Category Archives: books/book review

Book Review of Laurence and the Riders, by Sloan Archer

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Laurence and the RidersSloan Archer sent me an ecopy of Laurence and the Riders in exchange for an honest review. However, I believe it has since been retitles The Last Days of Ordinary.

Description from Goodreads:
When Laurence Clarke reunites with his beautiful high school crush, he never anticipates that his ordinary world will forever change. Jolene Mason has been keeping many secrets since they were teenagers, but the one Laurence never would have imagined is also the most dangerous: Jolene’s father is a leader of Paxios, an underground race of immortals with a penchant for illicit gold dust and human organs. This wouldn’t matter so much to Laurence if he hadn’t witnessed Jolene’s father commit murder. Now he’s stuck working for criminals in exchange for safety, forbidden to see Jolene on top of everything else. But Laurence doesn’t always do what he’s told, and soon finds himself in over his head, longing for the days when life was simple. . . 

Review:
This was an amusing read. It had some truly funny bits and the general idea of the plot is an interesting one. I like Laurence and could appreciate the difficulty of his position. I liked Boone and could relate to Spider and Laurence’s odd friendship.

Unfortunately, I also felt no chemistry between Laurence and Jolene, mostly because the amount of time Laurence spent with her was dwarf by what he spent with Spider and the Enders. Similarly, Laurence was meant to have a strong bond with his brother, but you never saw it. They almost never spoke to one another.

The writing itself is pretty strong. I did think some parts of the book bordered on cheesy; like the info-drop about the Paxios…cheesy. I also had a problem with weapons of pure gold. Gold is very soft. How strong could a dagger or, God forbid, a bullet of pure gold be?

On the whole, though, I like more than I didn’t and enjoyed the read.

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

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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

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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.”