Here's the basic premise: it's 2044, the world is technologically advanced to the point where nearly everyone is living out their lives inside a virtual reality and spend most of their time plugged in regardless of social standing. The lowliest, the most poor, still have the ability to escape the awful state of the real world. The guy who built this virtual reality, the Oasis? Halliday dies unmarried and heirless at the start of the book, leaving his entire fortune and the legacy and control of the Oasis to the first person the find his easter egg. For those of you who don't know what an easter egg is, it's a hidden extra something placed in the background of a movie or a hidden portion of a game as a nod to the fans. Originally game designers weren't credited for their work and would often leave their own credit on a hidden screen somewhere. This is what the entire book is based around. As you can imagine, it's not just gaming enthusiasts or get rich quick schemers after the egg - big corporations with money to burn and scores of legal eagles are after it so they can have control over the most valuable commodity in the world. It gets intense, quick. This is truly a story about escapism, which is a firm favorite pass time of mine, but my tiny trials of life are so very trivial compared to the kind of world our protagonist Wade is living in. He spends his whole journey trying to run away from who he is in reality and trying to make a different name for himself in Oasis. Many of us hide behind screen names, avatars, particular visual angles and layer upon layer of filters, in 2017 we are in our infancy with this kind of pretending and by 2044 its entirely possible to believe that the reality Wade lives in could be our own future. Fossil fuel is running out, there's an energy crisis and society is in various states of collapse. With the rise of the Oasis, no one much cares who's running things in the real world - as you can imagine being plugged into a different reality, your earthly surroundings don't really matter any more. Half the time, you're reading an exciting and nerdy adventure about a nobody who works very hard towards something he's passionate about not only because of the money but because he feels he has so much in common with Halliday, the creator of Oasis, all the while hoping he prevails because Cline truly knows how to write an underdog. The rest of the time, if you're really taking your time to think about what's happening and why, it's actually a horribly depressing book. Now that may just be my natural tendency to see the darkness in things, but I like dystopian fiction because it reminds me of everything that could go wrong on our short time with this planet. To keep being accountable for the way I live my life. Watching Wade try to carve out an existence online is so hard because in real life his entire family is dead, his residence in the stacks of motor homes that make up the majority of the populations living quarters, has been destroyed by the corporations trying to force his skilled hand into revealing clues to the easter egg. He does not leave his hideout, has spent most of his schooling career online avoiding physical attack from people on the street who would rob him blind in a heartbeat... the future is bleak, people. I praise a book that will make me think. This is by no means a perfect narrative. The single female character is strong and clever and ends up never showing her true face because she has a port wine birthmark on her face and to her that means she's a hideous monster. What? The other female character is disguised as a man the whole fucking time just so she can receive the benefit of the doubt by the rest of the known world and not be looked down upon for her gender. Classic. All in all I'd say this sits somewhere around a seven out of ten. It's good. It makes you think. It's worth the ride, but having said that, I did get most of the references to old game systems, Dungeons and Dragons, 80's movies and sitcoms... I'm not sure how much someone would enjoy the read if they didn't. Give it a go, kids.
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I've talked about this author in a few previous posts, and I finally got around to reading book four in the Demon Cycle series which is an intimidating tome. Nevertheless, I devoured the book in a little under a week. It's not difficult when the writing is this good and the characters are so believable and compelling. The world build in the books is expansive and refreshing - I love the east meets west take that the author explores. A relatively bloodthirsty English backdrop of arrogant merchant class rulers, pitted against a desert civilization spanning twelves tribes and ruled by a warrior priest - these people are ruled by strict religious beliefs and a warriors culture bred by an eternal struggle against the demons who live in the core of the world. That stat breakdown tho Title: The Skull Throne Author: Peter V Brett Published: 2015 Genre: Fantasy Pages: 680 Finish Date: 27/04/2017 Read If You Enjoy: Fantasy, epic world builds, martial arts, war campaigning, magic, demons This rich presented world is populated by people who struggle against the worst of survival odds, against each other, clashing religious beliefs, societal norms and fear of the misunderstood. Magic plays a huge role in how people look at each other, from fear of it to mastery of it and beyond. The books are sprinkled with bards and gypsies, old feuds, old loves, betrayal, martial mastery, vast harems... There are a lot of characters and sometimes it gets a little foggy in terms of whose kid belongs to which wife and who hates who at what moment, but the main set of characters remain strong and flawed and so very very interesting it is hard to finish a chapter and move on to the point of view of someone else. Brett writes a good chapter end and a damn good cliff hanger. Book three literally ended with the main dudes falling off a cliff together. Spoiler alert: they both survive. But DAMN, I had to wait like two years before I found out what happened. Granted, most of that time was me procrastinating the start and subsequent finish of the next book, but STILL. As always it is refreshing and almost like being given a treat that every, and I mean every, female character in these books are KICK. ASS. In every way, in every walk of life, there is a woman fighting adversity and struggling to not only survive but thrive in any way they possibly can. Women raised in a society where their voices are expected not to be heard, where their lives are meant to be spent in submission upon pain of death at best, they use whatever means available to them in order to make the absolute best out of a clearly shit situation. Inevera, a basket weavers daughter, manages to make herself into the most powerful woman in all of Krasia, climbing to the top of a religious hierarchy and commanding the most powerful magics she can lay her hands on. She becomes instrumental in the success of Krasia's leadership, also forging powerful alliances with western characters from Thesa. She is a masterful web weaver and her force of will shows in every move she makes. Herb Gatherer Leesha, basically a hedge witch, starts out as a shy village girl who falls into an apprenticeship as a healer with a shunned woman. This sort of thing is often the case with healers - churches drum up fear of this people as natural science undermines their faith but small towns and villages rely on these women to soothe ailments, deliver children, stitch people back together and keep secrets. Leesha becomes a fierce and independent woman who refuses to cleave to the affections of one man simply because they express them, and be kept in the manner society expects. Eventually she becomes privy to the secrets of magic imparted by the knowledge of keeping demons at bay during the long nights when they rise from the center of the world. She becomes entwined intimately with the world of the Krasians and falls into a position where she is caught between the two sides. I wont go into too much detail of the huge fucking mess she creates all around her, but she's a wonderfully flawed character that I admire for her fierceness and her willingness to sacrifice for those she loves. These are just two of my favorite female characters from the main arc that tallies up to around five or six powerful women just striding around pulling strings and making a big deal out of the horribly flawed ways of the world. I will recommend this series to anyone who'd care to pick up a book - I know they look intimidatingly large as far as novels go, but once you pick them up, it's really difficult to put them down. Your arms will get tired but your brain will be going a mile a minute! Ultimately, this is book four in a five book series and while I'm waiting for the last one to be released in August this year, I'll go ahead and rate this a 9 out of 10. Some really violently unexpected shit goes down in the last, say, three chapters of the book, characters you thought would just never, fucking, die, DO. Do yourself a favour, pick up the first book and get involved. Who's your favorite Warhammer author and why is it Dan Abnett? If I'm honest, I wasn't going to read this book at all. There's a lot of books that make up the series known as The Horus Heresy. I already knew there were a lot of books written by many different authors that make up the Black Library, but Heresy is comprised of 41 books and I decided early on that I could probably skip the short story compilations on recommendation from a friend who has read them all. However, this one was on my Kindle, and after the fiasco of the last book I read, I thought I would treat myself to some shorter tales. I'm finding I actually really enjoy the small snippets of story. The Heresy series is galaxy spanning and covers the events of a civil war from the perspective of the main people involved and then hundreds of smaller groups, military chapters, mutants, humans, Space Marines... the scope is absolutely staggering.
The great thing about these short stories is that you get a great little close up of the literal fall of the most powerful man in the universe from every possible angle. That's what the series is achieving so far, book to book, and it can get a little difficult to deep dive into a new set of main characters but when you come at it from a short story point of view, the writing pace has to be different to have a similar effect at a more convenient length. Each story is by a different author and I almost felt like I was shopping for a new author to get excited about. Dan Abnett is already a firm favorite of mine, but considering that this collection touches on a few very different chapters of Space Marine, I felt like I was shopping for a new favorite among those too. The Inquisition and proximity to heresy is what interests me most, but up until now I'd only seen that aspect covered by two authors who stuck pretty close to Inquisitors and their ordos. The Black Ships that carry the psychic refuse of the galaxy to be turned to the profit or benefit of the Emperor of Mankind hold so much interest for me from the perspective of the Sisters Of Silence, an all female order of witch hunters. As a woman, I am drawn to female characters and find endless enjoyment and empowerment in strong female characters, not just token ones. I want to read more about this terrifying order of women who strike fear into the hearts of all who cross their paths. YES. THESE ARE THE CHARACTERS I WANT TO SEE. THESE ARE THE FEMALES I GET INSPIRED BY. Yes please. Do yourself a favour, read up on the Null Maidens. My favorite thing? They're not sexy, they're fucking TERRIFYING. This was without a doubt, one of the worst and most excruciating books I've ever read. I'll level with you, I've read books before that I have not enjoyed, felt dispassionately about or didn't think they deserved to be classics... but this book sucked. The writing was bad. The cliches were not cute or fitting, they were annoying. The characters were poorly written, had dubious if even present motivations and the female characters were entirely token. The reason I'm so mad about it is because I'm a fan of Sherlock Holmes and Jane Austen and anything with a supernatural taint. Naturally, steampunk is a concept I'm curious about but I've only ever read one novel you could classify that way. I enjoyed that one. This one, not so much.
Here's the blurb I read when I was considering if I should buy this for my Kindle, as the series was maybe eight dollars... "As fog descends, obscuring the gas lamps of Victorian London, werewolves prowl the shadows of back alleys. But they have infiltrated the inner circles of upper-crust society as well. Only a handful of specially gifted practitioners are equipped to battle the beasts. Among them are the roguish Simon Archer, who conceals his powers as a spell-casting scribe behind the smooth veneer of a dashing playboy; his layabout mentor, Nick Barker, who prefers a good pub to thrilling heroics; and the self-possessed alchemist Kate Anstruther, who is equally at home in a ballroom as she is on a battlefield." Sounds kind of cool, right? The werewolves have a tenuous hold in high society and end up being portrayed as blood thirsty beast with no actual goal? The story line is pretty vague here, as nothing other than magic and werewolves are ever mentioned up until the point that they introduce homunculi. Inexplicably, they are poorly explained as genetically spliced human beings who have been enhanced with a skill in the vein of however they died - some have spikes, some secrete acid, some are partially mechanical... This appeared to me as a plot device to make a very simple concept into something more than the author could actually achieve. It was done badly, felt forced, and didn't seem to have had a purpose after the main plot point was "solved". If there's one thing that I love, it's a good fantasy series. Once I got old enough to stay engaged with a story that spanned more than one novel, I realised that stand alone books weren't reallllly enough for me. That's not to say of course that I don't enjoy the simplicity of a stand alone story, I absolutely do, but a good series will always be a weakness of mine. Fantasy is the genre I would say I'm most fond of, a love affair that started with a second hand copy of Magician by Raymond Feist that I begged my mum to buy for me at a garage sale. I loved the smell of the dusty pages and of course I flipped it open and read the first page to see if it gripped me enough to want it. It did. It was such a long time ago that I don't actually remember with any precision what my first reactions were, only a vague sense of being completely enchanted and ready to be sucked down into the world of a young magician. Feist started me down a path I've deviated from but have always loved to walk. My great desire for fantasy of all kinds has fueled a desperate escapism I've indulged for many reasons over the years and I've read a LOT, and widely. Magic delights me, chivalry enacted all sorts of expectations in me that have had varying effects on my relationships with other humans, and fantasy inevitably lead into the land of fairy tales which bred a great and undying fascination with folk lore in me that continues to hurt my cash flow. I've put together a list of my top ten adventures. Some are fantasy, some are not, and all of them have been put in a random order - I cannot play favorites with these. Each picture featured in this article is fan art, because the covers are great but fan art deserves a nod. Each picture can be clicked on to view the original artists posting (most likely on Deviant Art), but the artists handles are also in the captions. Enjoy! The Gentlemen Bastard series by Scott Lynch This is fantasy of my very favorite kind - a dirt encrusted fantasy. The main character is a wily, clever, damn near anti-hero set against a realistic and gritty medieval setting. Locke Lamora is a victim of circumstance who resolutely refuses to be a victim and takes any and every chance to better his position. He is a nefarious con-man among a tribe of con-men raised specifically for the task of screwing people out of their money and he is SO, SO GOOD AT IT. Scott Lynch knows how to write a despicable young man with an incredible backstory. He releases information in tiny snippets for you to build up a very tolerable fondness for this charming ruffian. At one point Locke convinces an entire crew that he's a sea faring veteran. He learns how to be a captain in a matter of months. He's so good at being convincing that he pulls it off. What? I highly recommend this series to anyone who likes complicated plots, horrible twists, black mail, a bit of violence and the occasional cry. Each book is set in a different place as well, the back drop over which these plots occur is so varied, it never gets boring. Book one: bustling city. Book two: the open seas and high society gambling dens. Book three: his universes equivalent of a Venetian city. Book four: I ACTUALLY HAVEN'T READ, I'M SAVING IT BECAUSE I HAVE A PROBLEM FINISHING A SERIES OF BOOKS.
Alchemy and various other arcane arts are among some subjects that can be studied at The University, although fae magic and demonic forces do exist - life is still punctuated by dangers and although arcanists have advanced society, magic use is still looked upon uneasily by most. The Church stopped magical persecution only recently and fear is still an ingrained part of society. The general populous try to maintain their distance from things they don't really understand. Kvothe, our main character, does spend some part of his youth as an orphan, beggar and pickpocket on the streets of Tarbean before finding his way into the University by the skin of his teeth and his talent with a lute. He spends a lot of time almost messing everything up repeatedly. Rothfuss writes characters that are utterly real despite being steeped in a world of mythological and very real magic by turns. The series is unfinished as yet, besides a recently released novella based on a side character. Rothfuss likes to take his time about writing though, so seeing as Rome wasn't built in a day, we'll all settle down to wait for the third and final installment, and move on to other books. The Demon Cycle by Peter V. Brett I once posted a photo of my copy of book three on my Instagram and Peter V Brett liked it! This series is full of new magic, demons, runic power, martial arts, caste systems, fortune telling, the fall of kings... It's a vast new universe and I love the way it's set up. In terms of how brilliantly forged it is, not the medieval thinking in regards to how some people are treated and are unable to rise above their stations. However, this is the kind of series in which they absolutely do. No matter how life is dealt out to them they do the best with what they have and achieve incredible things through sheer determination of will, good acting and clever steps. One of my favorite charcters is a woman who plays the long game to rise in a harem to the position of first wife so she has complete control over the rest of the harem, and also assumes the role of a spiritual leader among her people. All women in this part of the universe are tested young and assigned a life path. While she goes into spiritual service she also ends up saving the king at some point and is taken as his wife. They make a formidable team. The world itself is wracked by the appearance of demons who rise up from the core of the world at night to destroy humanity. Thesa was once powerful nation that was shattered by the sudden appearance of these corelings. Science failed humanity them and now ancient symbols called wards protect them. They protect people, towns, forts, anything within the circle of them. Messengers are the only people brave enough to roam the land to make deliveries of cargo, mail, and people, with their own personal circles they set each night that the demons can't cross. The main character Arlen is an angry young man. His fathers fear of crossing the wards to save his wife brands him a coward in his eyes as he rushes out to help save her. She eventually dies of her wounds and Arlen decides he would rather leave his father to his fear and become a Messenger as he has always felt an affinity for warding. Eventually he discovers that he can brand his own skin with these wards in order to actually fight the demons that rise up from the core. Instead of merely protecting people as messengers have been doing for years, he starts to take the fight back to the corelings. This magic, of course, comes with a price. Dune by Frank Herbert Let's give some love to old science fiction, a landmark in the world of futuristic stories, the first novel of which was published in 1965. I was raised by a Trekkie, and as such my love of sci-fi was fostered real young. I remember a school holiday during primary school, when we had rented the movie series based on the first couple of these novels. The entire reason I grew to love these books is because I find James McAvoy really, really hot... Sorry. Not sorry. I think I may have watched Dune and Children of Dune a dozen times, so naturally I found a copy of the first book and consumed it. Herbert's interest in ecology and environmentalism as well as his portrayal of declining empires and shadow governments make his construction so terrifyingly real. "Dune is representative of a general trend beginning in 1960s American science fiction in that it features a character who attains godlike status through scientific means." - Brian Attebery/Decoding Gender in Science Fiction The Dune series has been influential in the world of science fiction, music, pop culture and even art. Some of the fan art generated based on Arrakis, the planet of which Dune is set, and the music inspired by the history and effects of the spice Melange, is well worth hunting down. The Dune series itself is only six books long, but there are so many other works published as prequels and companion books exploring the Dune universe by Herbert's son Brian with the help of sci-fi author Kevin J Anderson and notes he had found from the writing of the original books. One of my favorite books in the Dune-iverse is definitely The Butlerian Jihad, which covers the events of the rise of artificial intelligence, thinking machines and the use of computers, leading to the outlawing of this type of technology. "The target of the Jihad was a machine-attitude as much as the machines. Humans had set those machines to usurp our sense of beauty, our necessary selfdom out of which we make living judgments. Naturally, the machines were destroyed." - Leto Atreides in God Emperor of Dune. This is a universe well worth exploring. Valdemar: Last Herald Mage by Mercedes Lackey I spent a fair bit of time at my parents friends house during school holidays. They had great internet and, well, the amount of books in that houuuuuuse... oh my. A lot of high fantasy. Mercedes Lackey was among one of the authors that I fell in love with and this was the first series I ever read that featured homosexual characters. The main character Vanyel keeps many secrets from his fellow mages, an emotionally neglected son of the homophobic head of a highborn family. Van is completely alienated. He's delicate, quiet, almost feminine, and is sent of to learn to be a swordsman in the hopes that it will "make a man" out of him and make him a candidate for the Guard. He is eventually sent to his aunt in the Heralds, mage like warriors who bond psychically with the sentient steeds who choose them, called Companions. His aunt doesn't have time for him either but he begins to have confusing feelings about her protege and eventually they become lovers. SPOILER: his life-bonded partner dies. This part in the series completely ripped my heart out. Tylendel goes mad over the murder of his twin brother, to whom he was psychically linked. He enacts revenge upon those responsible, at which point his Companion repudiates their connection and Ty throws himself off a tower because he is unable to live with what he has done. Vanyel, at this point, is a completely tortured soul whose heraldic gifts suddenly come to full fruition inside of him in a catastrophic explosion caused by his anguish over his lovers death. I'll leave the story line alone there, but his trials and tribulations are a bittersweet journey that culminate in his saving his entire kingdom from complete destruction by dark forces.
The Howl Series by Diana Wynne Jones When I was in high school, I was obsessed with this author. I spent a lot of time trying to convince the school librarian that she needed to buy in more of her works. I am a pest. I have always been a pest. Sometimes it works. You've probably heard about Howl's Moving Castle because of the anime movie adapted by Studio Ghibli from the first book. It's one of my favorite Ghibli movies but the books themselves always held great fascination for me. Diana is a British author who writes wonder into every book she writes. Ghibli produced a gorgeous film, but they had SO much to work with. When I read one of her novels I am transported elsewhere and that is without a doubt exactly what I require from a book. Book two is only slightly related to the story of book one, in that Sophie and her child with Howl, Morgan, appear towards the end as part of a djinni plot to steal princesses from around the world. They are discovered by a carpet salesman from Zanzib who gets tangled in the djinni plot after falling in love with a princess. Book three: The House Of Many Ways, is refreshingly centered around the bewildered grand-niece of the Great Wizard Norland, who goes to stay with him but finds his enormous house utterly empty and capable of magically bending space and time. She has several terrifying encounters with germanic fae sprites called kobolds, a young and bitter "wizards apprentice" with whom she inexplicably ends up sharing the magical house and becomes involved in an intense search for missing royal money - a case that was being investigated by her Great-Uncle when he disappeared (likely due to some sort of fae interference), but has been taken up by Sophie and Howl.
The Hunger Games by Suzane Collins If you haven't heard of these books I'll be real surprised. Dystopian fiction is another little favorite of mine, I've loved Enders Game, The Maze Runner, Divergent, and tv shows like The 100, Dollhouse and The Walking Dead. I think the Hunger Games may be a standout for me in terms of a series in that genre that really affected me with its narrative. Runner up for that honour goes to Enders Game - the culmination of the plot shattered me from the implications to humanity - I don't like to predict what's going to happen in a story and right up until the end I had no freakin idea what was coming. "District 12: Where you can starve to death in safety." - Katniss Everdeen Hunger Games didn't so much shock me in terms of what happens to humanity because I'm a completely disillusioned human and I've read a lot of dystopian fiction and sci-fi, but the story grabbed me. The main characters are simple, scared, oppressed people. They survive by playing by the rules and keeping their heads down, though Katniss does take calculated risks to keep her family fed and her willingness to take risks only increases over the course of the three books. An aspect I very much enjoy during the series is resistance. Resistance to government, to the status quo, to whatever feelings characters may be experiencing for each other, resistance to being heroes. It's written in a way that it doesn't feel like the characters are being unnecessarily ridiculous: they are put under such terrifying and stressful circumstances that they are constantly being tested as people, as members of society and they question anyone and everything around them because nothing is really as it seems. The scariest thing is that it all seems so very realistic as an outcome for real world society. I couldn't even tell you the amount of times I ended up silently weeping over the pages in horror or pain at what these people are put through and how utterly and terrifyingly plausible everything is. The Wicked Years by Gregory Maguire I don't remember when I first picked up Wicked but it was a long time before it became a stage show - I've been super into fairy tales and re-tellings for years and this one is hands down my favorite. This revised look at the roots of the famous Wizard of Oz tales is so good I fully accepted it as canon the instant I finished it. The Wicked witch was always a simple villain and everything about Maguire's backstory breeds sympathy and understanding into everyone who reads these books. The first two books are about the young wicked witch - Elphaba, and her son. Novels after these events are from the perspective of the cowardly lion and Elphaba's grand daughter, a young lady named Rain. The best thing about Gregory Maguire is his skill at extrapolation. Every book he has written in this style is in my possession and each one of them is a skillful re-telling of a tale you're already familiar with. The Wizard Of Oz is the most obvious, but he's also done Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Snow White, The Little Match Girl, even a story about the Tooth Fairy. The first one I read was Mirror Mirror, and I had no idea it was based on Snow White's story, I never made the connection with the title, and didn't even realise until nearly the end of the book what was going on. I love being surprised by books, and Maguire weaves a strong yet subtle narrative. This genre can be a divisive thing, for sure - some will advocate heavily that the original stories shouldn't be adulterated and honestly I used to be part of that group. But if you take into account the way that fairy tales are passed down to us, the way that stories are passed from generation to generation, around campfires, at gatherings - each recounting changes in its telling, by the very nature of memory these stories change each time they're told, each time they're translated from one language to another, details are reformed in ways they weren't before. Wicked is such a believable interpretation of the motives behind Baum's original characters because his rich back stories weave a commentary on the social, ethical and political nature of good and evil, themes never explored in great detail initially. Now that the world is used to dialogue of this nature in open forums, novels like these are a perfect platform to keep people thinking critically. "People who claim that they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us... It's people who claim that they're good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of.” Harry Potter by J.K.Rowling If you thought we were getting through this list without there being a nod to Harry Potter on it, you were sadly mistaken. I don't think I really need to tell the populous at large what this series is about because it's possibly one of the most famous stories on the planet, but I will mention briefly that it is about an orphaned child who discovers after a childhood filled with things other than love and care, that he is a wizard. Hijinks ensue. As a kid, I avoided these books directly. Everyone at school, who did not like me because I was weird, went crazy for this young wizard, so naturally I didn't want to have anything in common with my peers. Eventually I succumbed to the lure of magic, as I always do, but I violated my cardinal reading rule by starting with book two. I know. I know... at this point I've been a part of the wizarding world for more than a decade and I've made friends from every house. The wizarding world is all-inclusive. It has a way of loving everyone who joins it and encourages everyone to band together. There is a place for everyone, and parts of each character are totally relatable if you're weirdo or not. I have parts of Hermione's book obsession, Luna's oddities of behaviour and dress, Ron's love for chicken drumsticks, not to mention a ginger family. It has always been my experience with fandoms that there are often very elitist people who defend their titles as the Biggest Fan Ever by demanding that you know every single thing about the books and the movies, the differences... this has never been a problem in the Harry Potter fandom. It's simple: You love Harry Potter? I love Harry Potter! Yeahhh, friends! “The stories we love best do live in us forever. So whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.” - J.K. Rowling Magicians by Lev Grossman When I decided to talk about my favorite books, this is the one I left until the end because it's the one I want to recommend to people the most. It's not a series for young people and although I read it relatively recently, a few years ago I think, it still had a profound effect on me. These books are Narnia meets Harry Potter, meets Stephen King. This is not gentle fantasy. This is not a cute story of overcoming your circumstances to become a hero. It's modern day magic in a shady universe within New York. Memory fuckery, hedge witches, rituals, shape shifting, and in terms of violating the rules and regulations of the only magical school in North America... inexperienced practitioners open themselves up to true fucking horror, mutilation, physical violation - a host of truly disturbing consequences... and you can bet they do. "Magic doesn't come from talent, it comes from pain." - Elliot Waugh There's a whole host of characters who bring a variety of talents to the table. Quentin Coldwater has been obsessed with a series of books since he was a child and this is how he finds an entrance to the world of magic. He suffers clinical depression and struggles to make meaningful connections with other humans. After he stumbles across the body of his interviewer for a college alumni program, he is magically lured to Brakebills to take an entrance exam which he somehow manages to pass - anyone who doesn't make it past this point has their memory wiped. Quentin very quickly discovers that magic is hard work and can be deadly. "It is one thing to know of magic, it is another thing to be a Magician. Magic is born of the notion that our world is governed by laws of physics which keep us trapped on this isolated rock, is limited, incomplete. At Brakebills we take students who have that notion, and teach them to transform it into something tangible, hopefully without blowing themselves up in the process. Because magic is not something to be dicked around with!" - Dean Fogg Quentin was obsessed with a series of books very like Narnia as a kid, an obsession that grew and grew and when he was a young adult struggling to overcome depression he would while away hours re-reading that series of books over and over again. Little did he know that the books themselves were based on real events. The parallel to his journey at Brakebills is that he finds out that the land of Fillory is real and reachable. He manages to find his way there during the series, but it is not the triumphant reveal of an idolised world and though he eventually finds happiness there, it is not to last. This little collection of books is one that sticks with me. My editions are beloved and well-thumbed, the pages bent out just a little in a curve that I try to remove by squishing the books in tightly with others on their shelf. I think I might re-read them this year if I manage to clear a few more books off my list, which is definitely the goal, but to finish the series I'd have to buy the last book... Maybe I'll have gotten through my TBR stack by the time Christmas rolls around and I'll be able to treat myself then! Books are incredible. They do amazing things, taking us out of our lives and dropping us into different times, countries, realities. If there is no other reason to live other than to hold books in my hands and tell stories to other humans then surely that is wonderfully good enough for me.
“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.” - Jane Austen If there's one thing that stands out to me about Douglas Adams, it's his ability to make the universe seem utterly attainable. One could say that his literary strength is the scope of his imagination and the passages he creates are fantastic, wondrous, and mind expanding. I think his skill lies in making the every day activities of mundane life seem rife with charm, magic, and deeper meaning... he makes the impossibilities of the universe fully tangible. I first read his novel Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy when I was in high school, and I remember being astounded by how bizarre his ideas were but how much sense they made to me nonetheless. His characters are flawed in the best sense - they are not great heroes but rather humble ones who are often thrown in the path of adversity, tragedy, and most often the paths of other strange characters who sweep them up into something that truly has nothing to do with them but once they're in, they don't have much choice in the matter... I suppose you could say that I'm a bit of a Douglas Adams fangirl. I celebrate Towel Day two days before my birthday. I have the oldest copies of his novels and I can't bear to replace them with newer versions, which is crazy considering I've got three different copies of The Picture Of Dorian Gray. This book, however, drove me nuts. I won't lie, I don't like Dirk Gently. I think he's one of the most annoying main characters I've ever come across. It's lucky he's so damn eccentric that he manages to keep your interest with his completely sideways approach to everything and everyone. He's a tangential weirdo. Perhaps Adams manages to get around his prickly "hero" by making sure that the Gently novels are written from the view of another character to which the events of the story inexplicably occur. This particular novel does a little bit of point of view sharing - we do experience chapters specifically from Dirk, from the main character Richard, an "Electric Monk" whose sole purpose in life is to believe in things. One character is a ghost. Despite a look in from the perspective of each character involved at some point or other, the events of the story are utterly bewildering As annoying or helpless as some of the characters are, the writing itself is brilliant... and also annoying? I was taken on a journey that I had no inkling of what the outcome might be. The resolution came suddenly in the last five pages and somehow raised more questions than it had answered, ending of course, with Dirk Gently continuing to be a frustrating jerk to his clients. Adams gets me with imagery though.
"In the darkness, the red telephone receiver slipped and slid fitfully back across the desk. If anybody had been there to see it they might just have discerned a shape that moved it. It shone only very faintly, less than would the hands of a luminous watch. It seemed more as if the darkness around it was just that much darker and the ghostly shape sat within it like thickened scar tissue beneath the surface of night." The way that he writes insane narratives about mostly normal people or weaving mundane circumstance with the edges of the unnatural, supernatural or science fiction worlds seems to be a winning combination for him. It sure gets me every time. No matter how annoying I found Dirk, I kept picking up the book, I kept reading it on breaks at work, on the train home, stayed up late one night to finish a few more chapters. HOW YOU DO THIS ADAMS? I can only speculate about how I think my brain is drawn to certain writing styles, but I've got another couple of his books that I haven't read and I'm in a phase with reading where I find it difficult to choose what to go for next. Do I pick up the next book because the first was a great read, or do I save it because once I've read it I can never experience it for the first time twice? I still haven't read Jane Eyre, the final Skullduggery Pleasant book, Wuthering Heights or The Handmaids Tale. These are books I'm desperate to have experienced not because I hold them in lofty regard but because I've heard consistently how they can effect their readers. Maybe not so much Skulduggery Pleasant, that's a bit of a weird young adult fantasy novel, but I'm still saving the end of the series because of reasons I surely cant even admit to myself. Pick up one of your oldest To Be Read books and finish it. It will be rewarding in ways you can't begin to imagine, or even if it's shit, you'll have finished something you told yourself you wanted to do a long time ago and you can bask in that self satisfaction all you like. Final verdict - 7 out of 10 because Dirk was so damn annoying. If you are new to the world of Shadowhunters, the easiest way to introduce you is to simply say all the stories are true. By stories, I mean the tales of the fantasy world - fairies, demons, magic, werewolves and vampires. These all exist in the world of the Shadowhunters, humans with angel blood, who live and die to protect the world from demonic forces and co-exist with Downworlders, the aforementioned beasties or non-mundane beings, that populate the earth. First, Cassandra Clare wrote a series of six books called The Mortal Instruments, set in relatively modern New York circa 2007 based around a young Shadowhunter named Clary Fairchild who has had her nature hidden from her all her life and discovers her true lineage in a dangerous series of events that change her life forever. A second series was released as a prequel set in the 1800's following the lives of Clary's ancestors and several of the related Shadowhunter families. It seems to me that Cassandra Clare likes to bounce around through time a fair bit, because her next release, The Dark Artifices, is set five years after the events of The Mortal Instruments and word on the internet is that another prequel series will be released that takes place between Infernal Devices and TMI. So for those who care to know, it goes as follows: *Infernal Devices (3 books published) *The Last Hours (unpublished) *The Mortal Instruments (6 books published) *The Dark Artifices (1 book published, 2 to go) I have just finished book one of Infernal Devices: Lady Midnight. (Look at that cover art, I do love a good Cassandra Clare cover.) The world of Shadowhunters is conceptually rich and not overbearing when it comes to overdone ideas - the werewolves make up modern day packs, vampires equate to the mafia, fairies are beautifully traditional in the Seelie/Unseelie vein and The Wild Hunt even gets a look in. Shadowhunters have their own government, traditions and magic, which is passed down through angelic lore and blood. Cities have their own High Warlocks... there are a thousand ways to get yourself into trouble, and the young protagonists always find a few interesting things to get caught up in. The main character of Lady Midnight is Emma Carstairs, a descendant of characters we are familiar with from Infernal Devices, and a tough Shadowhunter who harbors an obsession with the circumstances surrounding her parents death. Death is no stranger to Shadowhunters, I mean, hunting demons for a job brooks casualties, but Emma suspects there is much more it than the simple explanation she is given. There is so much going on in her life and in the lives of Shadowhunters following the catastrophic events of TMI that new laws have been put in place which makes her investigation a matter that must be kept quiet, except with those she trusts the most. This is a young adult novel... There is angst. There is teen heartbreak. In fact, heartbreak seems to be something that Clare does very well. She weaves the most beautiful of love stories and has a knack for being able to either completely destroy them and build them back up from impossibility, or leaves the results so ambiguous you end up racing out to buy the next novel with feverish desire to see how the hell these young people are going to resolve their problems. TMI sees two young people break down each others walls and fall for each other only to be manipulated into believing they are SIBLINGS (SPOILER: This is super not true and was designed for maximum mind fuckery, not only of the readers but the characters themselves). What the hell, man? Her stories aren't all romance though, the balance is well maintained between romance, mystery, and action. Each of the female leads I've encountered are complicated, strong, weak in some ways and very human despite their angelic blood (or warlock blood, as is the case with Tessa Gray). They carry themselves, the allow themselves to be saved when needed, and they use whatever they have the power to employ in their searches for truth, for answers, for ways to save the people they love. In Emma's case, there are a lot of people she loves. Her parabatai Julian has a big family and since both of them are orphans after the events of TMI, (his older siblings are half fairy an have been exiled from their lives as Shadowhunters due to the role the fae people played) they are fiercely protective of each other and their huge weird Shadowhunter family made of artists and warriors and flawed humans. Their uncle is hiding the magical equivalent of alzheimers from the family and Julian as the present eldest is basically running the institute so his family can stay together and thrive together. It's wonderful, the show of diversity, the representation of real characters. Julians younger brother is quiet, intense, very literal, uncomfortable with eye contact, fiercely smart and tech savvy. He totally comes through to save the day at one point. Emma's best friend is a Mexican Shadowhunter - every Shadowhunter at some point spends time in a different city to see how their Institute operates, how missions are run, how other hunters live their day to day lives. She comes to the LA Institute with a past that ends up, while lending a very annoying sense of secrecy, saving the day as well. Cassandra Clare may not be the most incredible writer on the planet and I'm sure there are a lot of people who think Young Adult novels are pointless, but I find so much value in the representation of young people struggling to find out who they are and where they belong in the world, no matter what bizarre universe you call your home. I will continue to buy her books and continue to recommend them to people as I find a lot of satisfaction in them. Fantasy is totally my jam and while I also love re-tellings, this universe crams those two genres together in a way I love. Rating - I'd say a 7.5 out of 10 This is a story that has been shrouded in controversy from the very beginning of it's life as a stage play. The casting itself... Let's not get into it - it's not that important in terms of the actual script. As far as a book goes, technically this is a play, but I have been avoiding starting it for a while as I've been afraid to finish it. I didn't want the stories from the Harry Potter universe to end. This is a common sentiment among Potterheads, but since the film Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them came out, I made a promise to myself to put this on the list for immediate reading. I received it as a gift from my brother for Christmas 2016 and it's about time I got to it. I've also avoided writing the review for this. I finished it maybe a month ago... I was not very impressed. The first few pages were absolutely exhilarating, not because it starts out in a fast paced action packed kind of way, but because I was plunged back into the world of very familiar friends. It's Harry and his kids, Harry and Ginny, the Hogwarts Express... For the few handful of pages it's a trip down memory lane, thick with nostalgia. Then imagine, if you will, the focus lifts from Harry and the usual trio and settles gently on his son and the next generation of the famous three. The first thing that really strikes me about the characters is that Albus Potter is a bit of a dick and Scorpius Malfoy is a sweet little nerd-boy. I'm not sure how to feel about this honestly, but hi jinks ensue.
The characters feel forced and not fleshed out, the trio is weaker than we remember them, and Ron Weasley is a bumbling idiot... it's a constant source of irritation that he's reduced to comic relief, though Hermione emerging as the freaking MINISTER FOR MAGIC feels just right. The standout part of it all is the time travel, but even that seems a little messy. These kids spend most of the play messing things up along the time line of The Goblet Of Fire, getting an idea into their heads that they need to save Cedric Diggory from death with the "help" of Amos Diggory's niece. SPOILER: Amos Diggory didn't have a niece. It's Voldemorts daughter. What? She wants to be reunited with dear old dad and prevent his death, and thanks to a little loophole in time manipulation, they create several alternate realities in which Umbridge, Snape and a seriously evil Hermione make an appearance. Professor McGonagal turns up at once point to sass everyone out. Eventually, the entire original gang, their kids, and Delphini (the child of Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange?!) turn up in Godrics Hollow on the eve of James and Lily's death. Harry is a terrified father, Ginny plays the role of exasperated, staunch supporter, Albus eventually stops being a douche at the very last second and Draco Malfoy appears at first just how we remember him, but they've written such a sorrowful backstory for him since the events of Deathly Hallows that my heart goes out to the poor guy. Again, let's not talk about what they did to Ron. It was not cool. I knew this wasn't going to be a spoiler free write up but I wont entirely spoil the end for you if you haven't read it. In any case, the writing itself wasn't bad - I did feel fully immersed while reading and despite it being riddled with plot holes and very unsatisfying character development, it was not the worst thing I've ever picked up. I'd really only recommend this to people who have spent a lot of time in the wizarding world. A lot of the tiny details, careful nods to hardcore fans, I think they're necessary for the story to work. Without them it's just a really weird series of events that hurtle along to an inevitably strange end. Part of me wishes I had never read it, but seeing as it was based on a story by J.K. Rowling, I can almost push this to the portion of my mind that deals with non-canon fan fiction and forget about it. Here's a better idea - Harry as an Auror. Do that. It would have been way better. I give it a 4 out of 10 Pictured below: Albus Potter - Little Bitch & Scorpius Malfoy - Actual Sweetheart
I spend a lot of my time on the internet, but one of my favorite homes is YouTube. I don't recall how long I've been watching Mamrie and I'm sure I could probably find out, but I'm lazy so suffice to say that I've been watching her videos for many years. Mostly she posts videos where she decides what celebrity in the news most deserves a dang drink that week and makes a cocktail tribute to them. I'm not much of a drinker to be honest, but what has always gripped me is her comedic timing and inability to string three sentences together without making a pun. I also don't like puns... Maybe it's something to do with the fact that I have only a soft spot for food or drink related puns. Maybe I'm just bitter that I don't have the brain capacity to make puns so I pretend I hate them while deep down I'm giving a serious and bracing high-five to the punner. This woman is an actor, a YouTuber, a brilliant and sassy comedian and now she's written a book about her insane booze fueled adventures. I've been putting off reading this book though I've had it for maybe a year, which seems to be a pattern of mine and one I'm trying to correct by running a book blog. I picked this one up off the pile because I'd just read a funny book and damn if I felt like I needed another funny one. As with anything Mamrie puts her hand to, this book has a built in drinking game. On her channel, if she makes a terrible pun, you take a drink. In an effort not to give everyone alcohol poisoning however, the book criterion are slightly different but just as delightful to look out for. Drink every time she references an old tv show, talks about a product you could buy at a convenience store or uses a slang term for genitalia. I have the benefit of many years of Mamrie videos which give me the super power of reading this book in her actual voice. Look at this. She made a video with Jamie Oliver. She's like... semi-famous? She's made two movies with her best friends. I quite like her, but I wasn't sure what to expect out of a book from her. So far I'm finding it refreshing and hilarious in that actual laugh out loud kind of way. Who laughs out loud at a book?! Me, apparently. Read it in a raucous and slightly southern accent and you've got yourself a good time. So let's get down to business. I read this sucka in TWO DAYS you guys. Two. It's broken up into chapters that you could definitely read individually - there's no specific plot but rather a theme. At the beginning of each chapter she includes a cocktail recipe, and OH BOY do they relate in a big way to what you're about to experience. Some of these chapter titles/cocktail names include: Framing The Cookie, Key Lime Crime, The Angry Brazilian (which calls for jalapeno-infused cachaca and I want IN MY MOUTH), and Right In The Nuts, which is not as crude as you might first suspect, but is definitely another recipe I want to try, involving cola, homemade grenadine, white rum and peanuts. YES. Not only does she give you amazing cocktail ideas, but an amazing backstory that you'll most likely recall when you make them. This is the book that keeps on giving.
"For the grenadine, all you are going to need is unsweetened pomegranate juice, sugar and half a lemon. We aren't making that radioactive sh*t people put in Shirley Temples - this is the real stuff." - Mamrie Hart I work in a call center, and in between receiving calls I was reading this quietly or... not so quietly, to myself. Cue me stifling giggles all day because I didn't want to have to explain the hilarious and often dirty jokes peppered liberally throughout this entire book. Biographies are not for me as a general rule, but this book was so funny I'd consider adding the genre to my reading rotation. I think the only other biography or at least non-fiction/book-about-me that I've read was Russell Brand's BookyWook. You can probably make plenty of assumptions about the kind of people I find entertaining. This book was a 9 out of 10. So good. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to have a laugh, anyone who likes to drink casually, anyone who likes ridiculous stories... it's comedy gold mixed with real-life aw moments and disbelief. I love it. I went on a Mamrie video spree in order to finish this the other night and ended up weeping with laughter SHE'S TOO MUCH. Oh. Do yourself a favour and get a copy. "Needless to say I couldn't be more thankful to have this absurdly sweet, reincarnated-vaudevillian-entertainer-meets-DIY-driven-hillbilly-sass-factory in my life. And now she's created a book that let's you into hers. THANK GOD. Take it from someone who has watched her scoop room service lasagna off a carpeted hotel-room floor and eat it: None of what you're about to read is exaggerated, fabricated or G-rated. But it is, like her, special." - Grace Helbig
You know that feeling when you pick up a book and in the first few pages you can tell it's going to be a real good one? I get that feeling when I open the crisp, somber pages of a Neil Gaiman book or the tattered, well loved pages of a Terry Pratchett novel. Anything Discworld has always been one hell of an adventure in silliness, expanding my world view and managing to be so hilarious that at some point I will be crying with laughter, guaranteed. That incredible man had a way of weaving the most hectic of storylines into something truly incomprehensible and utterly beloved. Neil Gaiman is a new favorite of mine but definitely a firm one. The few novels I have read of his so far have been wonderfully inventive - he dwells in the darker places of fiction and even if you'd not call him straight up inventive, he does have a certain knack for tying together established mythology, religious iconography, and bizarre character builds in a way that entertains and informs in just the right mix. The first thing I notice about the book is Terry's style of peppering the pages with asterisks and corresponding notes for perusal. This is something I had to get used to the first time I picked up The Colour Of Magic. I'll be honest, I was not a fan at first, but he has a talent for choosing just the right point in the narrative to pause and fill you in on some relevant detail or anecdote that enriches the story before you can plunge right back in. So far the book feels as though Pratchett is writing dialogue in a framework extensively mapped out and furnished by Gaiman and I can only approve. Together they've take a fantastically bizarre idea and set two incredibly well suited writing styles to the task of telling a story together. Brilliant. What we're looking at here is basically a comedy based around the birth of the son of Satan and The End Times, or, basically... The Apocalypse. Oh. It's honestly a real treat. I know I have a fondness for religious icons being blown out of proportion, satirized, given motivations no one has thought of before... I watch Supernatural for goodness sake. Crowley, at one point the King of Hell, has to be one of my favorite characters, and in Good Omens he is present as one of the main characters. His roots lie in the serpent from the Garden of Eden who tempts Eve to eat the fruit of the forbidden tree. He explains his name as having been based off his original name, Crawley, which he ultimately decides isn't really working for him. Silly little details like this make the story immediately seem well thought out and fun, at page one, I'm so ready for this journey.
I don't want to give too much away about the story line in case you're one of the few people in the reading community who haven't read this, as always I try to keep my posts relatively spoiler free as much as I possibly can. There's certainly a knack to writing about a biblical subject without it being horrendously boring and dry, or without making it so hilariously cliche` that you're unable to see past the entirely comedic nature. Here lies the ingenuity of a Pratchett/Gaiman crossover. While Pratchett is a master of bizarrely colourful comedy, Gaiman offsets quirky characters with just the right amount of seriousness. Take the subject of the apocalypse and the arrival of the Anti-Christ - in our story we have representations of the four horsemen who are weirdly glossed over in a way that doesn't directly point them out to be what they truly are and allows readers to fill in the gaps with their own presumptions. In terms of War, Famine, Pestilence (aka the Anti-Christ) and Death, on the opposite side of the story these characters are juxtaposed with child-like versions down to a wonderfully feminine embodiment of War, though these characters ride bicycles instead of the traditional apocalyptic steed. By telling part of the story through the eyes of the children, although the subject matter and overall tone of the story is bordering on creepy, a knifes edge balance is maintained until you switch back to the perspective of a descendant of Agnes Nutter and everything becomes a little ridiculous again. I love the way Pratchett stories flow, feeling in the beginning as though you're quite keeping up with what's happening, to realise that weird stuff is flying all over the place and you're able to keep up with plot twists and barely relevant notes to the point that he makes you wonder if you're mad or just a very capable reader. I always end up feeling like a capable reader. "...there was an ancient woodcut of a man pushing his head through the back of the world, past the sky, and seeing the cogs and the wheels and the engines that drove the universe machine. That's what people do in Terry Pratchett books, even if the people doing it are sometimes rats and sometimes small girls... They open their heads." - Neil Gaiman. Final Verdict 8 out of 10 Brilliant comedic timing, a blend of two incredible story tellers collaborating on an often dry subject and creating something amazing. I recommend the hell out of this book. If you find that stories crawl and you end up putting them down because you find you're not engaged, try this book. In loving memory of Sir Terry Pratchett (April 28, 1948 - March 12, 2015) who enriched my tiny world with the Discworld, and because no one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away. |
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