Six Books, Because.. Why Not?

***** - these are stars. Can't you tell? It means I can't do half stars, but I'm okay with that. Oh. And I think the ratings are out of five. Three being average and all that. One being I couldn't even stand to finish the book and I'll never touch it again in my life unless forced, and maybe not even then. There's a fairly big jump between one and two, because I created the system, and I said so.

**** Hyperion, by Dan Simmons - I'm impressed by this guy's writing ability. This book (I haven't caught up on the series yet) is, in part, written as a bunch of stories told by various pilgrims (not like the Canterbury Tales, really!) about their past. The answer to the pilgrimage they're on lies in the connection between their histories. Simmons successfully tells each of the stories in the character's own voice; of course, this has the downside that if you don't care for a particular character's storytelling ability, that portion of the book is going to be less interesting, and I found myself wanting to only skim particular stories in order to get on with something more interesting. However, the puzzle he presents is intriguing (if unanswered at the end; I haven't read far enough to do more than assume he finishes this in the sequel), enough so that I did my best to immediately find the second book to know the answer. Not recommended for anyone with both a vivid imagination and much squeamishness about blood; there are some.. interesting.. death scenes.

****1/2 Stardust, by Neil Gaiman - A fun mixing of fairy tales, but that's only an aspect of the world and side characters within the book, not the story itself. This one I could recommend to almost anyone as a quick, fun read. I've apparently increased my ability to pick up on foreshadowing somewhere along the line, because as with a number of other books I've read in the past half year, I was able to guess the ending while only about half way through the book.. though not the minor details, and I didn't guess how it would get there, only the final result. I actually found a certain aspect of the ending to be mildly disappointing.. but not enough to stop me from recommending the book, or being willing to read it again myself at some point in the future.

**1/2 The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper - Nope, never got to this one before. Apparently there is a book that comes before this one in the series. The particular printing of the book I read did not make that clear (and I looked; I knew it was a series), so I haven't read it. I've only read this one. At some point I will get around to reading the others in the series (I imagine it says something that I'm not rushing out for them), and I do intend to see the movie, but I wouldn't number this among the top books I've ever read. The premise is promising, but the story could have been handled better.. and speaking of foreshadowing, this one failed by way of promising more than it delivered. At certain points I was lead to expect more than what actually happened. In general, I appreciate when I'm wrong at my guesses (after all, I don't really want to guess the entire story ahead of time, unless, perhaps, it's a mystery novel), but I want to be wrong because the author went somewhere brilliant and unexpected, not because the author simply failed to deliver. I have one other complaint I'm going to voice about this book, which would stop me from recommending it to anyone young enough (or otherwise unable) to not entirely grasp the difference between fiction and reality. Most fantasy stories just don't mention faith/church at all. I'm okay with that. This one does, and at one point makes a fairly clear statement that the particular magic in the book is older and stronger than God, or, in other words, implies that God isn't actually real and Creator. I don't mind novels that simply don't bring up the issue, and I don't mind those that specifically do, either; but I dislike this treatment of it.

***** Nine Princes in Amber, by Roger Zelazny - Hey, it's another series! I read this book (the first one) when I was much, much younger, but recently picked up the series again and am now in the midst of book eight. In other words, I really like these. They're just strange enough for me to fully appreciate them yet not, I think, to scare off anyone who dislikes randomness; they're not nearly as strange in the manner of, say, Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett. Everything in these books, though they left me unable to even chance guessing what would come next (and I like that, I really really like that), still makes perfect sense once you're familiar with the world. It also, as you get further into the series, keeps re-examining what you know of the story so far as bit by bit the intentions of other people, and their parts in things, come to light.. the best I can think of to compare it to is the movie Hero. In all of the first seven books, there was only one point when I really became suspicious about something; and that character was so blatantly more than he seemed that it might be the only fault I find with any of the first seven books in that none of the other characters seemed to have a clue. And even that can potentially be explained away... Okay, so Zelazny also has a bit too much fun with certain transitions that, by the end of seven books, get to be a tiny bit on the excessive side in their descriptions. But as thrilled as I am with the rest of the series, I'm not going to fault him too highly for that. Actually, this may be something that my friend at A Theme of the Creator's Music would enjoy.. perhaps I have another book to start pushing. ;-)

*** Redwall, by Brian Jacques - Another series. How'd you guess? Oh, that's right; every person in the world except myself read this book 15-20 years ago, or when they turned 10, whichever came second. Me, I waited until now and age 23.. but after the results of the first time I recommended it without reading it, I figured I should get around to it so as not to make the same mistake again. My conclusion? The results of my first recommendation don't surprise me at all, and had I read it before, I never would have added it to that particular recommendation list. Now I feel bad. It's not that it's necessarily a bad book; the writing isn't brilliant, but it's okay, especially when keeping in mind that this is considered a children's book. When I was around ten I most likely would have greatly enjoyed this - it's only my adult self going "uh, that characterization is bad.. and that writing.. and, uh, this doesn't make sense.. and..." Which isn't to say that I'm flat out recommending this for all kids (wait, I covered that already). This book contains one of the most evil characters I have ever seen specifically, carefully developed and described in any book with the except of the Screwtape Letters, and I was nearly as disturbed by this character as I was by the demon. Simply as the underdeveloped enemy this wouldn't be so bad, but this particular evil character was given much better development than the hero of the story, and was therefore that much easier to attempt to identify with, and yet, there was not a single speck of good anywhere within him... There's also another character named after the devil, but he's not nearly as developed, he just shows up now and again. Not that he helps matters. The hero of the story is fairly inconsistently written, and will easily go from out and out wanting nothing more than to defend his home to, suddenly, relaxing and describing in detail how much he enjoys this stream he's about to fall asleep by even while he knows his home is being attacked. I prefer to consider the writing inconsistent than the character insane. I still think I would have greatly enjoyed it at 10, though other books I read at the time were much better (some were much worse, too); but in the future, I'm going to be much more careful who I hand this to.

*** Iceworld, by Hal Clement - I'm giving this book a lot of leeway because of the fact that it has a copyright in 1953. The situation of the world around that year figures a great deal into the way the story develops, and certain SF ideas had not become quite as common yet. Even so, the only (now, 2007) extremely overdone plot twist he uses is finished by the end of the first chapter and we can get on with the rest of the story. And it's a good story. There is one thing which stopped it from holding more of my interest (and a higher rating); there are two sets of characters whose viewpoints are used, one a group of aliens, the other a group of human beings. The alien viewpoint occupies the majority of the book, and yet they way they are written isn't sufficient for me to easily identify with them. When Clement stays with them for a long period of time, the events that are going on and discoveries that are being made only halfway keep my interest, and I'm anxious to get back with the human beings again.. I care a lot more about what happens with them, despite the fact that the main story is what's going on in the alien world. I find the book equally interesting just for the historical significance (yes, I said that); as much of a history person as I am (heh..*cough*), having read this book will give me much more insight into what life in the early 1950s was like than reading a history book or attending a class ever would.