Review: "Towers of Midnight" by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan

The world conceived by Robert Jordan marches inexorably toward its Final Battle in Brandon Sanderson’s “Towers of Midnight” ($29.99, Tor), the penultimate (so we hope) installment of The Wheel of Time.

Since Sanderson took over to complete the tale, based on Jordan’s notes dictated before his death, the story, which had stalled in some of its middle chapters, has moved steadily forward. In “Towers of Midnight,” we see the Dragon Reborn, Rand al’Thor, continue to unite the world behind him for his battle with the ultimate evil. All of the pieces for that fight are now in place. The White Tower of the Aes Sedai has been made whole under the rule of Rand’s childhood friend Egwene al’Vere. Perrin Aybara and Matrim Cauthon have both amassed their armies to bring together under Rand’s banner. Elayne, carrying Rand’s twin children, has taken control of Andor and has her sights set on Caemlyn. And they all begin to converge for the finale in this book.

Review: "Furies of Calderon," by Jim Butcher

I remember when I received Jim Butcher’s “Furies of Calderon” (Ace, $9.99) several years ago, and I was both excited and a little reluctant to read it. I was, and remain, a huge fan of Butcher’s Dresden Files, which follow the misadventures of Chicago’s only wizard-for-hire Harry Dresden. I was interested in his take on what he called “swords and horses fantasy,” but at the same time, I was mainly interested in reading more about Harry. I got started on the book, but for whatever reason, I just couldn’t get into it, so I put it down after a couple of chapters and moved on.

A few weeks ago, I was looking around for my next read and decided that, while I’m waiting on the newest Dresden book in July, I’d give this series another chance. I’m glad I did.

Review: "The Journey" by Kathryn Lasky

After enjoying the first book in the Guardians of Ga’Hoole series, my son and I eagerly tackled Kathryn Lasky’s second book of the series, “The Journey” ($5.99, Scholastic). Unfortunately, we came away with mixed feelings on this one.

The book picks up with Soren and his band of friends – Gylfie, Twilight and Digger – still trying to find their way to the legendary Great Ga’Hoole Tree. While they’re on their journey, running into various types of owls and even getting into a fracas with a bobcat, the story remains fast-paced and entertaining. Once they find the home of the Guardians, however, things take a bit of a turn as the four try to find their place in the tree’s society.

Review: "Banewreaker" by Jacqueline Carey

You might not recognize the characters and places in Jacqueline Carey’s “Banewreaker” ($7.99, Tor), but the story will be very familiar.

In essence, the book is a play on J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings,” with a twist. It’s told from the point of view of Satoris the Third Born, or Satoris the Sunderer to his enemies He is basically Carey’s version of Sauron. The world of Urulat has been divided by a war between the Shapers, the gods who formed the world and its inhabitants. The dispute stemmed from a disagreement between Satoris and Haomane, the First Born. Satoris, bearing a never-healing wound from the fight, has been exiled to Darkhaven, where he lives with his Fjelltroll and three immortal champions pulled from the world of men and Ellyl (elves). Now a star of omen has risen, signaling the fact that Haomane’s forces are on the move against Satoris.

Review: "Shadow's Edge" by Brent Weeks

I was introduced to Brent Weeks at the airport. I had brought a book on the trip with me that turned out to be a dud, and I was looking for something to read. His first book of the Night Angel Trilogy, “The Way of Shadows,” was the only one in the airport book store that was able to catch my eye, and I was immediately drawn in to his tale of an orphan turned master assassin.

It’s taken me a little more than a year to make it to the second book in the series, “Shadow’s Edge” ($7.99, Orbit), but I fell back into the story with ease.

The Khalidoran Godking Garoth Ursuul has taken brutal control of Cenaria, grinding the city under his bootheels and turning the warrens where the poor people of the city live into even more of a living hell. Kylar Stern, having found love with Elene, the orphan that he once called Doll Girl, and being charged with taking care of his former master’s child Uly, has decided to retire from the assassin’s life. He has bribed his way out of Cenaria, traveling to stay with Elene’s family while he sets up shop as an herbalist. He quickly finds, though, that the life of violence he’s known is harder than he expected to leave behind.

Review: "The Capture" by Kathryn Lasky

My son and I have discovered a few bedtime reads lately via movie adaptations. The latest is Kathryn Lasky’s “The Capture” ($5.99, Scholastic).

My son first saw “Legend of the Guardians” in the theater with his grandmother, and for the past six months, I’ve been hearing how “awesome” it was. We finally rented it on Blu-Ray a month or so ago, and I found that I had to agree with him. Both of us were eager to dig into the books.

Like most adaptations, the movie and book are quite a bit different. It wasn’t nearly as different as one of our last book-to-movie reads, “How to Train Your Dragon,” but still not an entirely faithful adaptation. For one thing, “The Capture” only covers the very beginnings of the movie. I’m assuming that the movie covers an overarching story line from all or at least several of the books.

Review: "20th Century Ghosts" by Joe Hill

I have to admit that I’m rapidly becoming a Joe Hill fanboy. He first impressed me several years ago with his debut novel “Heart-Shaped Box,” which ranks as one of my favorite horror tales ever, and a few weeks ago, I enjoyed his latest novel, “Horns.” That led me, naturally, to the only other book Hill has in print, “20th Century Ghosts” ($13.95, Harper), a collection of short stories.

I admit that I’m not normally a fan of short story collections, but the tales in this book endeared me to Hill’s work even more. I’m reluctant to make the comparison, for obvious reasons, but reading “20th Century Ghosts” reminded me a lot of reading Ray Bradbury’s “The October Country” for the first time. Like my favorite Bradbury collection, there’s plenty of weirdness and creepiness in the pages of these stories, but there’s also a good mix of wonder, sweetness and observations on human nature.

Review: "Full Dark, No Stars," by Stephen King

Outside of the concluding books of “The Dark Tower,” which I had waited years on, and the non-fiction “On Writing,” which I enjoyed, I haven’t picked up a Stephen King book in quite a few years. The last few efforts I read, prior to his accident, were disappointing and didn’t hold my attention. A week or so ago, though, a perfect storm led me to his latest collection, “Full Dark, No Stars” ($27.99, Scribner).

After enjoying the latest from King’s son, Joe Hill, I was in the mood for something creepy and disturbing. “Full Dark, No Stars” just happened to be waiting on my Nook and, not having any other new books that came close to what I was looking for, I decided to give it a shot. The collection contains four short tales (a point in its favor since many of the last King novels I read felt bloated and in bad need of an editor) that are, in fact, horrific and disturbing because of their very nature.

Review: "Horns," by Joe Hill

I was both impressed and inspired by Joe Hill’s debut novel, “Heart-Shaped Box,” a few years ago, so I’ve been looking forward to digging into his latest, “Horns” ($25.99, William Morrow) for a while now.

Ignatius “Ig” Perrish once had a promising future ahead of him. He’s part of a well-to-do and well-connected family, in love with the girl of his dreams and has plans to save the world. Those plans all come crashing down on the eve of his departure for a six-month stay in England. He has a public fight with his girlfriend, Merrin, and when she’s found dead the next day, the suspicion falls on him. Ig is innocent, but having spent the night sleeping it off in his car, he has no alibi. When evidence from the scene that could have cleared his name is destroyed in a lab fire, Ig can’t be convicted, but neither can he be absolved. Now everyone in his life thinks he’s a murderer/rapist who got away with his crime because of family connections.

Freebies: Chapter 1 of Steven Erikson's "The Crippled God"

Tor.com is currently offering the first chapter of Steven Erikson's upcoming book, "The Crippled God," for free with registration. The book, scheduled for release in March, is intended to be the final installment in the "Malazan Book of the Fallen." To read the chapter, head to Tor.com.

Review: "Side Jobs" by Jim Butcher

For those left hanging and wondering by the somewhat shocking end to Jim Butcher’s last novel of the Dresden Files, “Changes,” here’s a collection that will help hold you over until the next installment this summer when we can find out just what the heck is going on with Harry.

“Side Jobs” ($25.95, Roc) collects a variety of Dresden stories from various anthologies over the years, and also gives readers a look at two never-before-published stories. Those two will likely be of most interest to fans.

The first, “A Restoration of Faith,” opens the book and also happens to be Butcher’s first tale of wizard private investigator Harry Dresden as he saves a runaway girl (who really doesn’t care to be saved) from a bridge troll in Chicago. It was not published, and you can see why when you read it, though it’s not as bad as Butcher seems to think judging by his opening commentary. I’ve read worse stories that did get published.

Review: "Wicked" by Gregory Maguire

Here’s the first effort in my campaign to catch up with some of the books that I’ve missed while trying to keep my reviews current over the last decade or so. I’ve wanted to read Gregory Maguire’s “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West” ($7.99, Harper) for quite a while, but just never have gotten around to it. Upon finishing it, my feelings were mixed.

The story, of course, is an attempt to give the reader an alternate view of, perhaps, one of the greatest villains of all time, the Wicked Witch of the West. It begins with her birth to a man consumed by his religion and his bored and unhappy wife, and follows her life, more or less, to her ultimate end at the hands of Dorothy. It attempts to paint the Wicked Witch, Elphaba, as a more sympathetic character than in L. Frank Baum’s book or the classic film. In some ways, Maguire succeeds, but in others he fails. While we do see some flashes of nobility in Elphaba’s character here and there, by and large, she remains mean, nasty, unlikable and unsympathetic. Through the story, (which has nothing to do with Baum’s books or the movie until toward the end) we begin to understand more about her and how she became the villain she is, but we’re also not really that upset when Dorothy douses her with a pail of water at the end, either.

Something a little different

For the few folks that may still be following my infrequent reviews, there will be a slight change coming to this blog. Hopefully, there will be more reviews and content than in recent months, but the books reviewed may be a little different.

The realities of the newspaper business these days mean that there's less space for and less interest in things like book reviews. The bad news is that I no longer really have a print outlet for my reviews. The good news is that this will give me an opportunity to go back and take a look at some books that I missed or skipped in recent years. For the past 10 years or so, I've passed on a lot of books that I wanted to read, trying to keep my reading fairly current for the reviews. Now I have the chance to revisit some of those.

So, for those still reading, there will still be reviews here, and hopefully more. There will still be some new releases mixed in, too, but you'll most likely see a lot of older books mixed in, and with the new addition of my Nook, possibly some ebook releases. Maybe it will help you guys discover something you missed as well.

Review: "The Gathering Storm" by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan

For the few folks who are still following my infrequent book reviews, my frustration with Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series is certainly no secret. After being pulled in by the excellent first book of the series, “The Eye of the World,” in 1990, and proclaiming Jordan as the next Tolkien to all of my friends who would listen with the following few books, he began to lose the thread of the story. I gave up on the series a few books back after slogging through several 1,000-page plus doorstops in which Jordan’s storyline barely moved forward at all.

Then, of course, Jordan passed away in 2007, before he was able to complete the unwieldy series. Brandon Sanderson was tapped by Jordan’s family to write the final book of the Wheel of Time based on Jordan’s notes and conversations with his wife in his final days in which he laid out how the story should end. Shortly thereafter, it was announced that the “final” book would now be three books, which immediately made me assume that it would be business as usual with this series, keeping the frustrating story going even farther beyond its life cycle.

My plan was always to return for the final book, if it ever arrived, so that I could see how things turned out with these characters I’ve known for more than 20 years now. My curiosity about how Sanderson would continue the story finally got the best of me, though, and a month or so ago, I picked up the paperback version of “The Gathering Storm” ($9.99, Tor). I’m pleasantly surprised.

Review: "Kill the Dead" by Richard Kadrey

Richard Kadrey continues his tale of James Stark, aka Sandman Slim, in his latest efford, “Kill the Dead” ($22.99, Eos).

Stark is a man who has literally been through Hell. A feud with a rival magician sent him there, but he clawed his way out. He now lives in Los Angeles and, much to his disappointment, is regaining his humanity. The layers of scars from wounds suffered in the arenas of Hell that he uses as armor are beginning to fade. He runs a video store and takes occasional assignments from the Golden Vigil, a secret government organization run by an angel that deals with supernatural issues. His luck isn’t going so well. Then he gets a call from Lucifer. He’ll be in town working on a biographical film about himself, and he wants Sandman Slim, a legend in the supernatural community, by his side as a bodyguard. Stark accepts the assignment, but it leads him in even stranger directions.

Review: "Discord's Apple" by Carrie Vaughn

When Evie Walker returns home from Los Angeles to the small town of Hope’s Fort, Colo., to care for her terminally ill father, she gets quite a bit more than she bargained for in Carrie Vaughn’s “Discord’s Apple” ($23.99, Tor).

Walker lives in a world that has broken down. Terrorist attacks have led to martial law in many areas, including her new home of Los Angeles. Most of the nations of the world are at odds with each other and on the brink of open warfare. In this environment, she writes a comic book somewhat similar to World War II-era Captain America that features a patriotic military team and revolves around current events. But she puts her life on hold when she learns of her father’s illness to head back to a place she thought she’d left forever.

Soon after she returns, strange people begin to appear in Hope’s Fort and strange things begin to happen. When a woman shows up asking for something in the storeroom of her father’s house, Evie discovers a warehouse of mythical and magical treasures from throughout the ages. Her family has been charged with guarding the treasures for generations, and she is destined to take up the mantle from her father whether she likes it or not. But things are changing rapidly, and not everyone who comes looking for something from the storeroom has a right to it.

Review: "The Fall" by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan return with the second installment of their trilogy about an epidemic that has turned people into walking vampiric viruses, “The Fall” ($26.99, Harper).

In the first installment, “The Strain,” the scene was set with a creature known as the Master arriving in New York City and unleashing the virus on an unsuspecting public, creating waves of creatures that are part vampire, part zombie. The outbreak has now spread to all corners of the globe, and with governments scrambling to cover up the truth about the virus and calmed panic citizens, the world doesn’t stand a chance.

With the setup out of the way, the second installment starts with a bang. Ephraim Goodweather, a former agent with the Center for Disease Control and now a wanted man due to some political wrangling after he spoke the truth about the virus in the first book, is torn between trying to rid the world of the virus on his own and protecting his son from his ex-wife, who has been turned and is now stalking her son across the city. He’s joined by aging Holocaust survivor and vampire hunter Abraham Setrakian, who has been obsessed with destroying the Master since he first met him at a German concentration camp, a former New York City exterminator Vasiliy Fet, who has discovered that ridding the city of vampires is much like ridding the city of rats, and Eph’s CDC partner Nora, who he has a complicated relationship with.

Review: "The Bird of the River" by Kage Baker

Unfortunately, my introduction to the works of Kage Baker comes with the posthumous release of her latest novel “Bird of the River” ($25.99, Tor).

The book follows the coming-of-age tale of a teenage girl named Eliss, who is caring for her addict mother and her half-breed younger brother Alder. Since the death of Eliss’ father, the family has moved from place to place, living with various “uncles,” some good, some downright nasty. In a last-ditch effort to save the family, Eliss manages to find a captain that will give her mother a second chance as a diver on the Bird of the River, a barge charged with keeping the river clear of snags and obstructions. But a diving accident leaves Eliss and Alder orphaned and having to find their own way aboard the ship.

Review: "Dragon Haven" by Robin Hobb

With “Dragon Haven” ($27.99, Eos), Robin Hobb continues her tale of a ragtag band of social outcasts and malformed dragons on their quest to find the mythical city of Kelsingra, where once dragons and humans lived in peace.

In the first book of the two-part series, “Dragon Keeper,” the dragon Tintaglia led a group of serpents from the sea to cocoon in the Rain Wilds and become dragons, a species gone missing from the world until Tintaglia herself hatched. But the dragons that came from this hatching were small and misshapen, pale imitations of the former glory the creatures once were. After they became a drain on the local towns, the leaders chose a group of young Rain Wilders, marked by their harsh existence with scales, claws and other unusual deformities, to lead the dragons to the ancient city in the creatures’ ancestral memory.

With the setup out of the way, “Dragon Haven” opens on the arduous journey, which finds both the dragons and their human companions growing, maturing and changing. Despite mounting tension among the keepers caused by their would-be leader Greft, who is under the influence of a hunter who has tagged along in hopes of bringing back dragon parts to sell, things seem to be going as well as could be expected. The dragons are growing stronger and more capable as they travel and hunt their own food, as are the humans that tend them. Things go awry, though, when a wall of acid-tainted water cascades down the unpredictable Rain Wilds River and slams into the expedition, dashing their boats and supplies and scattering them. The hardships in the wake of the wave spur the real change in both people and dragons. Secrets are revealed, new bonds are formed, and no one involved in the expedition remains untouched for good or ill.

In “Dragon Keeper,” Hobb presented dragons that were much more human than the average depiction of the mythical beast. Her dragons had weaknesses, failings and doubts, and were more relatable. In “Dragon Haven,” a metamorphosis begins that brings the dragons closer to the haughty, arrogant and proud race of creatures that you expect, but at the same time, there remain flaws that stand out like the chink in Smaug’s armor. Though the focus of the book remains with the humans, it’s almost more interesting to watch the changes that take place in the dragons and how they develop. Then again, it could just be because dragons continue to fascinate me after all these years, and I’m always interested in a slightly different take on them. Hobb certainly delivers that.

Ultimately, though, no matter how interesting the concept, you also must have a good story, and that’s where the human characters come in. The twists, turns, secrets and deceptions do occasionally wander a little too far toward soap opera melodramatics, but in the end it all comes together to create a satisfying story.

“Dragon Haven” leaves as many questions about what will happen to the dragons and their keepers as it answers. I’d be interested to revisit at some point down the road and see how things turn out.

Review: "Dead in the Family" by Charlaine Harris

I guess everyone needs a break now and then, and certainly Charlaine Harris’ telepathic waitress Sookie Stackhouse has hit a lull in the series’ latest entry “Dead in the Family” ($25.95, Ace).
It’s not that there’s not plenty of action in the book. Quite a bit happens. In fact, the story is kind of like a supernatural family reunion as more fairy members of Sookie’s family show up, members of the vampire Eric’s family arrive to cause trouble, some secret’s about Bill Compton’s family are revealed and even Merlotte’s owner Sam is having troubles with his family because of the weres and shifters going public.

Among all that, there are also larger problems in the world of the books. Most notably, some are pushing for registration of the two-natured, just as they have the vampires who went public. Eric is still having troubles with his new boss in the vampire world, Victor Madden, and there’s upheaval in the Shreveport pack of weres.

Despite all that, “Dead in the Family” seems to plod just a little. There are flashes of action here and there, but it just doesn’t quite have the same spark that some of the previous volumes had. It’s more like a breather in between the explosive action that ended the previous volume and things that are on the horizon.

It also seems to me that there’s a little more of HBO’s “True Blood,” based on the books, seeping into Harris’ work in this volume. Certainly for those of us who both read the books and watch the series, the differing storylines can get a bit confusing. For example, I was almost sure that Bill had told Sookie in a previous volume how he was turned, but now I’m thinking that might have been in “True Blood,” and either way, the story that I’m remembering differs from the one told in this book.

At the end of the day, “Dead in the Family” is still an enjoyable read and it keeps me interested in the continuing story of Sookie and all of the strangeness that surrounds her. But it doesn’t leave me with that same sense of excitement that some of the earlier tales did. Hopefully things will get back on track with the next volume.