drews

I had previous watched the HBO Series His Dark Materials and did enjoy it the TV show and now I have started this series as a whole starting with the golden compass

This world has the feel of a steem fantasy set in a alternate earth universe where everyone has a animal companions referred to as daemons which for me at least is a unique take on alternative earth.

The world that we find our main character Lyra in, is controlled by a religious orgnization known as the maigsterium aka the catholic church which is reference in a few different ways and seems to, like the tv show to be heading into a conflict between religious dogma and scientific advancement, which I think is the point of these books to begin with.

One could argue I think that this is a young adult series, between the young protagonist and the animal companions in a way it has a kind of cozy feeling of growing up while taking on that call to adventure, like harry potter, Lyra is very young when she gets her call to adventure and I am certainly enjoying this book series so far.

I found the writing style to be simple and easy to read, while still doing a great job and world building and character development. The anthropomorephized bears with their armor are prob some of my fav aspects of this world, as well as the unique take on wtiches which unlike other fantasy, are not the typically dark, ugly forest women who prey on unsupecting victims lol

all around fun read and I look forward to reading the rest of the series.

I read this as part of my cantenbury classics of science fiction and fantasy.

This book/story is essentially a type of time travel story where a man gets hypnotized in 1887 and falls asleep for 113yrs to wake up in the future in the year 2000

Aside from that, there is really nothing really scifi about this at all. The entire story is really nothing more than a conversation between 2 people about socialist utopia of 2000 and how great it is vs capitilist society of 1887 with little to no arguments or points in favor of capitalism to any great extent and as such is much more of a manifesto on socialism than a inherent and true scifi story of any interest.

This book is full of ludicrous crazy ideas that do not comport with reality in anyway

That however is part of the fun of this book. It is for sure not character driven nor does it have any character development in any real way but it is full of adventure and a fun imaginitve ideas of what it is like in the center of the earth long before we knew anything about the actual make up of the earths crust or world

From underground oceans, to dinosaurs and prehistoric plants this book was honeslty entertaining.

That being said it is a bit dry in the writing style at times and the characters were a bit 2D, so it loses marks there but love the imagination behind this epic adventure, overall good, not great or amazing but good

Full disclaimer, I work in the Canadian Telecom industry so I will keep my comments brief rather than detailed to avoid any conflict of interest

For myself as this book is closely tied to my work it was a very interesting read and helped give me significant insight and anaylsis behind the headlines of one of the biggest mergers and aquitsitions in canadian history all while Rogers communications was going through significant changes to its top leadership over a 2-3 yr period in the wake of Ted Rogers death, the company patriarch and the one who started it all.

Its a good read if you are interested in corporate governance

An Ember in the Ashes is what I would describe as a grimdark fantasy. Slavery, violence, brutality, betrayal. An Empire with a stranglehold on the populace and a brutal military school sets the stage for a a dark, tense and rather enjoyable read

So many of the scenes and descriptions of what some of these characters have to endure brings out so much in the way of feelings of empathy. I found myself really caring about the characters and hoping to see them succeed.

If you are a fan of grimdark I feel like you will enjoy this one