Star Trek: Into Darkness - Alan Dean Foster

So, I loved the film and as I am unable to go and see it again, I decided to try the book. Alan Dean Foster wrote the novel for the film Alien so I had rather high expectations. Here's what I thought.


As far as a film novelization goes, the book is fine. It followed the storyline exactly. There were no deviations from the plot line, even the speech was nearly word perfect, which was a nice recap if that is what you are after. I was hoping for a bit more than this. Maybe I was foolish to expect some further insights into character motivations and feelings. I mean, I know it was meant to follow the film and such but was it too much to expect a little more life breathed into them? The actors need to do this with their bodies, authors do so with words and as far as I am concerned, this book fails to do so.

Don't get me wrong, some parts of this novel really get the pages turning. The action scenes are a real pleasure to read; the space battles are fraught, fast paced and well read.The characters are true to the originals as well, there was no point that Spock, for instance, did anything un-Spock-like. Kirk was still the cheeky, rough and ready Star Ship Captain and Khan was still the revenge hungry ego-maniac he always has been. This, at least, is spot on in the novel and is a credit to the author.

Here's another downside; some of the language is a bit confusing. The sentences were too long which clouded the meanings somewhat. I had to read some of them several times to understand what the author was getting at - and this wasn't during the uber science parts either. This made it a bit frustrating at times but didn't detract from the overall read.

All in all, this book was an alright read but it lacked some of the insights into the characters that I have come  to expect in other novels. Still, it's not bad and worth a read.

Wand of the Witch (Misfit Heroes 2) - Daniel Arenson

I really enjoyed the different aspects of Arenson's first Misfit novel and thought I would give the second one a go. It has a tough first novel to follow and I feel it fell a little short, here's why.

There were a couple of things Arenson tried to achieve in writing that should be left in the realm of film. The Montage. This works very well as a time filler in films, where we don't need to see the entire training session of a group of soldiers for example. I found this did not translate well into words. For a start the placing of this montage in the book was a real jerk to the pacing. Normally montages are set to music and although a tune is mentioned in the novel, it was a real difficulty trying to suspend my disbelief enough to allow for random music, even in a comedy fantasy novel. It just seemed too far fetched for me to enjoy. Saying this, a huge well done to Arenson for trying something new and a bit quirky. It just didn't work for me.


The pacing of the novel was a bit off for my tastes as well, there seemed to be parts that dragged on when you just wanted to find out what was going on. Who needs a side story when you're about to go fight the baddie at the end? 

One thing that worked for me in the first novel was the use of accents and stutters. One of the characters suffers from a crippling stammer, she is unable to pronounce 'r's' and 'l's', instead they are typed as 'w', this was endearing in the first novel, it was annoying in this one. Some of the sentences were hard to understand and this was a hindrance to the novel as a whole. One of the other characters comes across as 'too stupid to live' and I have to wonder what they brought to the novel as a whole. I'm not going to name them as that would be unfair.

There are good points in the novel as well, the world is well written and some of the writing is well worth a read. I enjoyed reading about Mazrilla and I think her background is very cleverly written. It fits well and she has sound motivation for being the way she is. You learn a lot about the people from the world as a whole while seeing through her eyes and these part of the narrative are very good.

Putting aside the issues I have highlighted above, this novel is worth a read. It's nowhere near as good or as funny as the first novel and if a third comes out I doubt I will bother to look at it but to say the book is unreadable would be unfair. Give it a go, after all, this is just my thoughts and who's to say I'm right?

Cast a Dark Shadow - De-ann Black

I felt like reading something different this time. I've read a lot of good fantasy fiction recently and needed a break so have indulged my (not so) best kept secret love affair with westerns. I was hoping this latest ebook would be a decent read but unfortunately it fell somewhere short of the mark.



Like everything, there are good and bad elements to this book. The language was easy to read and I got through it in a couple of days. The story was easy to follow, which after reading a lot of heavy fantasy tales (I'm thinking of The Dark Tower here) it made a welcome change. It was good to read a mystery story. The hero of the book is discovered, unconscious, by a local boy. He is patched up by the local doctor but has lost all this memories, the story follows the hero on a discovery of who he is. Great. It's a fantastic premise and could have been a really good novel.

I'm not going to say anything else about the plot as I don't want to spoil it for anyone but I will say I feel that plot won over character in this novel. A lot of the side cast are two dimensional and flat. They seem to play a role in the book but not do anything else after that. It's a real shame as for me, characters make a novel worth reading. The hero is well thought out though and does go a ways to solve this problem.

Luck seems to play too large a part in the book too. The hero(s) are saved from death by luck more than once and after the second time it starts to feel a bit contrived. Everything fits together a bit too well and it broke reader immersion for me. I just found it too much of a coincidence, which never works well in a novel, in my opinion.

All that said, I did enjoy the read and despite its faults, it is an ok book. I'm not sure what to read next so any suggestions you have would be welcome. So long as I can get it on kindle that is!

Thinblade - David A Wells

This book wasn't great, in fact, I don't even think it was that good. I couldn't finish it due to a number of reasons although I did try my best to do so. It has it's OK moments but those are far outweighed by the books downfalls.

I'll start with the positive; most of the characters are well rounded individuals and a lot of thought has gone into their development. The protagonist is a carbon copy of your generic hero and as a result is dull, uninteresting and predictable. The support cast is far more interesting, there's an alchemist character, Lucky, who has all kinds of different tricks that he uses to aid the group. He also has a big interest in food and often hands it out to people while conducting his affairs, this little detail is what makes him a better character than all the others in the novel put together.

The relationships between the characters is shown very well in points though the  novel, I won't go into it much but to illustrate my point there's this. After the hero thinks his father has been killed, someone shouts for 'Lord Valentine', at this point, our hero starts looking around, assuming the call was for his father, not him. It was a nice touch.

Some of the writing in the novel is very good, in fact, aside from the odd cliche here and there, its well written. What annoyed me so much I had to put the book down, was the constant repetition of the plot. I'm savvy enough to know what's happening the first time, one recap is OK, every time we meet a new character is just too much, it was like having it rammed down my throat and not to mention a little patronising. It got to a point where these little reminders would happen just before a fight. It destroyed the tension the author had created in previous paragraphs and interrupted the pacing.

Then there's the description. This book has more than it's fair share of description, of everything, all the time. It got boring to read. I don't really care what the guy fighting the hero looks like, where he came from or what he had for lunch. I care about how he gets killed. It's the same for every building they come across. Yes, I admit, its well written and some of its useful, but it could use thinning out to help the flow of the novel and to keep the reader interested.

You'd think with all that description that everything would be covered in the book right? Not so, there was an episode in the novel where generic hero has to rescue generic princess from generic bad guy. He does so after gaining a huge chunk of skills for free (he reads a skillbook... seriously?) and mullering the henchmen, great. What is omitted is how the baddie escapes. You just get a short sentence saying he got away. How? With all this descriptive power, you'd think Wells would be able to come up with something better than that. Most disappointing!

All in all, I wouldn't recommend reading this book in its current state. It needs another read through and the issues with it fixing before I even consider looking at the sequel.

Approaching the Dark Age - Resonace: Matthew Chivers

I didn't expect to be posting this so quickly, but at 36% I had to call it quits. This novel was so appallingly written I just couldn't finish it. I'm not even sure where to start but I shall give it a go.

The technical aspects of writing have been ignored by the author of this book. I can forgive over use of adverbs and even pardon the contradiction of adjectives but the double negative sentence, 'It could not take no more' was a bit of a slap in the face. The children in my primary class (age 7-9) know not to use language like this, how a grown man doesn't I cannot fathom. Chivers also tends to overwrite things, using four words where one would suffice. This makes some scenes rather dull.

I tried to look passed all the technicalities though and focused on the characters instead. I found them flat, one dimensional and predictable. The priestess did a wonderful job of explaining how magic worked in their world using good scientific terms. This was immediately contradicted by labelling it 'magic' and shrugging off the previous explanation. The Tribal character is a moody, rude adolescent boy who has forgotten half his past. Problem with him is he's so rude, I didn't care what happened to him. These two pair up with a gang of Packers, consisting of about seventeen people, only four of which are important enough to have names. Might as well just stick them in red shirts and shoot them now.

The pacing of the novel seems to be one fight scene after another with a bit of travelling between locations. It became predictable after the second fight. The writing of these scenes was OK but weakened by the author putting the shouting in a bold type face. I can see they're yelling, no need to patronise me in this manner.

There are loads of other things wrong with this novel; irrelevant quotes at the start of chapters; wooden dialogue; contradictory attitudes. So many in fact that I could be here all day and I'll get comments like TLDR. It's frustrating because with a bit of refining and three more rounds of editing, it would make a decent story. Needless to say, I won't be reading the sequel!

Patrick Rothfuss: The Wise Man's Fear

This is a great book. Not excellent, but great.

It is Rothfuss's follow up to The Name of the Wind, about failed hero Kvothe who has gone into hiding, changed his name and doing as little as possible running an inn. This is the second instalment in Kvothe's tale and it was a delight to read.

Rothfuss's world building skills are fantastic; the level of detail that has been put into the novel are perfect. It boasts a multitude of different people's and beings, which interact together so realistically, the reader cannot help be suckered in.

The support characters are well developed and cleverly written, again, interacting so well you think they're actually there. It's just a bit of a shame that Rothfuss's protagonist isn't the same. Throughout the book, Kvothe gains magical abilities and becomes rather powerful. Good for him. Then the young, rather naive boy is seduced by the Felurian, who has a reputation for leaving men mad after having her way with them, he even manages to leave her satisfied. How? I mean, he was a virginal boy who knew less than nothing about women? Then he goes off and learns a bunch of fighting skills from another tribe of people who accept him and teach him the uber-secret ways.

I don't mean to nit-pick here but Kvothe comes across as a bit too perfect for my tastes. I like there to be some stumbling on the rise to power but this guy seems to have it too easy.

That said, I will be reading the third instalment when it comes out, just to see what happens in the end and as I feel this way, the book must be a success!