The Gunslinger - Stephen King

Oh My God! Read this book, drop what you are doing right now and go find this book. You need it in your life. I don't get excited about much but this is certainly well worth the words. Reading this was like a little bit of heaven had descended into the palm of my hands... Where shall I start?

Characters! Always a good place. Likable, flawed, complicated, and that's just the support cast! I cannot begin to describe the depths the protagonist in this story has. He is very far from perfect and the struggles he goes through are tough. He has good and bad points and is interesting to read about too. There is a lot to be learnt from Roland Deschain. The start of the novel introduces him only as The Gunslinger and in an interesting technique, his name is not learnt until a good third of the way through.

Writing: The writing in this book is perfect. It conjures some interesting emotions too, I ranged from disgusted, appalled and in parts, down right sick. I think the pleasure comes from reading so much average recently on finding a book like this it is a real treat.The building of tension in the first part of the novel begins from the moment you start reading and doesn't relent until it finally bursts into a whirlwind of action. The level of detail in some places is fantastic but what King leaves to the readers mind is what makes this a truly engaging novel.

Plot: I won't destroy the secrets of this novel for those of you that have not read the book yet. (I hope you do so) What I will say is that it is perfectly executed and moves with just the right amount of pace. I could keep up with it and never felt lost along the way. I've not read anything this good since Joe Abercrombie's 'First Law' Trilogy.

 From the first page I needed to know what happened, and I still do. I'm off to read the next book as soon as I have finished this blog! I don't have the words to describe how I felt on reading this novel except that I think I had a nerd-gasm while I read it... Read this book!

The Guardians: Christopher Williams

Ah! The joys of modern technology! This review brought to you from the joy that is iPhone! Seeing how I read on a Kindle this should not be as surprising as it is. Still, it's been a while due to various work related factors for which I apologise.

This book was average at best, dire in most places. There was nothing I care about! The main character had what seemed like big obstacles to overcome but it turned out to be all too easy. There was one incident where our hero had to fight an arrogant toff of a noble . He won! Good for him. Instead of the noble being all resentful like a spoilt brat should be, he just decided to respect the hero instead... Seemed like a big missed opportunity for decent conflict in my opinion. The hero leads
His newly trained squad to where they are being garrisoned and receives an officer commission for it. All he did was walk some men over grassland, all too easy!

The time jumps come across as lazy authorism as well. (I know it's not a word but it works). Most of the squads training is skipped over. Instead of
Making use of a great time for character development, this pivotal time is glossed over in a matter of words. What a waste!

Then we have the elves... What a cliche! They fit every single one of the stereotypes and add nothing unique about this key fantasy race. They have been flogged and packaged that many times it takes a lot to get me interested in them. This book is just another rehash of an old cliche - boooring!

It really is a shame because like so
Many books I read, it had good potential. Another round of editing, yes I found countless spelling mistakes, and a little more thought would make this a story worth reading.

Taming Fire (Dragonprince Triology book 1) - Aaron Pogue

After the disaster that was my last read, this book was a delight! It wasn't perfect and if it had followed something like Doug Hurlick's Among Thieves it might not have been such a success but such as it is, this book is well worth a read.

The storyline is pretty simple, telling of a young convicted thief's son, who's working as a shepherd to escape his father's crimes, is found by a wizard and offered power he has not really dreamt about. Couple that with his more than decent knowledge of sword-play you'd think he'd have an easy ride to the status he has never had... Nothing could be more wrong. The author has no qualms about making things difficult for his character, he spends more time injured, shunned or being tortured than getting where he needs to be, it makes a welcome change from reading about characters that are good at everything or learn everything easily.

The book has a good mix of politics, magic and dragons and the plot twists in good ways during the first two thirds of the book. It got a little predictable at the end and I felt as though the ending had been rushed a bit. We all like our hero's to win the day and get the girl but in this book, the girl turned out to be someone he'd had a two minute conversation with at the start of the book and not seen since until right at the end. She seemed more of a plot point than a real character.

There are other characters in the novel that could be a bit more developed as well. The wizard who finds our hero plays a major part at the start of the novel, gets injured and then is never seen again. Why did he go to all the effort of fetching the young shepherd if you're going to ignore him... Even after you recover?

The world is well thought out and the magic system the author has used is different to what I have read before which is a welcome change. It is a step away from your traditional fire throwing cliche and a step towards something else, this alone makes the book worth a peruse.

Despite these flaws, this novel is well worth a read. I enjoyed it and will be reading the follow up sometime soon.

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!

Mageborn: The Blacksmith's Son - Michael G Manning

This is the first book by Michael G Manning and while there are some crucial pitfalls in the novel it makes a good read. Lets start with the positive; I read it in 3 days and although I am off work (school holidays) it usually takes me a good week to read a book. The characters were interesting enough for me to care about, there was enough action for it to be a gripping read and all in all I wanted to know what the outcome of the novel would be. The world Manning has built is well thought out and immersion is not an issue throughout

The plot was reasonably well thought out although there are some issues I had with placing in the overall structure. There is the notion in writing that one plus one equals a half and this novel certainly falls down here. The author tends to overstate a point somewhat which gets a bit annoying. I don't need beating around the head with an issue, trust me, I understood the first time. The author has interesting starts to his chapters where one of the characters explains the magic system in his world - this is fine, but I then don't need the protagonist re-explaining this later in the same chapter. My memory is better than your average goldfish.

There is also an issue regarding Point of View. Usually in novels, you choose one and stick to it. Not so in this book. We get some first person and some third, nice blend which overall works well. The bits where it falls down is when you get this shift mid paragraph. This gets a bit confusing at times and could be made clearer to the reader. Some of the plot points are not completed but I have since discovered there is a follow up so that explains that.

I'd recommend this book as it is easy to read and overall a good story. I can forgive Manning these pitfalls as it is his first novel and we all get better the more we do something right?

Supernatural: The Unholy Cause - Joe Shreiber

And now everyone knows I am a fan of Supernatural. No bad thing, the TV show is well worth a watch and after my last couple of reads I felt it was time for something cheap and easy.

This book is both of those, cheap and easy, I read it in a matter of days and have to admit I was most pleased with it. The author has caught the two characters perfectly. Dean says some very Deanish lines and Sam is his usual moaning self. Castiel is about as deadpan as he is in the show and the three characters manage to work together to save a small Southern American town from disaster while also averting the Apocalypse. Who could ask for more than that?

The pacing of the novel is brilliant as well. The ending has me flicking the buttons on the Kindle as fast as I could. I was even reading while lounging on the sofa - a rarity for me - it had gripped me that much! The language used in the book is good, yet not too complicated and has some decent similes as well. In fact, this book as so many similes in it, they become a bit grating towards the end. However, this is my only complaint about the book and it's a minor one at that!

I'd recommend this book for Supernatural fans without hesitation but if you don't know what the show is about, your just going to get confused so it won't be worth your time.

D H Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover

We all like forbidden things right? Speaking for myself, tell me I can't have something and I so want it. The same applied to banned books. Why were they banned? What is all the fuss about? What was so shocking about the book that it was restricted from common view?

This is what prompted me to read this book, written in the 1920's I can see why the material inside could be considered illicit. In fact it still could be, having said that though, by modern standards, it isn't as graphic or sordid as some of the other erotic romances I have read.

The language used when describing body parts is basic, there's no cock splattered across the page and it's ability to shock the reader has passed along with the time when it was written. Having said that, there is some beautifully crafted scenes in this book and they are a wonder to read. Lawrence's ability for the poetic really shows in this book and for this reason, but not only this reason, I would recommend you read it.

After the initial outcry of the sordidity of the book, and once you look past the sex scenes, there is a very pointed comment about the society Lawrence lived in. There are some very good points about the state of economy during the period between the two wars, as well as the changing attitudes of generations. The characters are very real as well, their insecurities and observations of the gender differences is easy to relate to, as is observed,  “A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it.” and what can be more true?

This was a really enjoyable read and I would suggest you add it to your 'to read' list!