Martha
It was refreshing to find an LDS rock star, and have him rightfully obey the Word of Wisdom and law of chastity, but the author missed a lot of opportunities to make his beliefs a bigger, more believable part of his life. As for the romance, it was cute, but all the obstacles were the same thing over and over.
A human man crashes on a different planet & is rescued by Brin's clan, because their old Luck died and they need a new one. If you like books about strange (or alien) cultures where you have to figure things out as you go instead of having them explained to you, you might like this book. I did. ;) As an anthropological sidenote, it is the most emic book I can remember ever reading.
“Economics, as we have now seen again and again, is a science of recognizing SECONDARY consequences. It is also a science of seeing GENERAL consequences. It is the science of tracing the effects of some proposed or existing policy not only on some SPECIAL interest IN THE SHORT RUN, but on the GENERAL interest IN THE LONG RUN.”
It had a couple of good stories, but most weren't worth it and a couple were offensive.
Despite an original variety of dragon on the good side and a very unsatisfactory ending on the bad side, this book was most noteworthy to me for its look at friendship, family ties, enemies, and war.
I enjoyed most of it, but must each book attempt to top the death/torture mark from the last book??
The situations aren't necessarily comedic, but the lines are... I probably have a warped sense of humor, though.
Build up to huge ending.... crash. And then Get Out of Jail Free. So disappointing.
I also thought the sudden switch in love interest was lame.
I liked the Patricia Briggs story, which is the reason I picked up this book. I liked a couple of the others. As for the rest of the book... let's just say I wasn't the target audience and leave it at that.
I don't think this is realistic. Not because of the volcano, but because I don't think society would fall apart that badly quite that quickly. I also didn't enjoy having so many bad things happening, whether or not it's realistic (some content not appropriate for all readers).
If you want to read something better on the same subject, try The Memory Boy/The Survivors series.
I like her style, but this book had more content issues for me than the last one I read. (Nothing explicit at all.)
Fortunately, I liked the story for which I got the book. Some of the others were good, some not so much. I skipped a couple entirely after the first few pages.
2.5 stars. Great science, great characters, but sometimes it was a bit too slow. Not sorry I read it, though.
The Box–an angel gave him a sealed box. How will it change his life?
Duffy's Jacket–a classic scary campfire tale with a twist for an ending.
Homeward Bound–fantasy about a boy who discovers why he's different.
With His Head Tucked Underneath His Arm–the dead do have their ways...
Clean as a Whistle–comedy about a brownie & a girl, stuck with each other.
The Language of Blood–unusual purpose for vampires. My least favorite.
Old Glory–futuristic story about the freedom of speech.
The Passing of the Pack–werewolves, mixed with regular wolves.
A Blaze of Glory–one of my favorites in the collection.
The endings of both Homeward Bound & A Blaze of Glory reminded me of what C.S. Lewis said about your next-door neighbor.
