Bookish Thoughts

This book was fantastic. I shouldn't have expected anything less from Sanderson, of course. He always does an amazing job of creating intricate world, captivating magic systems, and complex characters with conflicting motives and goals. Even though he writes incredibly long books, I always get sucked in and finish them much faster than I expect to (which is saying something for me). Warbreaker is a bit of an anomaly. At least, I expected it to be. While you can buy a physical copy, the entire book is available for free, online. Indeed, every draft from the roughest first draft through the first printed edition is available in full, as part of an attempt by Sanderson to connect with his fans. As such, I sort of expected a less-than-stellar book. Why else would it still be free five years after it was published? It also doesn't help that the cover is truly awful. I've come around on it a little bit, but I still can't figure out whether it's supposed to be depicti...

Mary Roach is a delight. Her books are often filed under pop-science, though I think they have more of a historical lean than a scientific one. She picks a topic and then delves into all the interesting little nooks and crannies, resulting in books that are equal parts hilarious and informative. I read Bonk (about the study of human sexuality) ages ago. (Actually, it was the book I was reading when I moved from Colorado to Virginia). Picking up Stiff reminded me that I need to track down the rest of her books. Stiff is about the historical use of human cadavers. They've mostly been used in medicine, everything from organ transplants to labs for student surgeons to strange, traditional treatments. But there have been other uses as well, particularly in the auto industry and the military as we search for ways to make dangerous things safer. There are also chapters about cannibalism (mostly urban legends, from what I gathered) and the disposal of human bodies. For the most part...

It's a little hard to judge White Sand , because it's very obviously the first third of a novel. There are a lot of introductions and a good amount of setup. Then just when things are really starting to get interesting, the book ends. On the bright side, I'm really looking forward to the second installment. Unfortunately, there isn't a release date for it yet. But let's focus on the first volume, which introduces a new world, a new system of magic, and a shocking number of characters. The story opens with the sand mages, and I really though we'd be spending the bulk of the story with them and their desert-society and intricate magic. But it doesn't take long for the story to veer off in a completely different direction. The world quickly expands, new characters and societies are introduced, and by the end we've got a suitably complicated world. There are warring factions. People who disapprove of each other. People who've never even heard of each...

This was a lovely, quick read that probed deeply into questions of responsibility and free will. I've come to expect nothing less from Bujold. The first Penric story managed to make demon possession into an almost cuddly coming of age tale. So it's no surprise that she manages to do the same thing with a grisly murder. The story shifts between three points of view: Penric (and his demon), a murderer on the run from authorities, and the man hunting the murderer. The fun comes in the fact that they're all incredibly sympathetic. Even the murderer. Bujold hasn't written a pure villain since Falling Free , so I should have expected that there would be more to the story than met the eye. I also love the world that Bujold set this story in, and I'm always glad for a chance to return to it. The Curse of Chalion  is how I found her in the first place, so this setting has a special place in my heart. The world is a little disparate. Other than the gods, it's hard to ...

Although Lumberjanes has since been promoted to ongoing comic, it was originally intended to be 8 issues long. As such, the first and second volume (which contain those 8 issues) make for a nice, complete story. Which means that, as much as I've enjoyed this series, I'll probably stop here. But this was a great story about girls at camp confronting supernatural creatures. I probably should have re-read the first volume to refresh myself on the story so far. But it didn't take me too long to settle back into this story. And I was able to figure out most of what I needed to know from context. I probably missed out on some suspense, but that's alright. I can always read the two volumes back to back in the future to get the complete story. For now, the back half of the story actually works pretty well on its own. It helps that the main villain is introduced here, having lurked in the shadows for the first four issues. And now that the friendships between the main girls...

I really ought to have picked up this book ages ago. I loved Marie Brennan's Onyx Court  series, and this one has dragons. I put it off because it got somewhat mixed reviews. But then the good ones started to outweigh the bad ones and I decided to give it a shot. The good news is that now I don't have to wait too long for the final book to come out. I can read through the whole series pretty quickly. The series is about dragons, but from a scientific perspective and with a Victorian slant. As such, it's a bit slower than a typical dragon story.  The focus is more on learning and discovery than fire and treasure. But that doesn't mean there isn't action. The book has more than one thrilling dragon attack, it's just that the dragons are treated as animals rather than mythical creatures. Like big cats or bears. The book is structured as a memoir. The aging Lady Trent is finally telling the truth about her youthful adventures and how she came to be a leading e...

The Hero and the Crown is a prequel to The Blue Sword , and I think it's the superior book. It tells the story of Aerin, the hero Harry spends much of The Blue Sword trying to live up to, and it reveals that she's just as human as anyone else. Mostly. This story takes place a few generations before the other one, and there are some pretty significant cultural differences between the two. One of the fun parts of this book was seeing how many of those changes were initiated by Aerin. For example, she begins riding a horse without reins so as to better handle a sword while doing so, and that eventually filters out to the next generation of warriors. It really speaks to the sort of influential figure she becomes. There were other fun parallels between the two books, including a conversation that is repeated verbatim several decades later. But the real reason I liked this book better is the pacing. That's tied somewhat to Aerin being a more active character. She takes the ...