Neverwhere

2017-01-27

Neverwhere is an excellent example of the ‘hidden world’ sort of urban fantasy –where someone, often from our own world stumbles upon a door or falls through the cracks and finds themselves in another world, just off the beaten track from our own. Harry Potter. Narnia.

There are a lot of amusing uses of language, particularly in taking the London Underground stops literally. Earl’s Court is literally the Court of an (the?) Earl of London Underground. Blackfriars houses the Monastery of the Black Friars. It’s a really neat way to tie the real world into something alltogether more fantastical.

The Last Hero Discworld #27 Discworld - Rincewind #7

2017-01-27

The Last Hero is a quick read, much shorter than some of the other Discworld books. It does manage to say relatively self contained though, which is nice.

Basically Cohen the Barbarian and his Silver Horde have conquered the world. Next up? The gods. Unfortunately that will apparently have negative consequences, so Rincewind and friends have to stop them. Once again Rincewind goes over the edge, this time in a ~~rocket~~ DRAGON powered spaceship. That’s certainly a thing.

The Last Continent Discworld #22 Discworld - Rincewind #6

2017-01-25

The Last Continent is something of a disappointment after Interesting Times. That’s not to say that it’s strictly speaking ‘bad’, just that it’s not quite as good as many of the other Rincewind novels.

Basically, this time around, Rincewind’s adventures have dropped him off on XXXX, the ‘Last Continent’ of the Discworld. Basically, it’s bizarroworld Australia with something of a funny relationship with the whole time-space thing.

Interesting Times Discworld #17 Discworld - Rincewind #5

2017-01-23

Interesting Times is a fantastic Discworld novel, an excellent example of everything people expect when they talk about Terry Pratchett and the Discworld novels.

In a nutshell, Twoflower has taken everything he learned in The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic and written a book about it. One thing leads to another and suddenly Rincewind is being summoned across the world to lead a revolution. The ending is a bit convenient, but it’s really it’s all about the journey, isn’t it?

Eric Discworld #9 Discworld - Rincewind #4

2017-01-18

Eric is an amusing enough story and an interesting continuation of Rincewind’s story, after the events back in Sourcery. Not entirely long story slightly shorter, Rincewind gets accidently summoned by a budding 14 year old summoner. Unfortunately for all involved, this seems to actually grant him some demonic powers… and hijinks ensue.

The basic plot leaves something to be desired. Basically Eric makes three wishes and things go badly about as one might expect. It’s even more random feeling than many of the previous Rincewind novels, which is saying something. Characterwise, Eric just isn’t particularly interesting, so we’re just left with Rincewind. As amusing as he is, he’s not quite enough to carry an entire novel all by himself. Previously, we had Twoflower or Cohen… Not so much this time.

Son The Giver #4

2017-01-13

Son should have been the first sequel to the Giver. It actually starts in the same community as the Giver, this time with Gabriel’s birthmother Claire. We follow her life: first in the community, then in a small seaside village, and finally in the same village where Jonas and Gabriel ended up.

It’s a really interesting story and I particularly like how each of the sections builds on what came before, while letting us watch Claire grow and change. The links to Gathering Blue and Messenger are there as well, although I personally wish they’d been ordered a little differently.

Crimson Bound Myth Crossover *

2017-01-12

Originally thought that this was supposed to be a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, as Cruel Beauty was for Beauty and the Beast. I saw it a lot more in the other and probably would have liked this a bit more had I not thought that.

There is a lot of beautiful visuals and fairly interesting worldbuilders. Unfortunately, it feels like it should be more interesting than it actually is. There are some interesting concepts in there (bloodbound made by murder, etc), but they’re barely fleshed out. On top of that, apparently the world was ending and… no one seemed to care? Except some people knew all along and pass along magic swords to save the day? Meh.

Messenger The Giver #3

2017-01-07

I’m not entirely sure what the point of Messenger was. It wasn’t a particularly bad book, just not hugely interesting, especially compared to The Giver or Gathering Blue.

A direct sequel to Gathering Blue, Messenger only had very little to do with The Giver. Technically Leader is Jonas, but there’s nothing in particular to say that he had to be. He can see beyond (which apparently means far more than it ever did in The Giver), but that’s about it. I think I would have liked Messenger a bit more had it just been the second book in a trilogy or if I’d never seen the series label on Goodreads–although chances are I wouldn’t have even read it had that been the case…

Gathering Blue The Giver #2

2017-01-03

With two caveats, Gathering Blue is quite an enjoyable novel. I actually think that I liked it more than the Giver. The world is interesting, the characters and world are just different enough from our own to get one’s attention while still being believable enough, and there is enough mystery and tension to pull you through the book.

Which brings up caveat the first: This doesn’t feel like a standalone story. You just keep getting pulled through the story, there’s a big twist at the end, and then… nothing. It just sort of ends, right when things are about to get interesting. The Giver did this too, to a lesser extent, but there we learned most of the secrets the world was hiding so the end felt justified. Here, it feels like the first novel of a planned series, which is vaguely annoying.

Sourcery Discworld #5 Discworld - Rincewind #3

2017-01-02

Sourcery is the first of the Rincewind subseries of Discworld not to also feature Twoflower. It makes sense–his story seems to have been told–but it still does feel a bit different.

Instead, we deal with the 8th son of a wizard (already the 8th son of an 8th son themselves)–a Sourcerer. Basically, one who can intuitively do magic on a scale wizards literally cannot dream of. They’re the entire reason that wizards are banned from having sex (see the 8th son bit above). And now there’s a new one in the world–a ten year old boy.