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Apocalypse Alley

Book Review of Apocalypse Alley (Blue Unicorn #2), by Don Allmon

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I received a copy of Don Allmon‘s Apocalypse Alley through Netgalley. I reviewed book one, The Glamour Thieves, here.

Description from Goodreads:
Home from a six-month assignment to war-torn East Asia, genetically engineered supersoldier Noah “Comet” Wu just wants to kick back, share a beer, and talk shit with his best friend, JT. But JT’s home has been shot up like a war zone, and his friend has gone missing.

Comet’s only lead is a smart-mouthed criminal he finds amid the mess. His name’s Buzz Howdy. He’s a con man and a hacker and deserves to be in jail. Or in handcuffs, at least. The only thing the two have in common is JT. Unless you count the steamy glances they’re sneaking at one another. They have those in common too. But that just makes Comet all the more wary.

Despite their mutual distrust, they’ll have to work together to rescue JT before a cyborg assassin gets to him first. Racing down a miserable stretch of road called Apocalypse Alley, they must dodge radioactive spiders, a lonely cannibal, and a killer Buick. They also try to dodge each other. That last bit doesn’t work out so well.

Review:
Honestly, I didn’t love this one like I did The Glamour Thieves. I liked it just fine, but there was no love. I still got a thrill out of Allmon’s world and there is a lot of humor in the book that tickled me and I really like the writing style, but the romance literally goes from gun-to-the-head-of-a-stranger to in love, in less than six hours. There is just no way to make that work for me, even if the two go through some heavy stuff together. Almost especially if they go through a storm together, because then you have to sort what feelings are just leftover from the experience and what is real. The book doesn’t even touch on that little psychological reality.

Plus, the book just never stops. There are no rest points in the narrative and I, personally, needed them. And lastly JT and Austin are hardly in the book and I missed them.

Having said all that, I’ll still be on board for book three. This might not have shown like the star book one was, but it is still a fun read and I look forward to more of Allmon’s work.

The Dream Thieves

Book Review of The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle #2), by Maggie Stiefvater

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I borrowed a copy of Maggie Stiefvater’s The Dream Thieves from my local library. I reviewed the first,The Raven Boys, here.

Description from Goodreads:
Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same. Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life. Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after…

Review:
I enjoyed book one of this series. I liked the beginning of this book and really liked the end, but the middle seemed to drag. I just got so tired of everyone being so miserable and no one saying the things that so desperately needed to be said. Further, while Stiefvater’s writing is beautiful there were times I wanted to shake the book and scream, “Stop being so bloody poetic and just say what you mean.” The prose got in the way of the story sometimes. Lastly, it was a little to convenient that the villain offed himself in the end.

However, the plot still kept me interested enough to want the next book and the witty zingers continued to fly. There really is quite a lot of subtle humor in the story and I loved that. All in all, maybe not as good as the first book, but still really good.

The Left Hand of Darkness

Book Review of The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K. Le Guin

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I have owned this copy of Ursula K. Le Guin‘s The Left Hand of Darkness for years. One would presume I bought it at some point.

Description from Goodreads:
On the planet Winter, there is no gender. The Gethenians can become male or female during each mating cycle, and this is something that humans find incomprehensible.

The Ekumen of Known Worlds has sent an ethnologist to study the Gethenians on their forbidding, ice-bound world. At first he finds his subjects difficult and off-putting, with their elaborate social systems and alien minds. But in the course of a long journey across the ice, he reaches an understanding with one of the Gethenians — it might even be a kind of love.

Review:
This is one of those books that is more a thought experiment than an actual reading experience. I can’t say I’m sad to have read it—especially now, so soon after Le Guin’s death—but I’ll say I’m glad to have read it, to be done reading it. As interesting as it was, I was bored for almost all of it. The world was breathtakingly described and, again, the moral and social implications of the Emissary’s circumstances were interesting, but the whole thing was soooo slow and indirect. Plus, while I understand the book was published in 1969 and therefore a product of it’s time, I was uncomfortable with the way women were positioned and described. All in all, I think of this much like I do Moby Dick. I’m glad to tick it off my list off books I’ve meant to read, but didn’t enjoy it all that much, though I can appreciate it’s worth.