Category Archives: Books

by | March 17, 2009

The Shack: more of a Shambles

A Christian friend of mine lent me a copy of The Shack a few months ago and I figured that I’d read it. I might be a bit of a heathen but I have quite an interest in theological things.

This book has an enormous following around the world with well over a million copies of this 248 page book in circulation and glowing tributes printed all over the cover, front and back.

I have no idea why this is so. I thought it was a rather badly written book with dubious ideas.

Don’t get me wrong – I quite liked the idea behind it. A guy’s daughter is abducted and presumably murdered, he has a crisis of faith before God comes along and explains a few Truths about the purpose of life and the love that God has for His creation.

My main problems with the book arise from the fact that the author really isn’t a very good writer. His prose is adequate enough I suppose, but he’s more talented amateur than professional novelist. It’s all a bit preachy too, especially if you don’t think that we all descended from Adam.

I hear from another Christian friend that there’s some rather dodgy religion in here too. I can understand why. The book portrays the Holy Trinity is a rather unusual way. Nothing wrong with that but the author’s made some very strange choices with the characters that he’s picked. He’s also unable to portray his character’s voices in a convincing way – just about all the speech in the book in indistinguishable between characters (author’s voice rather than the character’s) and it really spoiled the whole read for me.

Clearly this book wasn’t aimed at me. It has no hope of changing my opinion about the creation of mankind especially as it uses a very literal Christian view of Creation. It isn’t written well enough to engage me as a novel as I really didn’t care about any of the characters.

So, why do so many people rave about it?

Not my cup of tea

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by | January 27, 2009

…and the Wheel turns

One of my favourite book series is The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordon. It was a monumentally long series of books – 12 in total – although Jordan sadly died before he could finish it. I’ve read the first ten and despite the tenth book being immensely dull I would love to finally get around to finding out how it all ends up.

I still need to read Knife of Dreams, the 11th in the series, but Jordan died before completing the final volume. Luckily for us Brandon Sanderson has been asked to finish it all off and this book, called A Memory of Light, will be released towards the end of the year.

To mark this event, and to jog our memories, Tor contributor Leigh Butler is reading all 11 books and commenting on each and every chapter in a series of posts over at Tor.com. This is a huge task – the first four entries are up already – but Leigh is very obviously passionate about the Wheel of Time (having already created the Wheel of Time FAQ) and she writes with wonderfully witty prose. I like her writing a lot and I’m enjoying her read-through very much.

I think I need to get hold of Knife of Dreams soon and get it read, if only to find out what happens to Egwene. In the meantime I’m going to repeat the advice that I gave to Obama for Brandon Sanderson:

Don’t fuck it up.

Many thanks for finishing off the series too.

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by | July 23, 2008

Down On The Farm – Charles Stross

I seem to be in the mood for free short stories from Tor! After reading through, and thoroughly enjoying After The Coup by John Scalzi I’ve just read the other free story on the Tor site – Down on the Farm by Charles Stross.

I’ve not read anything by him before but I do have one of his books on a free PDF (via those lovely people at Tor) on my drive somewhere. I’m almost certainly going to have to read it very soon as this story was excellent.

It’s a little longer than Scalzi’s effort but still short enough at 36 pages. It visits an old universe of Stross’s that features some secret organisation called The Laundry. These black suiters deal with all sorts of otherworldly shenanigans, apparently, and this story involves a bit of advanced mathematics, 1960s computer systems and demonic possession of some description.

It’s funny and rather exciting too. The storyline is quite unexpected and satisfying. Read it if you have a spare 20 minutes or so.

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by | July 23, 2008

After The Coup – John Scalzi

US Sci-Fi and Fantasy book publishers Tor have launched their new website recently and are celebrating this event with a couple of free stories.

The first of these is by one of my new favourite authors, John Scalzi. I really enjoyed his novel Old Man’s War and his US publisher, Tor, have persuaded him to write a short story set in the same universe. It features one of the main side-characters from that first novel, Harry, and can be downloaded in multiple formats, or just read on the webpage in plain text, right over HERE.

It’s very good. 24 pages of an amusing little episode where Harry gets to have his face punched in. It’s certainly not very serious stuff but it does set the tone for the novels. If you like this, and you probably will, then you’ll love the novels.

I really should get hold of The Ghost Brigades before too long. Thank you Tor for the free stuff, and thanks to John Scalzi for giving us the new story.

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by | April 6, 2008

The Runes of the Earth by Stephen Donaldson

It’s been a long, long time since I read any of the Thomas Covenant novels. I started the original trilogy back in the mid-80s while I was supposed to be revising for my O-levels. I found all three books far more interesting and exciting than maths and physics, but despite my lack of revision I still managed to pass some of my exams.

The second trilogy similarly interrupted my A-levels two years later. Once again I somehow managed to pass my exams but I often wonder how well I would have done had I not been too busy enjoying the excellent writings of Stephen Donaldson.

The first six books in the Thomas Covenant saga are among my most favourite of all books. I was hopelessly drawn into the trials of The Land, even if the subject matter was often somewhat downbeat. Covenant was the ultimate anti-hero and unlikely subject for a fantasy series – a rapist novelist with leprosy and a mad wife.

The third chronicles seem certain to be a quadrilogy, the final book of four not being released until 2013. It seems an awfully long time to wait between books but the wait will be worth it – the first entry, Runes of the Earth, is just brilliant.

It takes a little while to get going. Linden Avery, doctor and healer of The Land in the previous trilogy, is the point of focus for this book. She’s been caring for Thomas Covenant’s ex-wife Joan while bringing up her adopted son Jeremiah. The story introduces Covenant’s son, Roger, and circumstances deteriorate in spectacular fashion returning Linden Avery to The Land.

It seems that Lord Foul has somehow transpired to capture Joan (with her wild magic inspiring white gold wedding ring) along with Linden’s son. Queue much misery, such is the way of Stephen Donaldson’s writings.

There are some astonishing scenes during Linden Avery’s search for her son. I can hardly wait to read the second book, Fatal Revenent, but I may wait until the paperback comes out. With the third and fourth books not yet published I may as well catch a few more novels before leaping back into the story, even if Donaldson did leave the storyline teetering on the brink of disaster/redemption in an extremely masterful way.

Donaldson’s prose is sometimes a little too wordy but his plotting and characterisations are quite wonderful. This novel is as good as anything else in the series and I can heartily recommend it.

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by | March 28, 2008

Free Sci-Fi

Now that I’m getting back into reading again I’ve been pleased to see that so many publishers are releasing free copies of some of their books. I think this is a great way to get people to read authors’ works that they perhaps wouldn’t have done normally.

I’ve managed to find a few books here and there and I’ve just found two more. These are two short stories by Greg Egan and Ken Macleod that have been nominated for this years Hugo awards. You can download both stories as free PDFs.

I’ve heard of both authors but never actually read anything by them, so this is a good time to try them out. If I like them then my Amazon wishlist gets updated a little bit more.

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by | March 12, 2008

The Portable Door by Tom Holt

I seem to have the habit of buying books when they’re cheap and then storing them, unread, on a shelf gathering dust. One of these books is The Portable Door by Tom Holt.

Tom is one of those authors that I’ve been meaning to try out for years. I love Terry Pratchett‘s stuff and I figured that Tom Holt would have a similar style. I was wrong about the style, although both write humorous fantasy novels, but I thoroughly enjoyed the novel nonetheless.

The Portable Door introduces us to Holt’s inept hero Paul Carpenter.  Paul isn’t really very good at anything, not even nomination whist. He has few friends and no job and applies for a post at JW Wells where he meets a Thin Girl called Sophie, who has plenty of her own problems. Neither of them know very much about the company and both are surprised to be recruited.

Initially they’re set to work sorting out spreadsheets into date order. Oddly enough this is very similar to my very first proper job. I worked for a credit company called Club 24 and my job was to sort out credit applications into numerical order. It was tedious work and this is how Paul and Sophie find their new job.

The thing is, neither of them have the gumption to ask what these sheets are for, or even ask what JW Wells do. In time Paul finds that he has the knack for finding bauxite deposits in the Australian desert and that he’s fallen hopelessly in love with the sullen, skinny girl he works with.

All sorts of bizarre incidents start happening. Why is there a new receptionist every morning and how did this large piece of sword-embedded stone end up in Paul’s bedsit? What are all these strange items in the store-room and why does the stapler keep appearing in all sorts of strange places?

Tom Holt writes with a very dry wit. I found myself chuckling all the way through the book even though I had know idea where the plot was taking me for at least the first 200 pages but there’s plenty of interest injected into Paul and Sophie’s initially mundane existence. It’s not even remotely Pratchett-esq but it is very funny in parts.

We’re gradually introduced to more and more weird goings-on that reveal the nature of JW Wells business. You’re not really given much idea about what the whole point of the book is until near the end but it’s all held together beautifully and the ending is very satisfactory, with more Paul Carpenter-related books to come.

It didn’t really keep me gripped but it was a very entertaining read. Tom Holt has plenty of ideas and most of them work wonderfully well but you do start to think that the book is meandering around a bit too much in the early stages. However, the constant gags and hilarious similes kept my interest going all the way through the 400 or so pages.

Well worth seeking out, even if you’re not a fantasy reader.

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by | March 4, 2008

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

The last few years have seen me reading fewer and fewer books. There are only so many hours in the day and my reduced book-reading activity seems to have been replaced with an increased internet-browsing addiction. I’ve also been watching less television too.

Less TV is probably a good thing but fewer books perhaps not so much. I used to really enjoy reading a good novel and I’m not sure why my attention has shifted away from fiction quite so much.

However, I’ve now read two books in under two weeks. That’s good going for me even when compared to my previous reading habits. I had my interest re-piqued by the fabulous Old Man’s War by John Scalzi and now I’ve finally succumbed to finishing off the tales of Harry Potter.

It’s amazing that I’ve not found out what happens in The Deathly Hallows before now. The book has been out for ages and I’d managed to see one of the major plot-twists for book six before I’d got around to reading that one. This made the book far more interesting that the Half Blood Prince.

Overall, I was mightily impressed. JK Rowling has managed to round everything up in under 600 pages (just!) and has trimmed down a lot of the unnecessary chaff as seen in previous efforts. It could still have been a lot shorter (I have no idea how younger readers manage to plough all the way through these books sometimes) but it was a rather exciting read.

Most of the plot-twists are predictable but there are still a few surprising moments in store. Rowling has made an astonishing effort to plant certain seeds from the very first novel and it all seems to come together very well indeed in this final volume. There are some rather tedious stretches in the middle but there’s usually some fight or dangerous situation not too far away.

The series has become darker and darker as it went on and The Deathly Hallows usurps all previous efforts in that regard. Remember all those magical creatures introduced in the earlier novels? Well just about every single one of them returns for the final battle, helping to bring all seven novels to a satisfying close.

I don’t think that JK Rowling would win any prizes for her prose, but she knows how her characters work and she’s been very clever with her plotting. Even this cynical 38 year-old  was dragged into the excitement of some scenes and I had to stay up until 1am last night to finish it off, even though I had to start work at 6am.

It’s been a while since I read The Goblet of Fire but I think this final entry in the Potter story probably pips it to the Best Novel prize of the seven. Only the fifth book disappointed me (it was very tedious mostly) and it’s been well worth the effort of reading them.

However, I think it’s time to be reading some proper adult fiction for now. I have some Dark Tower novels to read and some more Thomas Covenant to get into, along with all these free novels from Tor. I’m sure that some further purchases from the Tor back-catalogue will also be forthcoming.

It looks like I shall be “unplugging” more frequently so that I can insert my nose into more books. That’s a good thing right?

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by | February 28, 2008

Old Man's War by John Scalzi

I’ve not really read many Science Fiction novels even though my interests suggest that I’d enjoy them. I’ve read a lot of horror and fantasy stuff but have never really got around to reading much Asimov and the like.

The stuff I have read has been excellent, especially The Gap Cycle by Stephen Donaldson. I’ve not read any Heinlein at all, among a whole host of excellent authors in the genre, but it’s Heinlein that is of most interest with the author of my most recent read: Old Man’s War by John Scalzi.

I’d managed to acquire this book as a free PDF download by signing up for the Tor Newsletter last month. Tor are an interesting-looking book publisher with a whole host of talented authors signed to them. They’re sending out download links by email to people that sign up for their newsletter and there are a whole bunch of other free books to come, so if you’re interested in free Science Fiction then you have no excuse to not go and sign up yourself.

I’ve never attempted to read an e-book before and I don’t have a mobile device to read them on so I had to do it while sat at my iMac, or some other computer. Old Man’s War is only about 310 pages long so I figured it’d be a good introduction to the author.

I started reading it and I was hooked within a few lines. I could barely peel myself away from my iMac to head off to work, but as I’m paid to turn up that’s what I had to do. Lucky for me that I could also download the book there (don’t tell the boss!).

Apparently, Old Man’s War is heavily influenced by the writings of Heinlein. The only work of Heinlein’s that I’ve experienced is Starship Troopers (the movie) and I can see why Scalzi (and a whole host of other Sci-Fi authors apparently)  is linked to him. There’s a whole bunch of beautiful soldiers fighting bug-like aliens while flying around the universe in large space-ships.

However, I really couldn’t care less about his influences – his book is bloody excellent.

The premise of the novel is centred around some future earth where the space-bound Colonial Defence Force recruits soldiers on their 75th birthday. They’re promised rejuvenated bodies if they’re prepared to defend Earth’s colonists for 2 years of their lives. Those that join up are a little surprised by what happens to them once they are blasted into space.

I won’t spoil the plot-line but you’ll probably guess some of the twists early on. The lack of surprises really doesn’t affect the story though, as Scalzi has a fantastic knack of writing with large doses of humour. It’s very-much a boys’ own story with lots of guns, battles, sex and people with computers in their heads.

John Scalzi writes with barely a spare word to be found and the story clatters on at a fair rate of knots. I’d use that old cliché “bodice-ripping page-turner” but that’s, er, a bit of a cliché, and there aren’t actually that many ripped bodices. Well, there are plenty of ripped bodies.

I got through the whole thing in no time and I would highly recommend it to anyone with a passing interest in Science Fiction novels. It’s not exactly Asimov but it’s no worse for that – get it for yourselves. I shall be getting some of his subsequent novels for certain.

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by | February 15, 2008

Wheel of Time – moving on

One of my favourite book series has been Robert Jordan’s rather excellent Wheel of Time. I absolutely adored the first six or so books of the series, and even though it started to drag a bit under the weight of increasing numbers of storylines in later books I still really, really want to know how it all turns out.

I was utterly gutted when Robert Jordan died last year. He’d developed a rare blood disorder and never got to complete the twelfth, and final, book in the series. He’s always said that he’d continue writing until they nailed down the lid on his coffin, and this turned out to be a little earlier than he expected.

Still, how was it all going to end? Would Rand al’Thor be victorious? Would the world be torn apart in a huge cataclysm? Who would be the author chosen to finish it off?

It turns out that Brandon Sanderson is going to finish it. I’d not heard of him before but it turns out he’s an up-and-coming fantasy author of some repute – very promising indeed. In fact, I’ve only found this information out after receiving his novel, Mistborn, as a free download after signing up for Tor’s newsletter.

It seems that Jordan’s wife will make sure that it’ll all be done right:

Sanderson will have large shoes to fill in his role bringing A Memory of Light to publication but will work very closely with Jordan’s longtime editor, Harriet Rigney, to be sure that the writing stays true to Jordan’s voice. Jordan himself worked on the novel almost daily for the last few months of his life and according to Harriet: “Some scenes were completed by Robert Jordan, and some exist in draft form; he left copious notes and hours of audio recordings.”

…..
Sanderson knows that fans are very anxious to read the last novel in The Wheel of Time series and says, “I’m both extremely excited and daunted by this opportunity. There is only one man who could have done this book the way it deserved to be written, and we lost him in September. However, I promise to do my very best to remain true to Mr. Jordan’s vision and produce the book we have all been waiting to read.”

I can hardly wait. Good look Brandon!

Anyway, as I mentioned earlier I’ve started to receive free Sci-Fi and Fantasy novels via email after signing up for Tor’s newsletter. The next one is John Scalzi’s novels, Old Man’s War. I’m sure that after reading these books I’ll be buying some of Tor’s other releases.

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