The Summer Tree - Guy Gavriel Kay

The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Well this was a disappointment after Tigana. If you haven't read Tigana, don't judge Kay by this. I think it could have been interesting, but the style is so flowery and pompous and full of info dumps that my eyes glazed over far too many times. It read like an attempt at being Tolkienesque, with the tone like when Gandalf sets up the back story before the quest, but liberally throughout, and with so much meaningless detail because I didn't know any of the names that were being thrown about.

There were some interesting things in the actual story, even if the entire book read like a prologue. Unfortunately, the distant tone made it hard to connect with the characters, even with some huge things happening to them, and then came the rape and torture. Before that, I would have probably given this 3 stars, but it left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Now I understand why reviewers are always talking about 80s fantasy as being overly flowery and full of rape.

I might still have to give the second book a chance, since it ended right where things are really just starting, and on a cliffhanger.

A Great Deliverance - Elizabeth George

A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

First the superficial. I'm having a hard time getting over how annoying a couple of the characters were. The horribly caricatured American tourist was too much - I ended up skipping any passage with him. And felt he was completely unnecessary to the plot. It's difficult to enjoy a book when you have such antipathy to ridiculous characters.

I did like Lynley, but his partner... I'm sure that she will get better as the series progresses, but did she really have to shriek and shrill so much? And shouldn't a police sergeant have a bit more control over herself?

To be fair, it was written in the 1980s, and suffers some from the trends of the time. It dwells far too long on psycho-babble and torturous interpersonal relationships and family problems, and moves onto fairly explicit descriptions of sexual abuse, which didn't come across as that much worse than everyone else's psychological turmoil. Everyone's internal struggles seemed highly exaggerated, except for the actual victims of crimes.

Ok, so maybe I didn't like it all that much? But I liked Lynley. Keep Lynley and ditch the rest, and we might have something I don't cringe to read.

Bewitching Season - Marissa Doyle

Bewitching Season by Marissa Doyle
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Usually the London season is a backdrop, not the entire plot of a book. This may be the most boring Regency I've ever read, and that's with a kidnapping, secret magic, and a plot to take the throne. So much potential unrealized.

Fox's Bride - A.E. Marling

Fox's Bride by A.E. Marling
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Fox's Bride is unusual, at times bordering on bizarre. Just the title gives that away. Yes, a woman is really supposed to marry a fox - the fox is an incarnation of one of the gods, but for all other purposes, it's a fox.

Then we have an enchantress (the bride) who can only work magic in her sleep, and spends much of the time struggling to stay awake. She infuses jewels with various purposes while asleep, and these jewels can be used in the waking world to protect, etc. The magic system is kind of interesting, and the story gets there too, when the enchantress uncovers an ancient evil that she has to deal with in order to free herself.

The story takes place in an Egyptian-like city, with pyramids that are the tombs of gods. I think. The city and world is still fuzzy to me. Some of the imagery was difficult to decipher, and I felt like I needed to turn upside down to get it. Like I said, it borders on bizarre!

I found the first half of the book hard to get into, especially because the world-building was so off-the-wall. It was also difficult to relate to a somnolent main character who was mostly passive at first. But sometime during the second half, I finally got into the story and stopped being confused. I believe that happened right around the time that the enchantress began to take action and throw a lot of jewels around. I quite enjoyed the tomb-raiding scenes.

If you're looking for a fantasy that's different, this could be for you. I don't think the writing style is for me, though. I prefer to see a world clearly, with all its detail, and that never happened here. After finishing the book, I still find it confused and hazy, like I never saw it come into focus. I still have questions about some loose ends as well, argh. Still, I'm glad I persevered to the end, and that I care enough to wonder about those loose ends.

The Unknown Ajax - Georgette Heyer

The Unknown Ajax by Georgette Heyer
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is the weakest Heyer I've read. I can see why it's not one of the well known ones. Frankly, it's boring! There's way too much dialect (something that I find tends to get in the way in some of her other works as well), and nothing much actually happens. Even the action at the end isn't action. There's some smuggling potential, but that all happens off the stage. There certainly isn't enough going on to justify the hero and heroine deciding they love each other. They just decide it.

I really struggled to finish this because it was so boring, but pushed through mainly because I've enjoyed so many others by Heyer and couldn't bear to leave this one hanging out there. It did pick up in the last quarter, but still was pretty lackluster. Not recommended, even for Heyer fans.

Boneshaker - Cherie Priest

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Boneshaker is very different from other Steampunk books that I've read (and enjoyed). I think it's considered Steampunk because there are airships (not enough, though!) and a few machines that could be considered in the historical Sci Fi realm. Other than that, it does not have any of the characteristics that I look forward to in Steampunk. No adventure. No cool gadgets or scientific experiments (the breathing masks just don't count).

And there's far too much grit and gore. I've never really been interested in zombies. They make a boring enemy, in my mind. This book only confirmed that. Far too much of it is spent running from 'rotters' or shooting them. When I realized it was a zombie book, I knew I was in for a challenge.

This is an apocalyptic dystopia set in the past with some barely recognizable Steampunk elements. It's the bleakest dystopia I've read so far, one where people can't even breathe the air. Most of the time not spent running from rotters is spent trying to breathe through masks that filter out the yellow sludge that turns people into rotters. Let's just say this is not a pleasant place to be. And let's say that unpleasant things happen when people are unable to take their masks off for any reason. Too much time is spent on every little detail of how hard it is to get by there, on details I'd really like to get out of my head somehow.

I could have used more focus on the people and their interactions, because that's when it started to get more interesting (in the last quarter of the book).

I'm actually not sure why I'm giving this a second star. Maybe because I managed to finish it and was actually ok with the ending? Or maybe I liked a couple of the characters (not the main ones), even though I didn't get enough of them. But I really didn't enjoy the experience of reading it much at all and I'm glad it's over.

Lady Fiasco - Kathleen Baldwin

Lady Fiasco by Kathleen Baldwin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I normally read series in order, but this time I went off reviews and started with a later book - I found that good advice. I liked this one much less than the other I've read so far.

Aunt Honore is more than just notorious here - she's scandalous. Her soiree was just a bit too much for me. In the later book, she's feisty and unconventional, but not crude. I found myself really being turned off by several episodes. I would not classify this as a 'clean' romance because of them, even though it had nothing to do with the actual couple's interactions.

The romance was also just all right. If the couple didn't have a history of knowing each other since childhood, it would have been a terrible case of instalove. There wasn't really any development of their feelings for each other. It was just an on switch and then a lot of running away and denial in between kisses. I didn't find their relationship very satisfying, especially when the main character was being a jerk whenever he wasn't kissing the girl.

Anne of Avonlea

Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I think for me, this is a case of loving the TV adaptation too much. I had always wanted to read the books that inspired it, but now I can see why there are so many more books than episodes. There's a lot that was left out of the TV version, and I'm glad. It was a much tighter story.

The rambling of the book was alternately too boring or too painful, except for a couple of scenes with Gilbert and a few others that felt warmly familiar here and there. Other than that, the stories of Anne trying to control school children and adopting a naughty boy were too much for me. The first time I tried to read this, I stopped half way through. I just now decided I needed push through to finish it, even if I had to skim to get past those parts, and I'm glad I did go back and finish. I just feel like I need to go back and watch the show again to remind myself of why I love it.

The Steel Queen - Karen Azinger

The Steel Queen by Karen Azinger
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was a fairly ambivalent 3 star Medieval-type fantasy right until the end, which I hated. It felt like an attempt to be shocking like Game of Thrones, but came completely out of left field. I was not happy. I am also not happy with the cliffhanger but I don't think I care enough to find out what happens next.

There were a few characters here that I liked, and a few that I hated (as I was supposed to - POVs are alternating from good vs. evil characters). I didn't really like having to read the viewpoint of the evil ones, but that's me. I don't enjoy getting into the minds of the dark side, and began skimming those. But it was an interesting approach to see how evil actively built its influence.

I suppose it was actually pretty good for a self-published novel, just a bit too dark for me. There were some spelling errors that I had to ignore, and some jumps in character that could have been developed more smoothly. But it did hold my attention, and like I said, I 'liked it' when it was focused on the 'good' characters, right until the end.

The Iron Wyrm Affair - Lilith Saintcrow

The Iron Wyrm Affair by Lilith Saintcrow
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I did not like the writing style of this at all. It was choppy and jumped all over the place. The changing POVs were confusing because I couldn't always tell at first that they had changed, and the world-building was basically non-existent. I feel like I missed an entire book that actually explained the world, the magic, and all the terms that were randomly thrown at me throughout.

There were many scenes that I had to go back and re-read because I realized that I had no idea what I had just read. They were garbled and confused, and re-reading didn't always help. That's when I started to skim. I skimmed until I found explanations and scenes that I could actually understand. And I skimmed until I had enough of a sense of the story that I was half-way interested in what was going to happen, and then I managed to care enough to finish the book (while still skimming the confusing parts!).

The thing is, I think there's a good story in there somewhere. I had to dig really hard to find it, and it was obscured by choppy and chaotic scenes. But it was enough in the end for me to give this two stars instead of one, if only because I'm a sucker for historical fantasy / steampunk settings like this.

Temple of a Thousand Faces - John Shors

Temple of a Thousand Faces by John Shors

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Temple of a Thousand Faces wasn't bad, it just wasn't for me. I'm sure it was quite realistic about the fates of a conquered people in Cambodia in the 12th Century. Based on the title, that's not the story I was expecting. I somehow thought it was going to be about something besides conquering, pillaging, raping and slaughtering. It was really much darker and more desperate than I like, as the story was told from the perspectives of several different people who were affected by the pillaging, raping and slaughtering. Oh, don't forget torture. That was in there, too.

The POV characters range from the Khmer prince and one of his wives to a lowly fisherman and his family, one of whom is almost blind as well as smart and brave, and possibly my favorite character. Also included is one of the officers of the Chams (the invaders) who is a decent fellow, increasingly sickened by his king's actions. Finally, there is a young woman who is enslaved by the Chams at her wedding - what an awful fate.

I liked all of these characters, and feared for them. That's why I kept reading in spite of the violence, which I actually found boring. (Blah blah, slaughter 500 hundred men to teach a lesson, blah blah blah.) I needed to know that they ended up well, an outcome that was not guaranteed. Unless you know this part of history, which I didn't.

The conquering king was one of those vile characters without a shred of goodness to him. His assassin was another. If it hadn't ended how it did for those two, this review would have a 1 star rating. But the ending was at least vindicating, and thankfully (for me) it was a happy ending for most of the characters involved.

The Mediterranean Caper - Clive Cussler

The Mediterranean Caper by Clive Cussler
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was my first foray into this adventure kind of novel. At least I think that's what it was. It was ok, but pretty mindless entertainment. I feel like I just ate an entire bag of chips or something completely empty of nutritional value.

It had its exciting, action-filled moments, but the characters... I had some problems with their lack of depth and the outright sexism really bothered me. I suppose I've been lucky not to read anything before that this blatantly objectifies females, and even more lucky not to be part of a generation that found this kind of attitude normal. I had read reviews that mentioned this and thought I was prepared. I wasn't. I was completely shocked when Pitt slapped a girl in the face right after meeting her, and then seduced her, and then she thanked him for it. His attitude towards women in general was more chauvinist than anything I've read, maybe ever. It was written in the 1970s, so I can at least hope later books are not as bad.

I also was disappointed in the mystery aspect, since it didn't take much for me to figure out what was going on (at least the main part), but then a bunch of extra details were thrown in at the end that came out of nowhere. I was kind of annoyed at the end when Pitt took pages and pages to explain everything he had figured out in a villain reveal-all that reminded me of Scooby Doo. One reason I like mysteries is having the chance to put things together myself, but here I just had to sit back and be told the answers. Except for the really obvious ones that I spotted ages before the main character seemed to catch on. Here, the main point seemed to be the action, and the mystery was just a prop.

Still, I'm not really sure what to expect from this type of book, so I might try one of the later Pitt novels before I write the series off - if I can get past the whole attitude towards women. The adventure part at least I can see growing on me.

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency - Alexander McCall Smith

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I should have paid more attention to the reviewer who said that this is not a mystery. It's not. And that's what I was after. This is a collection of tales about people and their problems. The main character solves their problems in unconventional ways, and so maintains a private detective agency.

It is told in simplistic language, distancing me from the stories, which are rambling and random. There is little cohesion to the plot. It's a more realistic ebb and flow of lives that cross each other once and probably won't again. There are some sad, heartwarming, and amusing stories, but I felt like I was listening to an old man recounting tales that mean more to him than to me.

So for me, this was just ok. Several times it peaked into slightly interesting, but mostly not. I don't intend to read more of the series, and now I'm going to go find myself a real mystery, which is what I wanted in the first place.

Beauvallet - Georgette Heyer

Beauvallet by Georgette Heyer

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



This is quite different from Heyer's other books that I've read. It's set in Elizabethan times rather than around the Regency or Georgian eras, and involves England's conflict with Spain. Beauvallet is an English captain feared by the Spanish as a devil-worshiping pirate, although he is of course an honorable pirate who attacks Spanish ships in the name of the Queen and relies on luck, skill, daring, and a sense of humor.

I found that it had a really slow start - about 30 percent to set up the situation before any adventuring happened. This was necessary to provide a reason for Beauvallet to travel into Spain, where certain death awaited him if discovered. The reason is that he fell in love with a Spanish woman and would risk his life to carry her off. The romance was unfortunately sudden and not developed well enough for my liking. The first part of the book could have been used much better for this instead of being boring. But, once Beauvallet actually headed into Spain, it picked up, and daring escapes ensued.

A Study in Scarlet - Arthur Conan Doyle

A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



So I was really liking this, and thinking how well the BBC Sherlock is done, and then right after the reveal we didn't get Holmes' explanation for how he got there. Instead it went off on a huge flashback to America, showing what led up to the crime. I kept wondering if someone had pasted the wrong book into my public domain download! I didn't really care for the detour. Which is probably why I've never seen it in any adaptations.

Review: A Wrinkle in Time

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Many books for children are still magical for adults reading them without the benefit of nostalgia, but this was not one of those for me. Honestly, I found it simplistic and moralistic, and was surprised to find there was much more talking than anything else. I expected more adventure, more action, but everything that actually happens is through philosophizing. I thought it was kind of boring. Talk about bashing kids over the head with how they are supposed to behave in the guise of Science Fiction!

It's also not really about time travel so much as travel to other worlds. The worlds were interesting and sometimes creepy, as were some of the characters they met there. I liked Mrs. Whatsit and her companions. They were entertaining.

But the main characters were basically just led around and told to 'go there' without being given any idea what to do there, and then the final solution was a moral lesson. Not surprising for the time it was written, I suppose, but I expected more... something. Excitement. Action. Fun.

The main character is whiny in a stamp-your-foot kind of way. She's constantly throwing fits and lashing out because she doesn't understand things. And although she dutifully learns her lesson by the end, I found her annoying.

Would I have liked this if I read it when I was a kid? Maybe. But I don't think it would have lived up to the adventures of The Magic Faraway Tree.



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Review: Rules of Murder

Rules of Murder by Julianna Deering

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I was able to ignore the gushing faith references and get into sorting out the clues most of the time - until the mystery was solved by prayer. If it wasn't an ebook I would have thrown it.



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Review: Outlander

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Updated review September 6, 2014:

I was really underwhelmed by Outlander, and actually disliked it at many points. A lot of people really love it, and it’s hailed as one of the great romance novels of all time. But maybe that’s my problem with it. At 750 pages, I expected more than just a romance novel. I’ve read enough romances that this one just seemed like more of the same, nothing special. It certainly didn’t engage my emotions. I watched Clare and Jamie “fall in love” and was not convinced. They had a lot of sex. A lot. A couple of times “wanting" was equated to “loving" and they wanted each other a lot, so maybe that was supposed to be proof of love. But I really just felt like I was observing from afar, not really impressed with either character, and not feeling the love between them. That makes or breaks a romance in my experience.

Another whole topic is the difficulty I had with Clare’s lack of fidelity to her husband in the other time period - and the argument that it doesn’t matter because he hasn’t been born yet. It matters. Just a little admission that she no longer loved him because of their separation during the war, drifting apart, etc., might have helped since it was hinted at in the beginning. But she never actually realizes it. She continues to claim that she loves her husband too. I think it’s fair to say I wasn’t too happy with this aspect of the romance.

So, the romance failed for me. What else was in those 750 pages? Not much, honestly. There were period details - sometimes so many that I wondered what the point was and where it was going, although those were the more interesting aspects of the entire book for me (life in the keep, etc.). This is why I gave the book 2 stars instead of 1.

Aside from that, there was a lot of violence. When Clare wasn’t being expertly handled or disciplined (seriously!) by her man, she was on the verge of being forcibly taken by others. There were cruel men, those with no control over their appetites, and gangs of drunken and beastly men. I lost count of the number of times she was almost raped. I guess Jamie was the only man allowed to be honorable in the time period.

If the danger wasn’t rape, it was something else like a witch hunt or wild wolves. If it wasn’t Clare being almost raped, it was boys and men actually being raped and tortured. The period is depicted as very brutal and uncivilized, which seemed a bit more medieval to me than 18th Century Scotland should have been - but I’m not a historian so I could be wrong. Whatever the case, if Clare wasn’t having sex, she or Jamie were meeting with horrific violence of some sort. And although danger should have made the book more interesting, I found that the story dragged on and on. A romance should not be so long if that’s all there is to sustain the story. 200 pages is about my limit on pure romance. And dark violence isn’t my thing either.

One thing I can say is that I now understand what spawned an entire genre of time-travel romance, and why Scotland seems to feature so prominently in them. I have to say I prefer the others I’ve read, even though they made my eyes roll too. At least they were shorter and skipped the rape and torture.

So, I pushed through because I didn’t want another DNF book this year, and I wanted to see what the hype was all about. I thought maybe I was missing something that would become clear later on. Not so much. I was sooooo thankful when I turned the last page that I could move on to something else. I will not be pursuing any of the sequels (the number of which astonishes me).

August 23, 2014:

I'll try to review this properly later, but for now I'm just glad I managed to finish it.



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Review: The Assassin's Curse

The Assassin's Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



The Assassin's Curse had so much potential! Pirates, assassins, curses, magic... it sounded like a fun adventure. I really thought I would love it, but it ended up being just blah. There is little adventure, little depth to both characters and world, and I didn't care about or even like the two characters.

It was disappointing, but it also went quickly. I was really annoyed when I got to the end and it was a cliffhanger. I mean the sort of cliffhanger where everything just ends midstep without any resolution and you have to read the next book whether you want to or not, just to get an ending. This is a duology, but it should have been a single book. I am annoyed, but now I'm reading the sequel... I guess that strategy works for authors.

I don't even feel like writing full paragraphs about the good and the bad, so I will resort to bullet points.

Things I liked:

• The main characters are not amazingly beautiful (but anyone beautiful is automatically untrustworthy, selfish, mean, or actually bad).
• The pirate woman on the ship. She is a very minor character, but I liked her. Hopefully she will be in the second book more.

Things I didn't like:

• The main character talks in slang all the way through. It bothered me and made her seem immature.
• The tone is juvenile, but the heroine cusses (our world style) and is 'experienced' sexually.
• The world-building is shallow, just skimming the surface of everything. Again, it should have been an interesting world but felt cardboardish.
• The main character is not very likable. She panics, she lashes out, she doesn’t think. She runs off when she’s bored or thirsty without regard for danger or the curse. She is supposed to be strong, but she's just reckless and doesn't learn from her mistakes.
• The guy, on the other hand, never listens to her or allows her input on what they should do. So I can see why she went off on her own so much. There is no sense of partnership there.
• The curse. The curse is too confining. It makes action impossible for both characters, often physically incapacitating one of them. The story would be so much more interesting if they weren't forced to sit around and stay safe.

So, apparently there's more that I didn't like than I did. I at least hope the sequel will be an improvement, with more of the action and adventure that this one failed to deliver. I hope, since I am being forced to read it, and since this one did end in a place that made the sequel sound like it could be interesting.



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Review: The Count of Monte Cristo

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I'm so glad I'm finished with this book! It had its great moments, but for a 1200 page book, they were too far between. Much of this was a real slog to get through. There are long conversations about who knows what, and it's often overly descriptive to the point of needing to skim to get to the next scene. My mind wandered a lot, and I had to force myself back on track. I even took a break about half way through and read and couple of other books. I feel like I've been reading it forever.

Like I said, it had its moments. The prison and escape, and then the hammer of vengeance falling on the guilty and taking a few others with it - those parts were good. A lot of what came between was boring setup with a lot of new characters whose viewpoints weren't as interesting as the Count's, and whose importance takes a long time to discover. In the meantime, they're going to parties, attending festivals, and dining with friends. Talking, talking, talking of the society of the day.

While we're thrown in with these strangers at parties, the Count becomes this mysterious figure who we only see observed by others looking on events with a strange smile, or mysteriously knowing and anticipating everything everyone does. He becomes an exotic god, not the person we got to know in the prison at all. It's not until near the end that we return to his viewpoint again, and he betrays some human emotion.

I have to admit that the way he orchestrates the fall of his enemies is brilliant - obviously that is why this is such a well-loved classic. But I guess complex revenge isn't enough for me. There are times when the Count put his true friends through hell by withholding information from them that was really cruel for someone who is supposedly not punishing them along with everyone else. Especially at the end, I thought he took it too far, and so the ending was not as satisfying to me as it could have been.

Overall, I found this to be overrated. I would have enjoyed the story a lot more if it was significantly trimmed. My patience didn't come to fruition until the last 200 pages, and right now I'm not sure if it was worth it. I wish I'd found an abridged version to read - or just watched the movie. It is far, far too long for the payoff.

I'm so excited I can read something else now.



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