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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – J.K. Rowling
Very, very good, just like the other ones. This one was darker, though, but we were expecting that after the fourth one… I expect most of you have read it, so I’m not gonna say any more. ;D
Green Angel – Alice Hoffman
A very short and sweet novel. One of those “finding your inner self after tragedy” sorta books, but very well done. I liked it a lot, but it was over too fast. I finished it in a few hours.
Turtle Moon – Alice Hoffman
Good novel. It’s like a murder mystery, only not… because of the way it’s written… I dunno, it’s hard to explain. But it’s a very good read. Alice Hoffman is a good author. I would recommend this book.
A Rumor of Dragons – Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
This is the first young-adult-adapted half of Dragons of Autumn Twilight, but I didn’t realize that when I picked it off the shelf. It’s very good, and, as it’s adapted for younger readers as opposed to the original, a fairly easy read. The story is excellent; I highly recommend this to anyone interested in fantasy.
Night of the Dragons – Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
The second half. Once I figured out this whole cut-in-half-and-adapted thing, I went ahead and bought the boxed set of the original Dragonlance Chronicles, so that I’m getting more of a challenge. I’m currently working on Dragons of Winter Night, the second volume. Basically, the original is harder to read because it was written for adults (though if you can read LotR, this is a snap), and the A Rumor of Dragons and Night of the Dragons (as well as others) are the same story in an easier style. I really, really recommend either format. The story rocks. xD
Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code – Eion Colfer
The Artemis Fowl books are my absolute, all-time favorites. They’re such an awesome combination of fantasy, sci-fi, and adventure, with an amazing amount of sarcastic humor, and are just generally “more fun than a slap in the face with a wet fish”. ~.^ Heheh. The Eternity Code, the third one in the series (was originally going to be a trilogy, but I heard they were so popular that Colfer decided to do a fourth- pending title: The Opal Deception! Yay! Supposedly a movie’s being made, too!), is just as good as the first two. C’mon, peoples, if you haven’t read this series, you’re missing out! It’s the truth behind the fairies! They live underground, are a few hundred years more technologically advanced than us, and get kidnapped by twelve-year-old criminal masterminds! What’s not to love?
The Second Summer of the Sisterhood – Ann Brashares
Quite good. Maybe not as good as the first one, but still a fun read. Definitely a girl book, though.
The Chronicles of Chrestromanci – Diana Wynne Jones
This is two books in one: Charmed Life, and The Lives of Christopher Chant. I liked the second one better. They both had a good story going, but sometimes they got boring- the first one especially. I don’t really like Jones’s writing style. I read something else by her a really long time ago (Witch Week), and I hated it. If you really like obscure fantasy, try this, but I’m not going to say I loved it.
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
This was a gorgeous novel. Beautifully written and very, very moving. If you have any interest in Japan, this is a very interesting read because it explains a lot of the culture. And even if you’re not, it’s still a wonderful story. I even thought it was true until I reached the end. ^_^
Mort – Terry Pratchett
I’ve been meaning to read Pratchett for a long time… I’m not sure he lives up to all the hype, but this book is very humorous. He reminds me of Douglas Adams, although I though the first three in the Hitchhiker series were better than this. I’ll probably read some more Diskworld series soon, since I really enjoyed this one.
Spindle’s End – Robin McKinley
Ack. Good story, horrible writing- at least in my opinion. It was just so damn heavy. I struggled to get through it. The plot was very good, but McKinley added so many extra pages of crap that was bored by the first chapter. I mean, it takes her 7 pages before anything happens (the first 7 are describing the country) and then the whole chapter before she introduces any characters. If you don’t mind that kind of thing, I recommend it, but otherwise, it’s not worth your time. Full book report.
Dragons of Winter Night - Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Awesome, awesome story. The Dragonlance Chronicles are truly classics in the realm of fantasy writing. I loved this. The only thing that bugged me was that the romance aspect became very predictable (“Look, we’ve introduced a new female character! Okay, which male hero doesn’t have a love interest yet?”), but the rest of the book completely made up for that. Though at first glance it seems very typical (and I suppose it is… but it was one of the founding books of the genre, so that kinda explains why), this had so many plot twists and turns and back flips, I couldn’t figure out where it was going (other than the ultimate “save the world” element). I especially love how the authors manage to write a story about a world in utter peril, and then throw in such great dry humor. That was one area where Tolkien was lacking. ^_^
Trickster’s Choice – Tamora Pierce
The first book in her fourth quartet set in the Tortall world, the heroine this time being a girl named Aly. I absolutely love Pierce’s Tortall books. One especially neat feature is that although each quartet is about an entirely different person, you still meet the previous heroines from time to time and see what’s happened to them over time. This fourth series is actually about the daughter of the heroine of the first series, Alanna, which is an interesting twist, especially since Aly doesn’t get along with her mother, so you’re seeing Alanna in a different light then when she was the heroine. However, I thought this book wasn’t as good as the previous ones because Aly was too perfect. She did everything well, she had many hidden talents, she was witty and clever, she was beautiful, and she was the complete definition of a Mary-Sue. Still, if you can overlook that fact, the book is awesome. And sometimes she’d still do something stupid, and she was way too harsh on her mother, so she’s not entirely perfect, I guess. Okay, I’ve said enough about this book, but I highly recommend anything by Tamora Pierce, ‘specially if it’s set in Tortall (I didn’t enjoy her Circle of Magic books as much). Full book report.
The Wish List – Eion Colfer
OMG! I read a one-shot novel! Noooo! ::coughs:: Okay, anyways, this was another great book by Colfer. I wouldn’t recommend this if you’re like a religious fanatic or something, but that’s your problem, so… 14-year-old Meg is killed in an accident, but she’s right on the border between going to Heaven and Hell. So in order to get to Heaven, she has to return to Earth as a ghost and help the old man she wronged. Conveniently, he’s written up a wish list of things he wants to do before he dies. Except that they’re all pretty outrageous things, and both Meg and the man have only a limited amount of time before he dies and/or she is sucked back into limbo. Plus… oh, what the heck, just read it. It’s awesome, with Colfer’s sarcastic humor and extremely advanced technology (this time on the side of the devil rather than with the faries).
McKinley, Robin. Spindle’s End. New York: The Berkley Publishing Group, 2001.
ISBN# 0-441-00865-8
Summary: Spindle’s End is set in a fantastic world in which magic is common in everyday life. The story in it’s most basic sense is a retelling of the classic fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, but it is much more complex than that. The Princess Briar-Rose (she actually has twenty-one names, but I’m not going to list them all here) is born and there is a huge celebration for her name day, to which one person from every town in the country is invited. From Foggy-Bottom, a village out in the swampy backwater Gig, a young girl named Katriona is picked. When she arrives at the princess’s name day celebration, a terrible tragedy occurs: as the fairy godmothers are granting their wishes to the baby princess, a forgotten, vengeful fairy by the name of Pernicia shows up and bestows her own wish upon the princess: that by the age of twenty-one, she should prick her finger on a spindle and die. In the panic and commotion caused by this announcement, Katriona suddenly finds the princess thrust upon her for safekeeping. She flees to Foggy-Bottom and, with the help of her aunt, raises the princess as a normal child called Rosie. But the curse is still there, dormant, and it’s only a matter of time before everything catches up with poor Rosie.
Reaction: I thought this book was okay. I enjoyed the plot of the story and the characters were well developed. Each one’s personality was very clear and fun to read. I liked McKinley’s version of Sleeping Beauty; it had some great plot twists and was very original. My biggest problem with this book was the author’s writing style. I found it extremely heavy and difficult to get through; it felt like it was a much longer read that it should have been for only 354 pages. That’s not normally very much for me; I’m a fast reader. However, McKinley does a lot of deep, in-depth descriptions, to the point where it’s not really necessary. It took eight pages to set the stage, and an entire chapter before any real characters were introduced. It did help me envision the country better, but I was getting increasingly bored waiting for something to actually happen. I also thought that some of her sentences were phrased strangely and seemed vague, and I couldn’t always understand what she was trying to say.
Recommendation: Spindle’s End is, without a doubt, a fantasy novel. I can’t say I would recommend it to all fantasy fans, because some people might be put off by it’s fairy tale roots, and others, like me, may dislike Robin McKinley’s writing style. Anyone who liked her other books (I’ve read The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown, but, again, I didn’t like her style.) would probably enjoy this one. It’s not a particularly dark story- it’s fairly humorous and mostly cheerful- but I might recommend this to people who enjoyed The Once and Future King or books by Mercedes Lackey. I enjoyed this book, but I don’t think I’d read it again. On the other hand, if you like fairy tales and you don’t mind a heavy read, this book would probably be good for you.
Pierce, Tamora. Trickster’s Choice. New York: Random House, Inc., 2003.
ISBN# 0-375-81466-3
Summary: Any who have read Pierce’s previous ‘Song of the Lioness’ series will remember Alanna the Lioness, the first female knight in the realm of Tortall in over one hundred years. Trickster’s Choice is the first in a new quartet about Alanna’s daughter, Alianne, more commonly known as Aly. At sixteen, Aly does not get along with her mother, who wishes for her to stop fooling around and accomplish something with her life. Aly has decided what she wants to do—she wants to be a spy, like her father—but both of her parents refuse to allow her to take on such a dangerous career. After a particularly nasty dispute with her mother, Aly attempts to retreat to a friend’s house to allow both parties a chance to cool off; however, she is captured by pirates and finds herself being sold as a slave to a noble family on the Copper Isles, a country whose political situation is shaky at best. Though she could easily escape, she suddenly finds herself confronted by a god: Kyprioth, the trickster god and patron of the native raka people of the islands. He strikes a deal with Aly: if she will protect the noble’s daughters for the entire summer, he will provide her with help in the form of spying crows and visions of current events at court, and ultimately grant her her freedom. And, of course, this is the perfect opportunity for Aly to prove herself to her parents—provided she survives the summer.
Reaction: I’ve loved every book Pierce has written about the women of Tortall, and this one did not disappoint. There’s plenty of action, the plot development is excellent, and the author is very talented at portraying of her heroines’ thoughts throughout the story. However, there was one not-so-little aspect of this book which bothered me, and I hadn’t had this problem with her other books. Aly is a prime example of what we of the fanfiction world like to call a “Mary-Sue” (or, for males, a “Gary-Stu”); a person who is just altogether too perfect to be real. They have the looks, the talents, the magic power (Aly has an extremely strong power called Sight), the secrets, the love interest—every cliché you can think of. While Tamora Pierce’s heroines have always been strong, Aly just has far too many things going in her favor to make her character believable. Her one ‘redeeming’ quality is that she is, despite her perfections, still a teenager, and will disagree and argue with people simply for the sake of being difficult. I also enjoy- despite it being cliché- her witty comments and sarcastic humor, which is enough like mine that I can relate to her in that aspect, if not in any others. It’s much easier to believe in a character you can relate to.
Recommendation: This is, though an excellent example of its genre, a rather typical fantasy novel, set in a world of knights and magic and immortals. One thing that separates this one from Pierce’s previous books is that it focuses more on politics than outright war and battle. The reader gets a spy’s view of the political climate, which makes for a very interesting change from most fantasy books which center around the heart of the action. The heroine rather classifies this as a girl’s book, though it needn’t be necessarily- plenty of girls read stories with male heroes, so I don’t see why it couldn’t be the other way round as well. Anyone who enjoyed other stories by Tamora Pierce would probably like this- I’ve always loved the ‘Song of the Lioness’ and the ‘Immortals’ series, and the heroines from her previous books always appear from time to time in her new ones, which I think is a fun touch-- letting us see how our favorite heroines are faring without them being the center of the story. I would recommend Trickster’s Choice to anyone who likes a creative blend of action and politics, and especially to any fan of other fantasy novels such as the ‘Dragonlance Chronicles’, or someone who enjoys historical fiction like the tales of King Arthur.
