The Giver

In literature and fiction, anything in the sci-fi or fantasy genres have always been a bridge too far for me.  I find this type of story challenging beyond words.  I do not desire to "learn" a new world and the machinations thereof.  I am challenged enough by the nuances of the world I know.  Thus, I can count on one hand the books I have read in this genre in my lifetime.

So, with my current book reading challenge suggesting (nay, forcing me) to read a book set in the future, I went to my husband for a suggestion.  He suggested The Giver by Lois Lowry as an "easy and quick read."

The challenge I felt reading the first half of the book was oppressive.  I found it difficult to get through two to three pages at a time without falling asleep or finding other things that needed doing around the house.  In fact, it took me over a week to read a small nine chapters.

And then...
It took me an hour and a half to finish the rest of the book and I devoured it in one sitting, feeling somewhat satisfied with myself for chalking up my 2nd fantasy/sci-fi read.

So what gives?

I think that, as with almost all other books in this genre, a large portion of the book involves building the setting.  And, let's be real: that can be pretty boring.  Finding out all the specifics of an author's made up world can take a while.  Not that it is an unnecessary step, just a tedious one. Once the author has established this made-up world to his/her liking, he/she can move forward with plot.  And apparently plot is my jam.

The Giver, though in my opinion, is long on setting and short on plot; it is not unsatisfying.  It is a good read.  A recommended read and it deals with some pretty major themes.  But I kind of feel that it could have been a short story.  Wouldn't it have been a little more jarring if it had just plopped the reader down into the plot and left her to discover the uniqueness of the world surrounding t he plot?  Just a thought.

I can see why The Giver became an instant classic.  But I do understand why it would have been a challenge for me in eighth grade.  Heck, it was a challenge for me at 34!

-L

Rating: 3.5 out of 7

This book fulfills the "Book set in the future" for my current challenge.

The Passage

My wife purchased this book through a book club a few months back and I finally got around to reading it. The Passage also happens to be on the top 100 books to read by Amazon found here. She thought it would be right up my alley, but since I started The Stand and this was said to be similar to that book I thought I'd give it a little time before attempting it. But here I am, finished with a new book and still working on buttoning up the other huge novel. It was probably worth jumping ship though.

The Passage is part story and part fictitious history lesson. You follow a few groups of people throughout the novel that's locale varies from Colorado to California. In fact, some of the story happens right around where we're presently residing. It was nice to hear about Thousand Palms, Banning, and the wind farms. Back to it, the story is about a potential cure-all turned weapon by the American government. That weapon is released, accidentally, and ends up bringing the eventual end of the human civilization. It really is a cross of I Am Legend and The Stand. It's still it's own story even with the similarities. The 700-page book spans about 100 years and rarely feels like it. ;-)

It's a well written book. Cronin does a good job describing the scene and the emotions of the players. You don't need a huge imagination for his writing. I did have a little problem seeing the characters as little more than teenagers even though I believe they were mostly in their mid to late twenties. Maybe I just glossed that over.  LOL, that just made me think that this is almost a vampire Red Dawn! Doesn't that make you want to leave the book alone... and that's not my intent. If anything the book is worth the read, but I wasn't happy with the ending. I don't want to give away any spoilers, but it was left a little more open ended than I would have preferred. Perhaps Cronin is looking at doing a sequel, but I would like to know how it all went on. *sigh*

Rating: 7 CB's - good book; couldn't put it down; want real ending.

-D

Metro 2033: In A.D. 2033 War Was Beginning..

Man oh man, you sometimes go into a book believing that it's going to be one story, and at the end of the book you have to check the cover to make sure it was the same book you picked up. That's how I felt about Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky. It all started when I saw information for a video game under the same name: Metro 2033. It's a first-person shooter that they've based off of Dmitry's post-apocalyptic novel. The game has mutant killing and darkness as it's main selling points.... well, next to the fact that it's based off a novel. So, I based my purchase of the book on the fairly good reviews of gamers. At the time, I was very excited. By the end, not so much.

Metro 2033 starts with a great, if not unique, premise. World War 3 has happened. The United States attacked first through biological and nuclear means. Some of Russia's remaining military, in intact missile silos and submarines, take out their own prejudices and retaliate regardless of the fact that the world will be decimated beyond repair. The remaining civilization lives in the metro stations under Moscow. Enter Artyom, our protagonist, who's lived in the metro for all but three years of his life(give or take). He lives in a station/depot on the far end of the populated sections of the metro. They've started to be attacked by an unknown group of mutants from topside. Through a few different circumstances, Artyom is sent on a task that is the salvation of VDKnH(the station) and possibly the entire metro.

From the sound of my synopsis, it sounds like it would be passing out awesome to everyone it had the chance of meeting. It certainly didn't end up that way. The first twenty or so pages gave you a good feeling of the oppressiveness of living underground. It was dark, dirty, and without a lot of hope. I could pass by some of the odd sentence structure and dialogue. It didn't last though. The middle part of the book had a common theme through the protagonists journey from one side of the metro to the other. He would get in trouble somehow and be saved at the last moment through chance encounters. Every scene played out in a very similar way, and when you add the difficulty of the writing you're just drudging along waiting for some action. That didn't come around till the last 50 pages of the book. So he bookended his philosophical thoughts on just about everything between two action oriented short stories. And by everything, I mean everything. Here's a sampling of some of the ideas: The Great Worm(creating new religious thought), fascists, communists, Christianity(doesn't think too highly of it), mutants, zombies, Indians, hypnotism, hope for humanity, and great loss. It was disappointing.

I wouldn't say that all was lost. The last few pages before the ending were exciting enough to force myself to finish an incredibly tedious and difficult reading book. I had a feeling that's where it was leading when the book came to it's conclusion. I really can't recommend this book unless you're looking to finish up your "All Things Post-Apocalyptic" collection. Supposedly, a Metro 2034 is being written b/c the video game was a decent success.

Rating: 4 CBs - I'm being friendly to the first and the last portions of the book. You really have to be dedicated to sorting out all the conversation and endless plot elements. <-- In some authors that's a good thing, but in this one. meh. But, I did find a tie-in that I posted on my other blog: The Reliquiarium

-D

P.S. - We just got done watching the The Book of Eli. Now that's a post-apocalyptic story that I can recommend. It's not perfect, but it's entertaining. ;-) Next up? Perhaps The Stand; maybe Same Kind of Different As Me; tempted by The Princess Bride.

Zombies, Airships, and a little of the old Ultra-violence

Steampunk is still a relatively new concept, but not a totally green idea. For the video game players, you look to Bioshock for a healthy dose of Steampunk reality. It's an 1800's grit with a combination of Age of Steam technology and 2100's mechanics. Think Ray Gun meets Grandfather clock... well, maybe that doesn't help. Just take a look at this beauty from Weta! It's an interesting concept of history-future fusion that would be best explained by the experts than little ol' me.

Boneshaker takes us into an alternate history where the Kondike gold rush sends prospective scientists into a technology frenzy attempting to create the best and only way to dig through solid ice to get to a large quantity of gold. One of those inventions happens to be a massive drill that somehow wrecks havoc in downtown Seattle. Not only does that destroy the banking sector, but also releases some type of underground gas that turns the inhabitants that come into contact with it, into the walking dead. Just so you know, this is all off the back cover of the book. I prefer to give nothing away if I can help it. So fast forward a little more than a decade and we have the widow of the blamed scientist going after their son who has gone into the ruined city in search of the truth about his father.

Cherie Priest, the author, did an excellent job in bringing everything promised in the back leaf synopsis into the book. The world feels run down; the people grimy and out of sorts. You get a sense for the real lack of dreams that this city contains. In that, I really enjoyed her writing style and how you do get a sense of where each person will eventually stand. I did have one problem with the book. It felt a little disjointed going through the first 2/3 to 3/4. You do a lot of jumping around between your protagonists - it felt that in almost every chapter Priest was going to the next character and then back again. It didn't really detract from the story, but maybe the switch-up could have felt a little more consistent. BUT, this could also be a bias from my normal book choices. I tend toward the epics, and I believe that you'll probably have a good amount of authors doing the exact same thing as Priest with the amount of content they're working with. It's a minor problem to me, but nothing that will take away from the story. For me, the disjointedness was all made up for in the last quarter of the book. The climax and conclusion do come a little quick, but the action and direction to get you there are exceptional for the story. My suspicions on what happened were justified and where/how the protagonists ended up was where they should have been. I maybe could have used a few more airships too.... Final Fantasy ruined me for the fancy of it.

For those that are looking at this book, I would tell you that it is definitely work picking up. It's going to fit snuggly into my collection between World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It's not a terribly difficult book to read. I imagine it's well above anything written by Stephanie Meyer and somewhere below Stephen King.... not too far, King can be a little awkward in his style once in a while. Oh, any my favourite line from the book? 

"Boys are boys, they are. They're useless and ornery as can be, and when they grow up they're even worse."

Rating: 6.98 CBs - I can't judge a book solely based on how long it took me to read, but this one went pretty quick. I started reading last Friday and finished up around Wednesday. That was amongst having other obligations during that time, and picking up the next Robert Jordan novel..... I'm sorry, I couldn't help it! All in all, I would say that I spent three days reading with about 100-120 pages done in the last day. It'll keep you interested, for sure.

-D

3 Reasons Why Dragon Never Sleeps is a book.

1. Title - The Dragon Never Sleeps is a title of a collection of pages about the same topic. Books have titles so it must be a book. Oddly enough, you see the title and you might think that this is another fantasy novel, but it's actually Sci-Fi! Once you see the cover you'll get a better idea of what the dragon supposedly is. I'm not normally one for reading Sci-Fi novels. I like to stick to playing video games about space or watching movies about aliens. But, while a little out of the box, it was a refreshing story based on a similar concept.

 

2. Author - Glen Cook is an author, and since he wrote this then one would believe that it's a book. Author's write books! He also did a good job in using the aforementioned title for this book. I've already read the Black Company by Cook and found it more than enjoyable. This single novel still feels like Glen Cook even though the story and imagery are far removed from the fantasy aspect of the Black Company novels. It's not the novel I would recommend if you were going to try Glen out. It's unique.

3. Words - Authors write..... you get a collection of words about the same topic and you'll potentially end up with a book. Maybe an article, poem, or some other wierd thing, but this is a book and we're going to stick to that. Glen Cook did a good job on keeping the book engaging, but it also felt very disjointed. There is so much happening throughout the 250 pages that it's tough to feel the actual scope. Maybe that's what he was going for, but in such a small book years can sometimes get lost. Especially in the epic space battles, world jumping, and character development. 

So there you have it - my 3 reasons why this book was a book. Leah noticed that it appears that doing lists is the popular thing to do on a blogs. So being the most popular person on earth, I just had to try it out. =\ I doubt that you'll ever see me do another list like this. It's not very engaging(but are any of my posts?) and isn't that enlightening either. But, if you don't get the joke, or anything else just take away that Glen Cook is best enjoyed in the Black Company series and not the Dragon Never Sleeps. It's good, but confusing.

R - 6 out of 10. It would make a great movie trilogy with a little more meat added. It's definitely worth reading if you're a Glen Cook fan. Take your time re-reading certain areas that don't make enough sense. Be thankful that we don't have space travel on this type of scale.

-D