Books Received in December 2017

Many thanks to TOR for the following review copies.

The Will to Battle by Ada Palmer - Book three of the Terra Ignota series. I thought Too Like the Lightning was absolutely brilliant but had some issues with Seven Surrenders. The series is so involved that I might wait until the last book is out before reading this, as I'll have to reread or skim the previous books in order to get the most out of this.

The long years of near-utopia have come to an abrupt end.

Peace and order are now figments of the past. Corruption, deception, and insurgency hum
within the once steadfast leadership of the Hives, nations without fixed location.

The heartbreaking truth is that for decades, even centuries, the leaders of the great Hives
bought the world's stability with a trickle of secret murders, mathematically planned. So
that no faction could ever dominate. So that the balance held.

The Hives' façade of solidity is the only hope they have for maintaining a semblance of
order, for preventing the public from succumbing to the savagery and bloodlust of wars
past. But as the great secret becomes more and more widely known, that façade is
slipping away.

Just days earlier, the world was a pinnacle of human civilization. Now everyone-Hives
and hiveless, Utopians and sensayers, emperors and the downtrodden, warriors and
saints-scrambles to prepare for the seemingly inevitable war.

Hymn by Ken Scholes - This is the final book in the fantastic Psalms of Isaac series. I've reviewed all of the books in the series (Lamentation, Canticle, Antiphon, Requiem, Hymn). The books have a lot of intrigue and blend science with magic. The series hasn't received nearly as much attention as it deserves. It does get heavy at times (book 2 has a lot of torture), but it's well worth it.

The battle for control of The Named Lands has captivated readers as they have learned, alongside the characters, the true nature of world called Lasthome.

Now the struggle between the Andro-Francine Order of the Named Lands and the Y'Zirite Empire has reached a terrible turning point. Believing that his son is dead, Rudolfo has pretended to join with the triumphant Y'zirite forces-but his plan is to destroy them all with a poison that is targeted only to the enemy.

In Y'Zir, Rudolfo's wife Jin Li Tam is fighting a war with her own father which will bring that Empire to ruin.

And on the Moon, Neb, revealed as one of the Younger Gods, takes the power of the Last Home Temple for his own.

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson - The Stormlight Archive book 3.

In Oathbringer, the third volume of the New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive, humanity faces a new Desolation with the return of the Voidbringers, a foe with numbers as great as their thirst for vengeance.

Dalinar Kholin's Alethi armies won a fleeting victory at a terrible cost: The enemy Parshendi summoned the violent Everstorm, which now sweeps the world with destruction, and in its passing awakens the once peaceful and subservient parshmen to the horror of their millennia-long enslavement by humans. While on a desperate flight to warn his family of the threat, Kaladin Stormblessed must come to grips with the fact that the newly kindled anger of the parshmen may be wholly justified.

Nestled in the mountains high above the storms, in the tower city of Urithiru, Shallan Davar investigates the wonders of the ancient stronghold of the Knights Radiant and unearths dark secrets lurking in its depths. And Dalinar realizes that his holy mission to unite his homeland of Alethkar was too narrow in scope. Unless all the nations of Roshar can put aside Dalinar's blood-soaked past and stand together-and unless Dalinar himself can confront that past-even the restoration of the Knights Radiant will not prevent the end of civilization.

Shout-Out: Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley

Since she was a baby, Aza Ray Boyle has suffered from a mysterious lung disease that makes it ever harder for her to breathe, to speak—to live. So when Aza catches a glimpse of a ship in the sky, her family chalks it up to a cruel side effect of her medication. But Aza doesn’t think this is a hallucination. She can hear someone on the ship calling her name.

Only her best friend, Jason, listens. Jason, who’s always been there. Jason, for whom she might have more-than-friendly feelings. But before Aza can consider that thrilling idea, something goes terribly wrong. Aza is lost to our world—and found by another. Magonia.

Above the clouds, in a land of trading ships, Aza is not the weak and dying thing she was. In Magonia, she can breathe for the first time. Better, she has immense power—but as she navigates her new life, she discovers that war between Magonia and Earth is coming. In Aza’s hands lies the fate of the whole of humanity—including the boy who loves her. Where do her loyalties lie?

Christmas Prezzies

Santa was very nice to me this year. I'm hoping he was just as good to all of you.  Here are some things you'll (hopefully) be hearing more of next year (when I put these together/read/watch them).

As a kid I was really into semi precious gems. I actually tried to find geodes at the beach one year (spoiler alert: I didn't find any - they don't form on beaches). I'm thinking of cutting the geodes open rather than smashing them with a hammer so I have display worthy pieces at the end (assuming of course some of the geodes look cool inside). I've also seen these crystal growing kits around and wanted to try one, so that's great.

I've been getting into these mini dollhouse DIY kits. You get all the component parts and put the diorama together. Once my homemade alchemy one is done I'll do a few of these.

Metal puzzles! They take a few hours - and a whole lot of patience - to put together, but they look incredible when done.

And it wouldn't be a holiday without some books! I got a Viking book and a DVD learning set. I got some other books as well, but as these themed, they made the blog post.

Did you get anything fun for Christmas this year?

Book Review: Authority by Jeff Vandermeer

This is book two of the Southern Reach trilogy. 

Pros: interesting characters, interesting mystery

Cons: drawn out, boring at times

John Rodriguez, or Control, as he prefers to be called, is assigned as the new director of the Southern Reach project, the organization that oversees Area X. His assistant director, Grace, is openly hostile, while the remains of the science team are a helpful, if slightly unhinged bunch. Even his handler, the mysterious Voice, whom he phones reports in to daily, becomes antagonistic towards him as the days pass. Control isn’t sure how he’s supposed to bring the agency under control considering the opposition, especially when it becomes clear that secrets have been kept from him.

While it’s not essential to read book one in order to understand the majority of this book, the biologist does play a role and some information from Area X makes more sense if you have read that book.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I enjoyed getting to know Control and seeing the inner workings of the Southern Reach. While I understood some of Grace’s resistence to his being there, her continued undermining of his job started to grate on my nerves. Indeed, about 200 pages into the book I began to realize that I didn’t like any of the characters and no longer cared if Control succeeded in his mission.

I really wanted to learn more about the organization and Area X, but the book’s more interested in the inner working of Control and how the various revelations affect his mental state. While the mystery was interesting, so little was uncovered by the 3/4 mark and in such roundabout ways (scenes intercut with other scenes, making it hard at time to piece together what was present and what was past) that I found myself getting bored and no longer caring what was going on. Things picked up in the last third of the book, getting first fascinating, and then kind of boring again. 

The book brings up a lot of new questions but doesn’t answer many. I’m wary of reading the third book for fear that no answers are coming.

Merry Christmas to All, and to All a Good Night

Wishing you all a Merry and Safe Christmas.

Movie Review: The House on Haunted Hill

Directed by William Castle and Rosemary Horvath, 1959

IMDb listing

Pros: melodramatic, some good acting, interesting story, some decent scares

Cons: melodramatic, some cheesy special effects

Millionaire Frederick Loren invites five strangers to join him and his wife for a party at a haunted house. If they survive the night, he’ll give them each $10 000. 

Nora Manning, a secretary who wants the payout to help support her family, starts seeing things first. As her hysteria mounts and more terrifying things happen, a body is found and one of them is a murderer. Unless it’s the ghosts Mr. Pritchard (the house’s owner) insists are growing restless.

The movie starts off in an unusual manner, with a floating head of Mr. Pritchard explaining that the house is haunted. You then see Mr. Loren (played masterfully by Vincent Price)’s floating head introducing the five guests and his wife’s… strange sense of humour. 

There are some genuinely tense moments, especially around Nora. Her screaming can get a bit unnerving, especially towards the end of the film.

The special effects are a bit on the cheesy side, which isn’t surprising given when the movie was made. The fake head was not very convincing.

On the whole I was impressed by this. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a fun horror film. 

Shout-Out: Inquisitor by Michael Hogan

Inquisitor Angel Xia, former mercenary turned detective, is used to being the hunter. But on another routine murder investigation the bodies begin to pile up, and Angel finds herself a target of sinister powers determined to conceal the truth.

The hunter has just become the hunted.

Betrayed by those she trusted most, and barely escaping assassination attempts, Angel receives a cryptic message from child begging for her help. Framed for horrific crimes, the only chance to clear her name is inextricably linked to a little girl.

Running for her life, Angel races to forgotten places at the edges of known space that hold the darkest secrets of humanity…and the greatest threat to its future.

And all will be determined by what she chooses to do next. That is…if she can stay alive.