Some More Reads

Reviews of a couple of books I read last month.

This guy broke my brain and I loved it.  Code, Indian literature, computers, memoir all deliciously stirred together.  In some ways, it may seem that he jumps all over the place but honestly this book just flows so nicely and you’re learning at the same time and it all meshes.

A definite recommend

Well, I wanted to read Redwall, the first book in the series, but the library didn’t have it.  This one involves Martin the Warrior, an evil cat queen Tsarmina, and the cute and wily residents of Mossflower Woods.  There is also a quest, several battles (that aren’t detailed), and cute moments.

I didn’t see why this series is so popular though it could be this is Young Adult so the writing is a lot less than what I expect.  It was an easy ready, just not a lot of detail.  I don’t know if reading the first book would have helped or not.  It did seem that the male characters got to do all the grand adventuring and fighting while the female characters cooked and stayed in the background.  Or were the evil bad guy to overcome.  The author was probably just using character tropes people were familiar with instead of fleshing out really in depth characters of his own.  That just snacks of lack of effort to me.

But I didn’t hate the book.  It is a light read and if that’s all you’re looking for then this book is fine.

A recommend, with reservations

Conspiracy theory regurgitation.  Because you know manipulating teenagers who think they have a nasty killer brain tumor into being experimental drug Guinea pigs has never happened before.  The drugs and rumors and teens combination may be new but the rest is old and so been done to death. 

It wasn’t entertaining in anyway and you could easily predict what was coming next.

Not a recommend

So Peter, a Christian minister, gets to travel to another planet to minister to a bunch of aliens who know about Jesus (due to previous minister who went off the deep end and disappeared). 

It’s fifty pages before he reaches the alien planet and another fifty before you meet the aliens.  And they were the only mildly interesting characters in the book.  Everyone else is so empty and lack any depth.  Even Peter is so much a paper cutout you could replace him and not lose the story.

Not that there was a story.  I quit reading at page 310.  I should have quit at 50.  There was no plot.  It was literary fiction (which it is trying too hard to be and just falls flat) that had been marketed as science fiction.  There was no crisis being lead up to or any sort of action.  Everyone was just drifting.  Except back on Earth where Armageddon was occurring on a daily basis.  And even that felt forced. 

This was a book plodding along to nowhere with no point.  And Peter was such a caricature of a Christian: a former alcoholic and drug addict who found Jesus.  That’s a staple story among many Christian ministers in the US but the author is Scottish or Dutch (can’t remember) and may not know that.  Honestly, once I learned Peter’s background and his job as minister I should have quit reading.  I have never read good Christian literature.  I thought it would get better or at least solve some of the mysteries but there was no clue that was going to happen so I gave up.

I still can’t figure out why this book is so popular because it’s so mind numbingly boring and tedious.

Never recommended