Elaine Weaver

Loved this from start to finish! I hope we see more books from Alex Kingston in the future. She really does capture the spirit of both Doctor Who and her own legendary character.

Don't feel bad, Croaker. I'd wanna forget it too.

Well, I wanted to like this one, I really did. I remember the “Dragonlance” books fondly from my younger years but the truth is...it's just not that good. As others have pointed out, this tale is placed between two of the original books so it's hard to get worried for the characters...we know they're going to survive, after all.

And the thing is full of bad writing...I ran across one paragraph where the word “had” appeared in every single sentence. Added to this were a ton of editorial mistakes. Missing words and instances where a spell check “fixed” things and nobody caught it. It's almost like nobody was trying.

Will I read the other books in the series? Difficult to say. The whim may very well hit me as it did with this one. My advice to someone new to the world of Krynn would be to go back and read the original series.

I wonder if anyone ever counted how many times words like “violently” and “furiously” appeared in this book? Rated at three stars because it serves as an example of how NOT to write. Now I understand why Stephen King gets so triggered by adverbs. :)

glances at the headlines

Boy, I picked a hell of a time to re-read this one...

There are numerous complaints from other reviewers about this book being “boring”, but I found it pretty engaging for a history of a kingdom that never was. I wonder if Mr. Martin has ever considered chronicling the actual Wars of the Roses, which his series is said to be based upon.

Riding with the King is never a disappointment. I note that there is a strong focus on technology in this collection, and also a strong focus on dancing. Although it was a pleasure to visit with Holly Gibney again, my favorite was “Rat”–I always enjoy King's views of the world through a writer's eyes. I'd thought I knew how that one was going to end, but the boss pulled the rug out from under me quite handily. And that's all right.

If you haven't partaken of If It Bleeds yet, you should. Now. Go. Your local library is probably open again.

Sometimes I'm a little perplexed by what some people consider a “classic”. I never actually heard of this as a younger reader, though its 1962 publication date should have put it squarely under my radar. Not until the Disney adaptation came out and the patrons in my library began requesting it did I learn of it.

It's not that it's a bad book, it touches upon the redeeming qualities that its young audience should certainly treasure. It's just that the method for touching upon these is flailing around in the manner of someone trying to find the light switch in a darkened room. On the way it brushes past some rather interesting ideas about navigating time and space, but doesn't really do much with them.

Character development is clumsy as well, it seems to me. It's a given that the heroine must mature before she can save the day, but there's no need to make her that annoying. The powerful and mysterious aliens (or angels, or whatever they are) are more patient with her than her own father, whom she is trying to save.

In the future I plan to check out the other books in the series, just to see if those interesting ideas ever took root. In the meantime...it's okay for a quick weekend read, but C.S. Lewis has nothing to worry about.

Some argue that there are too many books to be read out there for a person to re-read them. I disagree; like a beloved song you get something new from a book each time you read it. And what better time to re-read The Stand than during a real pandemic? COVID-19 is not as lethal as Captain Trips, nor is anyone I know plagued with weird dreams. But the journey was great, as always, and I even picked up a new word from the lexicon of the Judge...“botheration”.

Shelf-bender or not, this King classic is definitely worth the “botheration” of lugging it about. A great tale, his greatest in my opinion.

I probably would have spent less time on the characters' romantic entanglements, which bloated the book and added little if anything to the narrative. However, overall a thoughtful look at how we would cope with a drastically altered post-apocalypse Earth.