Tahla
Hilarious typos in this edition aside (And there are some doozies in here, such as misspelled character names, random letters in completely different typeset from the rest of the book, and random placement of punctuation), this will always remain one of my favorite books. Salvatore's stories are just fun to read- certainly not up to the standards of epics like Tolkien or G.R.R.M, but good nonetheless. The writing may not be of the highest quality, but if you're looking for a fast paced, fun dungeon crawl of a tale, then the Drizzt Do'Urden series in the Forgotten Realms is what you'll want!
I'd hesitated to pick this series up, as it is juvenile fiction, but since it's written by my favorite author, I decided to give it a chance. The book is quirky and fun, filled with interesting and humorous characters. As someone going into library sciences, the world of this series perfectly hits the spot! Will definitely be reading the rest of the series, although not any time soon. It is very much a young readers book both in style of writing and the story itself, which while I greatly enjoyed it, isn't something I want very often. If you're a fan of Brandon Sanderson's work, or looking for a fun fast read, you can't go wrong with the Alcatraz series, if your willing to deal with a quirky kids story!
I really wanted to rate this book higher, but there are so many little annoyances with it that really stopped me from enjoying it as much as I could have. The dystopian ‘steampunkish' setting doesn't work well with the time period it's set in. While everyone else's name in the book is simple and pronounceable such as ‘Dean', ‘Cal', or ‘Conrad', the main character's name is an unpronounceable and strange ‘‘Aoife'. And the character of Cal will argue with EVERYTHING, no matter what it is, whether it be life or death- to the point you'll want to fling the book across the room whenever he opens his trap. His character is so over done for the majority of the book that it nearly ruins a big reveal.
On top of this, the pacing is awful for the majority of the book, where it takes too long to get anywhere or do anything. The author leaves you in the dark as to what's happening to Aoife for far too long, practically to the point you'll put the book down in frustration. I feel as if she trying to build dramatic tension to keep you going, but it fell flat, and just leaves you confused for the first half of the book.
As it stands however, after about 400 pages, the story -finally- picked up and grabbed my interest. Once you finally get a real idea of where it's going and the magic system at work (Which, I'm sorry, the author used a terrible and stupid sounding name for) the book turns around and leaves you wanting more. All issues aside, I will be putting in a request for the sequel at the library today.
So should you read the book? It is YA and it is a fairly fast read, which does work in it's favor for the first 400 pages. I would recommend checking this unique and interesting book out at the library before you buy. It's great at the end- IF you can get there!
I saw this back in 2006 on the new release shelf in Barnes and Noble, and my grandfather bought it for me. In all honesty, the book isn't terrible. But it's VERY cliche. A stereotypical fetch-quest story, with fairly stereotypical characters. The action never really kicks off, and the book tends to drag in places. The dialogue can also sound very jilted and unrealistic at times, which definitely pushes you out the story.
It is an early effort by a ‘new author' and at 695 pages for the paperback version, it's an impressive first book. Overall, this is an average ‘dungeon crawler, save the world from an evil wizard' story. Not the greatest, but certainly not the worst.
An enjoyable and fairly speedy read! I personally would have preferred the story to have been told a bit more seriously; Sanderson even states it's written in a ‘fairy tale adjacent' tone... And there was a good reason for it in the story, but alas, that's spoilers! But I loved the world, and longed for a more in depth plunge into it, with a more serious telling of the story itself, and detailed look into the characters. All in all, enjoyable, but not my favorite by Sanderson either. Very glad to have gotten in on the Kickstarter though, and looking forward to the future books.
X-Men and Star Trek: The Next Generation; it makes for an enjoyable book if you don't try to take it too seriously.
This is actually the sequel to a short comic entitled “Second Contact”, which has the hilarious premise of the crew of the Enterprise and the X-men teaming up to defeat a time traveling villain and setting right the time paradoxes he's created. If you've ever wanted to see Nightcrawler and Wolverine tear into some Borg, I'd suggest tracking down the comic as it's very entertaining with very nice art! But it is not necessary to read it to enjoy the book.
Overall the book itself is enjoyable. The flimsy excuse of an obscure planet suddenly having a mutant problem is just that- a flimsy excuse to write this really fun book. The writing is well rounded, even if a few of the characters come off a little flat, and while the plotline is predictable, it's still interesting. If you like either TNG, or the X-men, or just want to drive your geekiness level to the extreme, this is good read!
Being a complete newbie to the Sci-Fi genre (I read mostly fantasy) I picked this up at the library. I didn't notice at the time that the book was only one year younger then I am, and the majority of the stories were quite a bit older then the publication date of this collection. I enjoyed a few of the stories in it, but not enough that I would recommend this to anyone. I'm not sure whether it was the age of the writing, and that I'm simply not a fan of the styles at the time, or if the stories were legitimately not good. I just found this collection lacking, and would recommend that if you are new to the Sci-Fi world like I am, that you look for a newer, up to date collection that will be closer to the writing styles today.
This was just okay. The story, and general tone of the massive fandom around the series, feels a lot like Twilight for adults. The writing is a lot better than Twilight, but that's not a high bar. I enjoyed it well enough as a quick, fluff read. I even enjoyed it enough to pick up the second and third book.
Then I started the second book, and just could not get into it at all. The tonal shift, while justified by the characters experiences, was just not something I wanted to read. A rousing adventure ground into plodding pouting. Did the characters have some good reasons to pout? Oh yes. Was it enjoyable to read? Not in the slightest. I returned books two and three.
This one is enough for me. It's clearly the start of a series, but the story has enough of a conclusion (albeit a rushed one) to satisfy me. The world of this series is excellent; there just isn't a lot of the fae realm out there, and this was a nice change of pace. The idea of the story was great. But the cheesey love story, à la Twilight, is a drag, and the writing style is too simplistic with very little description. For a book about the fae realm, I expected more wonder. I'd love to see a more capable author tackle the basic story and setting, and really make them shine. But I won't be continuing with this.
Also, if you've seen any discussion about the series, and the author talking about character's “bowels going watery” out of fright... It doesn't happen that often. I think I counted two instances of Maas using that turn of phrase, and the phrasing itself wasn't exactly the same each time. Maybe she uses it more repetitively in further books, but here it wouldn't even have been noticable if people hadn't pointed it out so much.
I've also seen a lot of people complaining about the book ‘not making sense', which I don't understand at all. It makes perfect sense, there is no confusion. All I can think is that the series' popularity is drawing in a crowd who typically wouldn't fantasy, and wouldn't already have a basic awareness of how faeries are often depicted, or how magics tends to work in books. Fantasies frequently don't hand hold, and expect you to use context and have patience on understanding how magic systems operate. Just... Pay attention?
Didn't finish. It was as if the author was beating me with fantasy cliches. Poorly written, long winded descriptions, with forgettable, uninteresting and thoroughly over used characters. The first 70 pages is essentially Lord of the Rings; that's as far as I could manage before giving up. Felt like it was trying very, very hard to be ‘fantasy'.
Very much enjoyed, though it did feel like a “middle of a trilogy” book. But well worth the read if you enjoyed the first, and I'm excited to read the third and final book of the series!
Terrible. Absolutely terrible. Not even going to bother adding the rest of the books to my shelf; I owned (Sold them back to Half Price Books, only had them because my mother wanted to finish the series after I'd gotten a stripped copy of Twilight from work) and have read them all. The book is tacky, poorly written. It's as if the author can only think of one or two ways to describe the characters... And don't even get me started on the strangely developed relationships between the characters that simply don't make sense. All in all, the book is badly written, has a poorly developed plot line, unbelievable and shallow characters who interact in illogical ways, and is ultimately a huge letdown by the time you've finished the fourth book. Would not recommend.
Fast paced and imaginative, this is a fantastic take on Alice in Wonderland. While well written, it is a young adult book, and will likely appeal to a younger crowd better then more experienced and in-depth readers. I do wish however this had been written as an adult fantasy novel instead. I really do like the story line, but being a YA book, it simply doesn't go into enough detail. It would have a made a fantastic adult series if written for that audience; a shame it wasn't. All in all, looking forward to reading the sequel!
If your anything like me, you picked up this book because you love Dwarves. They're my favorite fantasy race, and it's difficult to find books that centers on them. This has, unfortunately, led me to read some books of questionable quality and this is one of them.
There are far too many main characters in the book to ever manage to really feel attached to any of them. Which is a good thing, as most of them will die. I'm not kidding here, the author seems to love to senselessly kill his characters off, oftentimes almost as an afterthought. There's so little back story to any of the characters, you start to get their names confused anyway, and are constantly having to look back to see who so-and-so was.
The story has a fairly short arc, going from bad to worse, and worse, and worse. It becomes almost painful to keep reading as dwarves die meaningless deaths, and more and more enemies are thrown at them for no real reason. As if thousands of Skaven weren't enough, Orcs and Goblins appear as well, and then a dragon shows up just because the dwarves weren't in enough trouble already.
On top of this, after finishing the book, I realized that the time line laid out doesn't really make any sense. Things that should have happened several years ago are spoken of as having occurred just months before... and small jumps in the times it would take for things like travel don't seem to add up.
The ending itself, while somewhat keeping with the dwarven lore set forth in the Warhammer universe, is just so bad you feel wronged by having read it. Ending the book in this way, with no hope for the few remaining characters, sank the battleship.
Honestly, the book seems rushed- if the story had been told over two or three longer books, it may have worked better. It needed the time to get back stories for the characters set out, properly describe locations, and have a story arc that flowed better. I can't say much for author's work; I found this book to be poorly written, but I haven't sampled anything else by him either. All in all, I wouldn't recommend this book, unless you were desperate. One would be better off reading Markus Heitz's “The Dwarves” series.
This was really cute. It's a very fast read, and the writing style is very fun, if a bit basic. Not very scary at all, which didn't bother me as horror isn't something I've read a lot of, but don't go into this expecting a masterpiece of horror writing that will have you sleeping with the lights on. It was downright silly in some parts. But I enjoyed it enough I'll be checking out the authors other works.
Also, A+ on the cover design, it's brilliant. All the 80's references were great; if you lived through the 80's (I was born in 88, but I still got all the references) you'll enjoy it. It's quite well done.
Every bit as good as the first book, well worth the read! I will say the complex, twisting plot can be confusing at times, which can lead to frustration. A lot of questions are also left unanswered at the end of the book. I do wish there had been a third in the series. Regardless, both books are very enjoyable, and it's fantastic to find out what happens at the end of the series.
Brilliant work! I must admit, this is my first step into the science fiction genre- it was recommended as such to me, and I found it to be perfect.
The plain writing style belies the depth of the story, and allows the reader to step into the world and see it from the character's point of view. The depth of emotion the author managed to put into this book is simply phenomenal. I found myself truly empathizing with the main characters, despising their enemies, worrying and rejoicing along with them.
While the majority of the story takes place in space, either on ships or space stations, the author doesn't waste time with endless descriptions of how fantastic the crafts are. The annoyingly detailed descriptions of various devices and ships from other science fiction works are one of the main reasons why I've always said I don't like the genre. I was pleased that the author treats his readers like intelligent people, gives description where description is needed, and leaves the rest to imagination.
Overall a brilliant story with a deep message, suitable for younger readers and adults alike. Well crafted, well paced, with a good twist of an ending. Wonderful!
A brilliant and unexpected ending to a mind-blowingly fantastic series. Could not recommend the trilogy highly enough. As always with Sanderson's works, the characters are believable, locations lush and well described. The action and story move quickly, and you'll find yourself flying through the pages, breathlessly waiting to find out what's next. A series, and author, every fantasy enthusiast should read!
A spectacular book- beautifully written, and magically enchanting. Well worth the read! Am eagerly awaiting the next!
Just finished this up, and it's spectacular. A fairly quick read and a fun jaunt of a book, with tons of fun references to Scooby-Doo, Lovecraftian Horror, and the like. Cantero's writing style is interesting, and not one I've encountered before, full of puns, alliteration, occasionally eve breaking the typical flow of the story to change from novel style writing into a movie script. I found it an interesting change from the usual, though I could see others disliking it greatly. Either way ‘Meddling Kids' is a fun read, and I'd very much recommend that everyone interested at least give it a try!
Really enjoyed this one! It front loads a ton of invented words for the two languages used in the world however, which makes it a bit challenging to start; there is an appendix in the back. Otherwise an interesting story with an unexpected sci-fi twist on a world where dinosaurs never went extinct and became the dominant species, instead of mammals. Have already started the next in the trilogy.
And yes, there is dinosaur sex (essentially rape). It isn't explicit though.
A brilliant conclusion to the initial saga of Ender. This book does not focus specifically on Ender, but more on all the characters involved in the fates of Lusitania, and most often on Jane, the computer based being who's life is threatened by the imminent shut down of all computer connections as ordered by the Starways Congress.
While overall this book is slower paced, there are still moments of frantic page turning. The story is beautifully written, the characters deep and believable, everything you've come to expect of an Ender novel. If you've enjoyed the Ender's Game series, you won't be disappointed here, and if you haven't yet read these books, you'd do well to pick them up!
A truly fantastic alternate history, introducing dragons into the Napoleonic wars. The book was an extremely fast read, but ever lacked for detail and story, a great pallet cleanser between thicker, heavier books. Already have the next in the series on hand, just waiting to be read!
This was a cute little book, and incredibly fast to read. Only a hint of spookiness, not scary at all. All around very enjoyable!
While the book was interesting, I grew to dislike the writing style over time. The author's lead ins to the next chapters were pointless, and he often seemed to be floating around the topic instead of just stating what needed to be stated. It seemed like an attempt to make the book longer.
I also found myself disagreeing with some of the theories presented in the book. In one part the author discusses how we do certain things during the day as part of a ritual to make ourselves feel secure; however, the majority of these were things people must do every day because they -have- to, and can't really be counted as rituals. Perhaps it was merely the way the book was stating this information, but it came off as not only pointless, but incorrect and misleading. And when something in a non fiction books makes me stop and think “What the heck is this BS?” it kind of throws off my mood for continuing on.
I came away feeling that instead of running all these exceedingly expensive brain scans, the advertising agencies could, at least in some cases, merely asked consumers how they felt about things. Anyone could have told them that no one pays attention to commercials, or that colors attract more attention then black and white advertisements.
All in all, it's still an interesting read and if you're interested I'd recommend getting it from the library as you likely won't ever be reading it again.. I mostly picked it up because I was interested in the author's other book “Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy”. However, I'm not sure I'll bother with the next book if it's full of annoying lead in's and “Well, duh!” information...