my life and I can say with absolute certainty that his dry humor pulled me out of some dark places. There were days when reading about the fantastical world of Discworld was the only bright spot in my day.

 

But this is not the only reason I love Terry Pratchett books so much. Yes, they made me laugh out loud sometimes and just chuckle most of the time, but underneath all that humor and sometimes ridiculous premises, they imparted some very insightful grains of wisdom that made me pause and think… then change the way I see the world.

 

So now I want to introduce my readers to this wonderful author who, sadly, has left us in March.  He has led a long and interesting life, as his Wiki page would tell you, and left a legacy of over 60 books. All of them are good and all will make you laugh or cry, but always teach you something. You can look at his Amazon page for the list.

quote-Terry-Pratchett-light-thinks-it-travels-faster-than-anything-44296

Most of Terry Pratchett books take place on Discworld – a world that is literally a flat disk riding on four elephants standing on a great turtle who travels through space in search of a mate. Legends say that when that happens, the world will end, though debates abound on that subject, the main point of contention being whether the turtle is male or female. So of course, the rules of physics don’t really apply in this weird world. Rules of magic do instead, when they feel like it, that is…

 

And this is the first lesson Sir Terry Pratchett taught me as a writer – no matter how fantastical your world is or how ridiculous the rules are, once you have explained them, you have to STICK with them  till the end. Because everything that happens on Discworld makes perfect sense in the limits of that world’s logic. Always.

 

Another big lesson I learned is that characters are paramount, and creating memorable characters is essential to a good story. Now my immersion into the universe of Discworld didn’t start with book one (though I came back and read it eventually). The very first book I read was Guards! Guards! And to me the series about the City Watch of Ankh-Morpork will always remain my favorite. Because it introduced me to some wonderfully broken, twisted, but also noble characters, one of which is a 6 foot tall adopted dwarf named Carrot, who might or might not be the long lost Heir of Ankh-Morpork defunct ruling dynasty.  It also introduced me to Captain Sam Vimes, a jaded, bitter, tired guard who had seen everything bad and dark that his city can throw at him but who still LOVES it and will do anything to protect it and its citizens.

RIP Sir Terry, you will be missed.
RIP Sir Terry, you will be missed.

This is also the series that gave us Men at Arms, in which the city of Ankh-Morpork introduced the Equal Species Act and wonderful characters like Angua the werewolf, Detritus the Troll and Cuddy the Dwarf joined the motley crew.

 

And if following a bunch of guards who try to fight crime in the most dangerous city of the world is not really your cup of tea, I would recommend reading The Wee Free Men. This book shows us that becoming a witch doesn’t involved going to a fancy magical school and waving a wand around for 7 years. A real witch has to have the common sense to see that something is wrong and the courage to do something about it. A real witch says, “This is my town, those are my people, and I will NOT let you harm them.”

 

No matter where you start your acquaintance with Discworld, Terry Pratchett books are guaranteed to make you laugh, make you feel better about your life and your day and teach you a thing or two in the process.

books, murder mystery, Reviews

In the Woods (Dublin Murder Squad Book 1) by Tana French.

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Stars: 2 out of 5.

I am rarely upset about a book. I am excited if I love it and usually just sad or even indifferent if I don’t. After all, you can’t like them all. Well, this time I’m pissed off with this book. Really, really pissed off! In the Woods had all the makings of a 5 star, all-time favorite book, but those hopes crashed and burned about 2/3 in. Now I feel cheated, like a kid who was promised candy only to discover a piece of rock under all that bright glittering packaging.

 

I realize that I’m not exactly an expert in this genre – I rarely read murder mysteries. I watch plenty of those on TV though. I had picked In the Woods because the premise seemed interesting: Three kids go to play in the woods. Only one of them is found the next morning, wearing bloody shoes and no memory of what happened. Twenty years later, that kid, now a detective in the murder squad, is forced to come back to this town to investigate the murder of another child in the same woods.

 

Now my understanding of the murder mystery genre is that the author and the reader enter into an unspoken pact – if the reader sticks with the story, the author will reveal the mystery in the end. Most of the questions will be answered and the culprits found. The reader will know who had done it, why and how.

 

The biggest mystery in this book is what happened to Peter and Jamie 20 years ago. The book even begins with that disappearance, and Katie’s murder comes a few chapters later. So that’s the mystery that should be resolved by the end, right?

 

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

 

WRONG.

 

By the time I was maybe 10 pages away from finishing the book, I had the sinking feeling that the author would not answer any of those questions. We will never find out what Rob saw in the woods that night or what became of Peter and Jamie. I had invested hours of my time to read through 400+ pages just to end up with the lukewarm explanation that “some memories are just gone for good, and some mysteries are not meant to be solved.”

 

I realize that in real life that’s what happens about 70% of the time. I mean, just look at the amount of cold cases gathering dust in police archives around the world. However, book logic is different. I don’t want to get invested in a story that won’t give me a resolution. I want to feel a sense of fulfillment after I finish a book, not to feel cheated and frustrated.

 

I’m upset about this because the book has so much potential. It’s wonderfully well-written. The prose is just beautiful, and some passages are just poignantly poetic. The protagonist has a strong and interesting voice that I wanted to follow. And his personal involvement with this place just made me want to finally find out what had happened on that fateful day 20 years ago even more… So I dived into the book head first and fully expected an exceptional read.

 

The alarm bells first went off in my head when Rob decided not to come forward about his identity even when evidence found on the new crime scene linked it to the case of his missing friends. He chose to keep his mouth shut on the fact that Ryan Adams and detective Rob Adams were one and the same person and he reiterated this decision several times during the investigation. I find this decision stupid and irresponsible, because not only does it jeopardize his career, but the whole case as well, since all the evidence he collected will become inadmissible in court if the truth comes out. And his reasoning behind this decision makes less and less sense the further we get into the book.

 

My second problem with In the Woods is Rob’s partner Cassie. The way Tana French portrays her, she is “saint” Cassie who can do no wrong. She always has the right hunch about the case. She is smart and beautiful and has a keen understanding of people. Yet she chooses to stick with Rob no matter what he does. Even after that disastrous night, she isn’t mad at him for the abject way he starts treating her, but because she lost his friendship and somehow she thinks it’s her fault. Really? Hot, smart and sassy girl who is extremely devoted to her abusive boyfriend / friend. Hello trope!

 

But even though I didn’t like Cassie and had a tough time with some of Rob’s decisions, the story would still have gotten a 4 star review if the author had kept her end of the bargain and actually given me and ending. The fact that it didn’t happen was just the last nail in the coffin lid.

 

I’m upset. I won’t recommend this book. I had planned to read the next one in the Dublin Murder Squad series, but I have zero motivation to do that now.

 

books, Reviews, Urban fantasy

Twiceborn by Marina Finlayson.

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Stars: 3.5 out of 5.

I must admit that Twiceborn is a very entertaining book. It has everything I love about a good urban fantasy story: a strong (and fleshed out) protagonist, an interesting take on the subject of paranormals leaving among us and a well-paced story.

Kate O’Connor has lost everything when her son died in an accident six months ago. Now she just does some courier jobs for a friend, because he needs help and because frankly, it beats sitting at the house all day. She suspects that some of the packages she carries around might exactly be legal, but can’t muster enough strength to be bothered or even mildly curious about it. Like everything since the death of her son, it seems unimportant… Until one of the jobs goes south, and she finds herself with a gap in her memories and a werewolf in her kitchen bound and determined on killing her.

I liked Kate. She is a very down to earth, no-nonsense kind of girl. And the depiction of her grief was well done and believable, and, more importantly, not overdone. Her reactions in the face of everything that happens to her are also realistic and logical, which is a great plus. And she is not a damsel in distress in constant need of saving, like some of the heroines in  urban fantasy and paranormal romance. Even when confronted by a werewolf in her own kitchen, Katie goes for the knife first and waits to have a hysterical fit after the werewolf is dealt with.  And she also shows her willingness to fight for her life and freedom (and for the safety of her friends) several more times during the book.

I won’t go into details about the plot, because I want this review to be as spoiler free as possible, but I will just say that Kate has to deal with some serious issues and is in danger of losing her own self, and she handles the situation admirably.

The book is also well written. I would never have guessed that it was the author’s debut novel at all, because the quality of the material and presentation is top notch.

So by now you must be wondering why I only gave this book 3.5 stars? Well, even though I liked it, I had several issues with it that bugged me enough to spoil the overall enjoyment.

The first and the biggest issue for me is Ben, or more precisely, the romance between him and Kate. It felt forced, and more importantly it added nothing to the story itself. It felt like the author added this romantic relationship almost as an afterthought after the book was already written.

I think the main reason why this relationship didn’t work for me is the character of Ben himself. He is not fleshed out or unique enough for me to care about. From the moment he first appears in the story until the last page, he is just a walking talking stereotype. He is immediately described as hot, gorgeous, nice and caring. The author might as well have put a big sign over his head saying “love interest” and moved on, because we never get to explore his character any deeper.

Also, for someone who is still grieving about the loss of her child, and who admits not being even slightly interested in any sort of romantic relationship, Kate jumps into bed with him way to easily. I understand doing it once because of the adrenaline rush, the narrow escape and the realization of having been so close to death. But nothing in their relationship prior to that point hints at anything deeper, and certainly not that passion that seems to come out of nowhere. In my opinion, this whole romantic relationship could have been cut out of the book without any damage to the story.

My second problem is some inconsistencies within the worldbuilding. We are told that the heralds are under the Dragon Queen’s protection and thus neutral and untouchable, yet everybody and their mother seems to be able to kidnap / harm / slap them around without any retribution. Seriously?

Also, if all heralds were a magical amulet that protects them from psychic influences, but also proves that they are genuine, shouldn’t it be easy to determine whether the amulet is authentic or fake? Yet we hear the argument that the heralds are not who they say they are and that they anyone could counterfeit that amulet several time in the book. That makes no sense. Either you have an order of heralds who are easily identifiable, neutral and protected, or you have a bunch of wannabes that pretend to be heralds, but then who would trust them?

And the last problem is directly tied to the previous one. If the amulet is supposed not only to identify, but also to protect the herald, shouldn’t it be difficult, even impossible to take off or tamper with? Yet Leandra does just that to Kate at the beginning of the book…

But even despite those gripes I have with the story, I think I will definitely pick up the next book in the series to see who this story evolves. After all, not all the villains have been dealt with, and there are plenty of loose ends left to explore.

My verdict – if you want a well-written and fast paced story with a strong heroine, definitely pick up Twiceborn. And the fact that it’s set in Sydney Australia instead of another city in the USA is an added bonus.

PS. I have been given a free copy of this book by the author in exchange for an honest review.

books, Reviews, YA

Open Minds by Susan Kaye Quinn.

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Stars: 5 out of 5.

I don’t usually read YA. Well, scratch that. There are very few YA books that I actually like. Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, or the Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix come to mind. So I should rephrase this to : I read YA, but the book needs to be exceptional for me to like it. Fortunately, Open Minds by Susan Kaye Quinn is one such book.

This is the first book in a trilogy and it’s perma-free on Amazon, so I admit that I was rather reticent about downloading and reading it. I’ve been less than impressed with the quality of some free books on amazon in the past.

But the moment I opened this book, I was hooked! I kept turning the pages and I couldn’t put it down. Susan Kaye Quinn created an interesting and compelling world where reading other people’s minds is considered the norm, and where people who can’t mind-read, or zeros, are outcasts, relegated to the most menial jobs. Because you wouldn’t trust someone whose mind you can’t read. And they wouldn’t be able to operate most of the machinery anyway, since everything, from phones to cars and kitchen appliances, runs on mindware. I must admit that the worldbuilding in this book is impressive, and the consequences of common mindreading are well-thought of.

Kira is not a typical teenage protagonist either. Sure, she dreams of fitting in and having friends again, and agonizes about the fact that the boy she likes will never go out with a zero. She has the normal hopes and dreams of a teenage girl. And when she discovers that she can not only read minds, but also control them, her first reaction is to pretend that it never happened, to try and hide it, to pass for a normal reader and just fit in. That’s what Kira wants most of all, to fit in. But that option proves impossible, and she discovers that there are a lot more jackers than she thought. She also discovers that the harsh reality for a jacker is either to live your life in hiding, work for the FBI, or be sent to a concentration camp.

I liked the fact that when the shit hits the fan, Kira doesn’t lose time mopping around and waiting for a knight in shining armor to rescue her. She takes the matters in her own hands instead. She does what she thinks is right, even if that means risking her life to free other jackers from a secure FBI facility, or exposing the existence of the jackers and the horrible way they are treated by the government to the media.

I am very interested to see how she deals with the fallout from that bombshell in the next book,  Closed Hearts, btw.

My only gripe with this book would be how quickly Kira changes from being scared of her powers and reticent to use them to using them left and right without remorse. But you can argue that she is placed in a situation where her survival depends on those powers.

I would also have liked to see a bit more of a learning curve, because it seems like Kira went from a zero to a super-jacker in the space of a couple months and without any particular efforts.

But all in all, Open Minds is a fast-paced and interesting book. It’s also very well written and formatted. I would never have guessed it was self-published. So if you want to pick up a though provoking and intelligent book for your teen (or for yourself) to read, head over to Amazon and download the free copy.

books, Fantasy, Reviews, Urban fantasy

Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone

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Stars: 5 out of 5.

Sometimes, you stumbled upon a book that resonates with you on a deeper than usual level. Maybe you had a similar idea banging around your head for a while, or maybe some of your inner voices speak in voiced strangely reminiscent of the characters in that book. Or just maybe you really get the world the author is describing. In any case, it makes reading that particular book an absolute joy.

It happened to me before with Leviathan Wakes where I just fell head first in to the world and in love with the characters. You can find my review of it here. And it happened again with Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone.

I knew I would love this book as soon as I read the blurb in the back. A world where craftsmen and women have almost godlike powers? Where gods walk the earth and can be killed and brought back to life? A weird steampunk-ish technology mixed with magic? Heck yeah!

So I downloaded a free sample from amazon and was immediately hooked. Sure, the world is wonderfully weird and complex, but the characters are what really appealed to me. They are different and wonderfully complex.

I loved Tara, the young craftswoman. She has a very strong personality and doesn’t take crap from anybody. She is also new to the Craft and not as ruthless and her older peers. She still has some humanity left in her. This makes her even more endearing, because she has to make some hard choices in this book between her obligations to her employers and her obligations to her new-found friends. Those choices don’t come easy, and I could really feel how much they cost her.

And let’s talk about Abelard! Great job creating this one, Mr. Gladstone, I am really envious. This seemingly lost and naïve acolyte who is chain smoking and dealing with a crisis of faith turns out to have immeasurable hidden reserves and a will of steel. He ends up saving the day and doesn’t ask for anything in return, apart from to be left alone to worship his god in peace.

I was found of the other characters as well, even if those two definitely stole the limelight. The story itself is also deliciously complex and engaging. I loved the fact that underneath it all, it was ultimately a story about love and sacrifice and about the lengths even a god would go to save the one he loves.

So my advice to you is to go pick up Three Parts Dead. You will not regret it. You will spend a day or two in a wonderfully bizarre world with engaging characters. And if you want to return to that world, Mr. Gladsone has two more books out. I’m about to start the next one, Two Serpents Rise.

books, Fantasy, Reviews

The Last Stormlord by Glenda Larke

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Last Stormlord

Stars: 2.5 out of 5

I have very mixed feelings about this book. On one hand I loved the world Glenda Larke created, but on the other hand, the characters left me absolutely indifferent.

So let’s talk about the world first. This is a continent on which water is a precious commodity that is cherished and strictly regulated. In fact, the whole continent depends on the Stormlord to take water out of the distant sea, put it into clouds and guide those clouds towards the mountain range in the middle if the continent. There the clouds break and release the water as rain into the Mother Cistern from which it is distributed to all the cities and villages on the continent through an intricate system of tunnels and holding cisterns. Each city has its own water quota, and each citizen is given a daily ration. To be born waterless is the worst fate possible.

The system worked for centuries. So much so that everybody forgot what the time of Random Rain even was like. But now the old Stormlord is dying, and there is nobody powerful enough in water magic to take his place. Oh, there are plenty of rainlords in the cities, but none of them has the power to extract water vapor from the sea. So the whole continent is on the brink of a disaster and searching parties are sent to every single little village to test people and hopefully find a new stormlord. But the nomads of the Red Quarter are brewing a rebellion and dreaming of the return of Random Rain, and the Rainlord of one of the Scrapen cities has plans of his own. The whole continent is about to explode into violence… if it doesn’t die of dehydration first.

I loved the premise. I loved an entire society structured around the conservation of water, where every single drop is accounted for, and where water tokens are the main currency instead of gold. I think it’s a wonderful idea, and I looked forward to exploring this world.

This is where the book hit a wall, at least for me – I couldn’t empathize with the characters, and I was supposed to discover the world through their eyes.

Of the two main protagonists, Terelle rubbed me the wrong way the most. I mean she was so determined to run away and not become a snuggery girl that she ended up in even worse slavery in a way… and stayed there, not even trying to change her fate. But she kept complaining about her life constantly in her head, and the reader had to be part of all of her monologues. I wanted to shake her and yell, “If you are so unhappy, then grow a pair and CHANGE it!!! Or shut up and live with it if you are too chicken to act.” And she stayed the same throughout the book. Even in the end, when it had seemed that she had finally tried to do something about her situation, she still ended up doing what her master wanted her to do instead.

As for Shale… his whole story is a collection of tropes. Born to be the lowest of the low. Abusive father. Poor family. Tragedy that kills everyone he cares for. But he has a power that everybody wants! At this point the words Chosen One might as well start flashing over his head. This wouldn’t be too bad if the character had an interesting developmental arc in the book, but he doesn’t, at least not from my point of view. In just a couple years, he transforms from an ignorant boy who couldn’t even read and knew nothing about the world outside of his village into a young man who is more mature, educated, smart, talented (insert other qualities here) than everybody else.

That’s my other problem with this book. Apart from the two main characters, none of the supporting cast are interesting enough to empathize with. It seems that they are there to either guide our young heroes, or thwart them, or die in horrible suffering. So since I couldn’t find an emotional connection to anybody in the book, I was left watching the story unfold as an outsider. I finished the book, but I have absolutely no incentive to pick up the next one, sadly.

books, Reviews

Mike Carey – Felix Castor series

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Image  Image

Rating: 3/5 stars.

***SPOILER ALERT***

There might be possible spoilers in this review, so read at your own risk!

I only read the first two books of Mike Carey’s Felix Castor series so far – The Devil you know and the Vicious Circle, so that’s what my review will be based on.

All in all,  I liked the world that Mike Carey created – modern day London with a twist. And the twist is that the dead are coming back for some inexplicable reason. Some come back as mere ghosts, some manage to possess human bodies becoming zombies (not the “Braaaaains” kind, just the slowly rotting but mostly harmless kind), and some possess animals, twisting them into human-like forms and become loup-garous. Some of those revenants are peaceful, some not so much, but all of them raise questions that modern society is not prepared to answer: Do the dead have rights? Is exorcising them considered murder?

While the authorities are struggling with the answers and working on new laws, people who possess the particular talent of exorcising the dead make a good living for themselves. Our protagonist Felix Castor is one such exorcist. And while he is not entirely sure where the ghosts he destroys go (or if they are just snuffed out of existence), his way of making peace with his conscience is to persuade himself that those ghosts are not actual dead people, just memories of dead people, an imprint they left on the fabric of the world before they died. So he is not destroying people, but erasing that memory, which, by all accounts, is just stuck in a repetition of a particular pattern and unable to evolve, think or feel.

But this belief is put to test when a ghost he is sent to exorcise deviates from her pattern and actually saves his life. Now Felix must reconsider his approach and also face the fact that he had been destroying actual souls who could feel and be afraid, not mere memories.

This inner turmoil is explored further in the next book of the series, where Felix is hired by a family to rescue the ghost of their daughter who had been kidnapped by another exorcist. Of course, it turns out there is a lot more to that story then first meets the eye…

And as if ghosts were not enough, the other inhabitants of the underworld are eager to squeeze through the opening and invade our reality as well, like the demon who possesses Felix’s friend Rafi or the succubus summoned to kill him in the first book.

All in all, the world building is great. Mike Carey does a fabulous job describing a London that is and isn’t the city we know and populating it with engaging characters. I particularly loved Nikki, the conspiracy theory geek whom even death couldn’t slow down for long.

Where the book falls short of its mark for me is the main protagonist, Felix Castor. Don’t get me wrong, I usually like the “let’s spit in the face of danger and never give up” protagonists, but in Castor’s case it is taken to the extremes. While I was willing to suspend my disbelief in book one, it got harder and harder to do as book two progressed. I mean, this guy just doesn’t know when to shut up and sit quietly instead of mouthing off and provoking conflict that could have been avoided. I’m sorry, but the chances of survival of a normal man once he managed to alienate several werewolves and make enemies of at least two powerful organizations are next to nil. Going all alone into a church full of Satanists armed only with a gun would also fall into that category. Yet Felix Castor emerges from the wreckage alive and relatively unscarred. This is when I put the book down and say, “I do not believe.”

I know every author likes his protagonists (heck, I love my darlings too), but make them believable! They can rush into the thick of it without thinking or mouth off once, but chances are they will get hurt for doing that, and hopefully that would make them think and change their behavior. It would make them evolve. I think that’s what bothered me the most in those two books, that Castor doesn’t change and doesn’t learn from his mistakes.

I might give this series another chance and try to read book three. Who knows, maybe Felix is just a slow learner? But if that’s not the case, I think I will have to find something else to read.