Monthly Archives: March 2015

Book Review: Master & Commander, by Patrick O’Brian

Leave a reply

master and commander cover

As the Royal Navy takes part in the wars against Napoleonic France, young Jack Aubrey receives his first command, the small, old, and slow HMS Sophie. Accompanied by his eccentric new friend, the physician and naturalist Stephen Maturin, Aubrey does battle with the naval hierarchy, with his own tendency to make social blunders, and with the challenges of forging an effective crew — before ultimately taking on enemy ships in a vivid, intricately detailed series of sea battles.

Review:

This is a serious case of not the right reader for the book. The writing is wonderful, and undoubtedly, a ton of research must have gone into it. And if you’re a person who is interested in naval fiction, especially naval fiction of the time, I imagine you will LOVE this book. I am not such a read and as such, I was bored.

The first half of the book is VERY HEAVY in naval/ship/sailing terminology (plus the cant of the time), and I literally read it with a dictionary on hand. This severely compromised my enjoyment of it. And I’ll acknowledge that, as there are 20 books in the series, 200 pages to set up the tone and terminology of the series isn’t unbearable. But as half of a single book, it’s interminable. I likened it to the ~100 pages of whale anatomy in Moby Dick, something you just have to get through to get on with the story.

The second half of the book is far more readable, but it still fell flat for me. I think the problem was that I expected a sprawling sea adventure and instead the story is a series of small everyday adventures of a particular ship and crew. Meaning that there is no single challenge to overcome or adversary to engage or peak in the plot. It’s just one random naval encounter after another. It really wasn’t enough to truly grab me, even if I did like the characters.

I didn’t dislike the book, and I’d probably read another, but it’s one of those books I’m glad to have read but also glad to no longer be reading.

Book Review of Afterworld (Orion Rezner Chronicles #1), by Michael James Ploof

Leave a reply

AfterworldI downloaded a copy of Michael James Ploof‘s novel, Afterworld: The Orion Rezner Chronicles from the Amazon free list. (However, I had it mislabelled and picked it up to read thinking it was a request. Sorry requesters, I meant for this read to be one of yours.)

Description from Goodreads:
Seven years have passed since the Culling of 2033 which killed most of the world’s population. Vampires, werewolves, and demons have begun to emerge from the shadows, and they are hungry. Boston, one of the last vestiges of humanity, is protected by a spell shield created by the Wizard Council. The shield is the only thing keeping the city safe.

Having studied the Craft for two years at Harvard Witchcraft and Wizardry, Orion Rezner embarks on his final rite of passage. But his first mission outside the city walls forces him to make choices he wasn’t prepared for. Narrowly avoiding possession by an ancient demon, he learns of a plot to destroy the spell shield and expose its survivors to the horrors outside.

Suspected by the wizard council of having been compromised by the encounter, Orion is unable to convince them of the danger. With the help of his closest friends and ghostly mentor, Orion sets out on a desperate quest to thwart the demon’s plan any way he can–before it’s too late to save the city.

Review:
Ummm, it was Ok I suppose. I wasn’t all that impressed, but I didn’t hate it either. I think my issue stems from the fact that I’m not sure where the book falls genre-wise, therefore I can’t decide if my expectations were skewed or not.

This is post-apocalyptic. An orchestrated mega-virus seems to have wiped out most of the world’s population and a large chunk of the remaining humanity are stigmatised and seem to live in some Mad Max rendition of future Earth. It’s set in 2041 (or there abouts), but all the pop references are from the 1980s and 90s, making it feel contemporary even as it’s futuristic. So, Sci-fi maybe? But then there are witches, wizards and priestly mystics performing exorcisms. (Apparently there are vampires, werewolves, unicorns and so on, too, but you don’t see any.) So, fantasy or even urban fantasy maybe? Then there is the monkey named Dude and a disturbing number of fart jokes/references. Are we then in a humorous novel? The main character is at least in his mid-twenties. (He has a college degree and a 2-year apprenticeship.) But he speaks like a frat boy, slash, surfer. Seriously, it was all “wayyy,” “Hell to the yeah.” Plus the book is full of Harry Potter like magic. So, is it YA? NA? They curse, so maybe even adult? I have no idea.

So, not knowing how to categorise and therefore think about this novel is a problem. But so is the fact that it just feels very random. We catch up with Orion on the day he takes his final test to become a wizard. Then we follow him as he runs around and does a lot of essentially random stuff. In the grand scheme of the series it might all have a place, but in terms of this book, we aren’t given enough background to understand his choices and situate them in an overarching plot-line. As a result, I never felt engaged with him or cared that much about him and what was happening.

This was exacerbated by the fact that he was just so dumb. I know that in his narrative some of that apparent stupidness was self-deprecation, (and some of it’s actually pretty funny) but he did a lot of really unintelligent stuff, even when he should know better.

If I was a 16-year-old boy I might relate to Orion and like the book more than I did. The writing was fine and I don’t remember much about the editing, which means nothing stood out to me as wrong. I think this is just a case of not quite the right reader. But as I didn’t hate it either, I’ll give it a grudging “grunt of approval.”

Review of Getting It Right (Restoration #1), by A.M. Arthur

Leave a reply

Getting it RightI received a copy of A. M. Arthur’s Getting it Right from Netgalley.

Description from Goodreads:
Detective Nathan Wolf might just be a junior detective, but he tackles every case with the passion that he lacks in his personal life. A series of failed relationships with women has left him still single at thirty-four—because he’s too scared to admit to his longtime crush on his best friend James.

Dr. James Taggert likes to keep his profession as a psychiatrist separate from his party-animal persona. Known around the gay clubs as Tag, he’s the guy who screws them, leaves them, and never looks back. But James’s drinking is getting heavier, and when bad memories from the past resurface, he’s close to becoming the worst version of himself.

After a drunken blackout ends in a hot and heavy make-out session with his very straight best friend, James has no memory of the steamy affair. But Nathan isn’t sorry for the kisses that James can’t remember. Nathan finally musters the courage to tell James how he really feels, but a life-altering event might force them apart before they can ever be together.

Review:
Well, that was a disappointment from page one…before that even. My first annoyance popped up in the author’s acknowledgements. It was here that it was mentioned thatGetting It Right (Restoration #1), despite being labeled a first in a series, is based on a character from Maybe This Time (Belonging, #2).

I dislike spinoffs because I’m never sure how integrated they are. Sure, this is a stand-alone book, but there are a lot of characters that are obviously from somewhere else and thus basically just dropped in on occasion. Here’s an example, “A small crowd of their shared friends had taken over the waiting room on Doug’s floor. Boxer and his latest boyfriend, Louis. Tori and her husband, Allen. Some of Doug’s co-workers from the store…” None of these characters had been mentioned before this point, there is obvious history here and it’s not from this book or really relevant to this book. This is the sort of thing I avoid.

What’s more, there’s a lot of exposition in the beginning, trying to catch the reader up on some of this stuff. First Elliot shows up, so we have to be told who he is and what his situation is like. Then the reveal and change of his situation has to be explained. But none of it is anything more than a detour from the main story.

But all of the above pales in comparison to my real issues with this book. First, it’s full of angst and ridiculous misunderstandings based on the fact that one of the men made an assumption or jumped to a conclusion and stormed off (or worse, one lied for no conceivable reason). So annoying. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book where this was a satisfying turn of events. It was even worse here because it felt like all these darned men did was talk, talk, talk. I’ll admit it was nice to see male characters breaking the ‘men don’t do emotions’ trope and discussing their feelings, but good lord did it get tiring.

But even that’s not my biggy. I’m going to discuss my big problem with this book as general advice to authors. Here it is: If you want to write a PSA, that’s great. The world could probably use a few good ones. But don’t dress it in the guise of fiction and sell it to me as a romance. That’s just bad form. What’s more, if you insist on doing this, at least choose one topic and stick with it, instead of trying to see how darned many you can squeeze into one book.

I’m not kidding, there were a ton of ‘issues’ being addressed here. Everything from the importance of talking out problems and getting a therapist for trauma, to PSTD, alcoholism, addiction, depression, cutting off those who are emotionally harmful to you, grief, regret, infidelity, the importance of condom use, secondary trauma, abuse, (both as a victim and as a recovered abuser), suicide, guilt, not taking responsibilities for others’ actions or choices (as in “It’s not your fault…”), the importance of acceptance, anorexia and cancer. I’m probably even forgetting some that I’ve forgotten between finishing the book and writing this review.

The problem is that it all felt extremely contrived. As if half the events were there more for the object lesson they allowed the author to force on the reader than for any sort of natural development of the plot. For example, at one point a character has a pre-cancerous mole removed and is giving up his job as a landscaper to avoid the sun. But it is one conversation with a side character and that’s it. It plays no role in the book whatsoever. It has no natural place. This is not fun to read!

All in all, though the writing was fine, I even liked the characters, this was a fail for me.