Bookish Thoughts

I'd been putting off Rhythm of War for a while, because it's such a big, intimidating book. I knew it would take me weeks to read, weeks when I wouldn't be able to read other books. But I'm trying to get away from the mindset that I have to keep reading more and more books. So I decided to finally commit to this one.  Almost as soon as I picked it up, I stopped being intimidated. I fell right into this story, and I remembered how wonderful it can be to spend an extended amount of time in a well-crafted world with interesting characters. The length allows for this story to be both epic and intimate. Huge, world-changing things are happening right alongside more personal struggles, and they all get equal weight in the narrative. I think I felt nearly every emotion over the course of reading this book. Sanderson is really a master of his craft, and I'm so excited to continue to read his work for years to come. The wider Cosmere starts to creep into this book more than ...

 Now this is what I want from a Sanderson story. An interesting and sympathetic protagonist, a bit of a mystery and a problem to solve, a fascinating magical system with new applications around every corner, and hints of a much larger world around the edges of this self-contained story.  Sanderson has taken to writing these novellas between the much larger Stormlight novels, and it's a great way to dip back into the world and get reacquainted with it before committing to one of the massive tomes in the series proper. These stories follow side characters and side quests, making the world feel even more fleshed out and immense. This one in particular follows Rysn, first introduced as a minor character in The Way of Kings as she leads a mission to explore a forgotten island. Rock's daughter, Cord, and Bridge Four alum, Lopen, are included in the mission, and each has their own secondary goal that complicates things. But this isn't about people at odds with each other. It'...

 I've been slowly making my way through Kristen Britain's Green Rider series for the past year. And I mean slowly. After a year, I only just finished the fourth book. When I started, I assumed the series was complete at six books, and that seemed doable. But a seventh book was released this year, and it turns out that the author has no set plan for how long the series will be. That's been fine up to now. Each book has been a distinct story. I find I have little trouble remembering what happened previously when I picked up the next book (Britain's ability to seamlessly integrate the "previously on" into her text is pretty amazing). It's also been easy to remember what happened in each book. But then this one ended in a cliffhanger, and now I'm worried that we're diving into some more classic epic fantasy, where the story drags on and on for countless books until the author abandons it for one reason or another. But I'm only a little worried, be...

Sometimes you manage to pick up a book exactly when you need to read it, and everything clicks in to place for a little bit. I started with the acknowledgements, conveniently located at the beginning of the book. Sanderson ends his multi-page thank you letter with a mantra from the book: "Journey before destination." It was just what I needed to read at that moment. As heavy as this book is, I felt lighter while I was reading it. Like it was carrying some of my burden for me. This series is all about deeply flawed people dealing imperfectly with impossible situations. This book focuses on Dalinar, who has done a number of unspeakably horrible things. As we enter his flashbacks and learn more about his life, his relationship with his first wife, and what finally pushed him to try and become a better person, he's taking that exact same journey. He'd had several of his memories removed, which allowed him to leave in something like peace for several years. But now he...

For all that I've said I'm happy to wait as long as it takes for the third Kingkiller book, reading the second one got me really excited for it. I have so many unanswered questions, and there are so many tantalizing hints about what's to come, that a part of me just wants to get my hands on it now. But then I tell myself to be patient. I love the first two books because they are basically perfect. The amount of work and care that Rothfuss put into them is clearly evident. He worked hard on them and he's working hard on the next one. And if I have to wait another decade, at least I know that I'll be getting a perfect book at the end of it. This book is perhaps even more episodic than the first one. Or maybe it's just more evident because Kvothe is moving around a lot more. Either way, people tend to complain about the pacing of this one more. But I maintain that it's better than the first. It has Felurian (true story: there's one page in the Felurian ...

I love this book. It's one of my favorites. I've read it several times, and it's just as good each time. There are so many layers here, so many hints and mysteries, that each re-read rewards me with a little more understanding, a few more answers to my questions. When Pat Rothfuss announced the 10th Anniversary Edition, I had to get it. And while it sat on my shelf for a while before I got around to reading it, the anticipation just makes it that much sweeter. I've talked about this book, at length, on this blog. So I'm just going to talk about the fancy new edition now. There's a new (equally opaque) map. There are discussions of the calendar and the money. Most of this information can be gleaned from the text, but it's nice to have it all laid out in an easy-to-reference place. There's even a pronunciation guide. But best of all, there are illustrations. A bunch of them, showing key scenes in the book. The illustrations were the whole reason I wa...

I've been waffling about The Dark Tower  for years now. I've wanted to read it. But I didn't know if I wanted it to be my first Stephen King. But his other books are all so long, and the first of these was, at least, very short. Then the movie came out and I bought The Gunslinger . Then everyone hated the movie, so I let it sit on my shelf for a while. Then I picked up the second book at a used book sale on a whim and decided that it was finally time to just sit down and read this. I didn't entirely know what to expect, going in to it. I've heard that it's slow and boring, easily the worst book of the series. I've also heard that it's the best book of the series. Several people told me it was their favorite book, bar none. I had plenty of room to make up my own mind about this book. What happened, which I did not expect, was that I fell somewhere in the middle. This book was fine. It was slow, but I didn't mind that. It had a really interesting s...

I was long overdue for a re-read of The Name of the Wind , which remains one of my favorite books. Even if the third book is never released, the first two will probably stay in my favorites list. They're so rich and dense, packed with magic and music and the mundanity of life. But the thing that really makes these books sing is Rothfuss' masterful use of language. The tenth anniversary of this book just came out, and if it takes another ten years to get every word perfect in the third book, I think it will be worth it. I have plenty of other books to read in the meantime. And I can always re-read this one, looking for new clues and soaking in the incredible world Rothfuss built. On this re-read, I took particular note of the dialogue. Throughout the book, characters often fall into rhyming or metered language. It's subtle, and hidden well in the paragraphs, but once you know to look for it, this book brims over with poetry. It was a lot of fun to pick up on it this time t...

It was sheer stubbornness that pulled me on to the end of this series. And because of that, I'm not even going to attempt the second Amber arc. But I finished it, and that feels like an accomplishment of some sort. At first I was excited that this series was comprised of such short books. Indeed, I probably wouldn't have finished this one if it had been any longer. But I bet I would have enjoyed the story a lot more had the books been longer. As it was there were so many twists and turns that came so fast I felt like I couldn't catch my breath. And then I got bored because as soon as I accepted one story it changed all over again. So why bother caring? This story needed more room to breath. There were entirely too many characters which meant that most of them got the short shrift. Plenty of relationships were stated rather than ever being explored. And given how many times Corwin had the wool pulled over his eyes, it was hard to really trust his assessments of his sibli...

At this point in the series there are so many lies and half-truths and shifting alliances that it's getting exhausting. No sooner do we learn what someone did and why then it's revealed that half of what they said was a lie. It's getting easier to root for Corwin, if only because he's the only character whose motivations are wholly revealed to the audience. I'm bored by these books at this point. But the ten-book series is actually two five-book series. And the next book, the last in this arc, is less than 100 pages long. So I'll finish it. Then I'll take a break and see if I care enough to try the second series. Which is about a different character and sounds like it might be about something different. And is called Trumps of Doom , which is such an appealing title right now. For now I just can't bring myself to care about Corwin and his family and whether or not they win. I want more from my fantasy. More characterization, more intricate worlds. No...

I've made it through the third book in the Chronicles of Amber, and it feels like this story is finally starting. More than the books that came before it, this one felt like a solid beginning. I'm finally caught up with everything that happened before the series started (I think), and I'm ready to see what happens next. Also, the book ends on a hell of a cliffhanger that has me chomping at the bit to dive into the next one. But I'm trying to hold myself back, because I can see myself easily getting sick of this series. Better to keep the anticipation ratcheted up, so I can use it's momentum to get through all ten books. As excited as I am about the third book, I should say that it's basically an extended info dump, punctuated with brief action scenes that mostly serve to keep Corwin from acting on his information prematurely. One by one, he makes his way through various family members, putting together what happened while he was suffering from amnesia and how ...

I'm still torn about this series. I'll keep going, mostly because the books are so short and there's enough here to keep me interested. If nothing else, it's fun to see the things my favorite authors have taken from this series and improved on. The wry language, the periodic breaking of the fourth wall, the fluid dimensions, the god-like protagonists learning about empathy. This series contains the bones of my favorite fantasy. But it's frustrating to know how much better this could be and not see it realized. This is mostly in regards to the women in the series. We get two new female characters in this book, and while they are an improvement over the previous book (five sisters summed up as "bitches, all" and one queen who shows up just long enough to have sex with Corwin), there's still something to be desired here. First there's Lorraine, who at least manages to feel like a person. She seems to be living her life on her terms, tragic as they...

I've been meaning to read Zelazny for a long time now. I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction, and he's always there on the periphery. Most of my favorite authors cite him as one of their favorite authors. I get the impression that he is as foundational to the genre as Tolkien, Asimov, and LeGuin. And so when two fantastic books that I read back to back ( Among Others  and Radiance ) both referenced him, I decided it was finally time to seek  him out. While it may have made more sense to start with one of his stand-alone novels, his epic fantasy series, The Chronicles of Amber  called to me. It helped that I found the entire ten-book saga published as a single omnibus, which saved me money (at the expense of my wrists, but alas). What's interesting is that all ten books published together are the same length as a single book in Wheel of Time, The Stormlight Archive , or The Kingkiller Chronicle . Each individual book is less than 200 pages. So I was surprised whe...

I had wanted to get this review written before I went into labor. But that didn't quite happen. So now I'm here, over a month later, trying to remember what I did and didn't like about this book so I can write about it. At least I managed to finish reading it before I had my kid. Words of Radiance is the second in Sanderson's epic Stormlight Archive, which is supposed to be ten books long. As such, it's a bit hard to judge on it's own. More stuff happens than in the first book, and in some ways the plot advances a lot farther than I expected it to. But it's still mostly about setting things up. This book focuses on Shallan for it's flashbacks, which made me really happy. She's probably my favorite character, at least of the main characters, and her flashbacks do a lot to make her more complex and to explain why she is that way. Although Sanderson holds back his big reveal, which is actually the very beginning of her arc, forever, which had me wo...

I had been planning to hold off on Brandon Sanderson's epic Stormlight Archive. It's supposed to be 10 books long, and only two of them are published so far. I didn't want this to turn into the sort of situation where I wait so long for the next book that I end up giving up on the series altogether. Waiting until The Wheel of Time was completed worked well for me, and I had planned to apply the same principle here. But in reading Sanderson's other works and blog, I eventually started to realize that the Cosmere isn't really something to be read series by series. It's large and intricate and he's building it as he goes. It makes more sense to read all of his book in publication order to pick up on the clues (and then go read some more on the internet because other people do a better job of spotting and explaining those clues). Besides which, I needed something long to get me through the move so I wouldn't be tempted to go buy more books while we were s...

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...

The final book in Robin Hobb's Farseer Trilogy was probably about 100 pages longer than it needed to be. I enjoyed these books, largely due to the incredible world-building and wonderful cast of characters. But man did this book drag on, especially towards the end. The cover promises dragons. The plot talks about dragons. There are definitely going to be dragons in this book. But not until the last 20 pages or so, when Hobb has done everything she can to make you think that maybe there won't be dragons after all. (There are dragons.) Ultimately I didn't like this book as much as the first two. It starts off better. But most of the political intrigue is traded in for a long and seemingly fruitless trek through the mountains in the winter. The ending is ultimately satisfying, but it takes so damn long to get there. I came close to giving up or just skipping ahead to the last few chapters. Which is a hefty complaint, but there was still a lot to like about this book. Ther...

The second book in the Farseer trilogyis a lot like the first one: meandering and tragic. Fitz is a bit older. He's been through some tragedy, and he's anxious to carve out some sort of life for himself. Meanwhile his loyalties are shifting ever so slight, from the King to his eldest living son. The book starts off with a bit of a jolt. It backs up to just before the epilogue of the previous book. For the first few chapters it seems like it's going to go in a different direction altogether. But it's just an internal crisis that Fitz has to work through before reaffirming his loyalties and returning to court. After that it get right back into the thick of war and court politics. There's a fun, shadowy treason plot that threatens to tear the kingdom apart from the inside while raiders continue to attack from without. Fitz is doing his best to thwart both plots without betraying his loyalties and getting himself killed and while attempting to carve out some sort of...

I wasn't quite as enamored of Kushiel's Chosen  as I was of Kushiel's Dart . And I'm not entirely sure why that is. By all rights, I should have enjoyed this book just as much as the first one. It has all the fancy dresses, political intrigue, dastardly plots, and exquisite world-building of the first one. Unfortunately it's also missing some things. Hyacinthe isn't in it at all and Joscelin is missing for half the book as well. There isn't nearly as much sex, especially in the back half of the book. Phedre is much more isolated in this book than she was in the first one. There's an intriguing mystery here. Mellisande escaped at the end of the first book, and Phedre is determined to find her and bring her to justice. The question is where is she and what is she planning? It was great fun, running through possibilities and watching everything come together. But then the mystery is solved before the halfway point and Phedre is captured. She spends th...

Kushiel's Dart could essentially be summed up thus: Joscelin: You can't solve all your problems with sex Phèdre: Watch me That hides away a lot of the complexity and intrigue in this story, and glosses over the fact that Joscelin doesn't even show up until 1/3 of the way through, but it does get at the heart of what makes this book so fun and the reason I loved it as much as I did. Phèdre is a courtesan, trained to it from the age of ten. She lives in a world that holds to the doctrine "Love as thou wilt", which means that free love abounds. Everyone is aggressively bisexual, sex is both casual and an act of worship, and monogamous partnerships are formed mostly for political purposes. Phèdre herself has been cursed by one of the gods to experience pain and pleasure as one, meaning that there's also a heavy BDSM component. But Phèdre is also a spy, working in secret for her adoptive father as he attempts to unravel a plot against the throne and prote...