Review of World War Z

World War Z by Max Brooks stood on the shelf at Borders the moment I saw it. What a great title, heck what a great idea! It did not disappoint.

In a series of increasingly poignant and disturbing interviews the main character gives the reader a feel for the whole Zombie War. These are not Scooby Doo zombies so be prepared. Right away I was caught up in it and had to know what happened. The chain of events is so logical that all throughout the novel I would nod my head that yes, that would happen, governments and people could and would do that. As with any good horror (at least in my opinion) the shock was in the unknown, the time after the stories ended. There really was a low blatant gore level and this seemed to make it more plausible.

As good as it was I did have one complaints. The main character came across as too flat for an otherwise very intelligent novel. His questions were in some cases far too basic and either skirted around the meat of the interview or missed the interesting point entirely (once).

This is an excellent book that I only put down when there was just too much to think about or too much horror to mull over. Highly recommended!

Happy September

This is the month for book releases. A new episode Erikson's epic The Malazan Book of the Fallen and the long awaited installment in GGM's A Song of Ice and Fire series both come out in the next few weeks. Seriously for fantasy fans this will be a great, happy month!

Review of Shadowbridge

Shadowbridge by Gregory Frost was a book I was not expecting. Everyone said it was good. On all the blogs, on the forums, it had great reviews everywhere. I was, to be honest, kind of skeptical. Then I started it and could not put it down. I even stopped reading it so it wouldn’t end. Without further ranting here’s the review.

Shadowbridge starts off in a very interesting way but will throw you for loops quickly so read carefully. The characters share the pages space with stories from the world Frost has created. They are excellent and interplay very well. The fables Jax tells are so good I wanted to read more of them. The back-stories are very thorough, sometimes too much so. After a while in Diverus’ history I forgot about Jax and the main plot line of the novel.
This isn’t a fantasy where the world and all its inner workings are going to be explained right off the bat so my advice is to just go with it. It’ll be sorted out later. Frost’s language flows nicely and elevates the story to a high level.
My only problem with this novel was the switching point of view. It happened so rarely it would throw me off for a bit, and then happened right as I was getting into the grove again. But still, one small complaint for a great book. Oh yeah, and the ending, you’ll never see it coming.

Anticipation

Here Here one and all. A review of Shadowbridge is coming soon.

Chronicles of the Black Company

At first The Chronicles of the Black Company was not what I wanted to read by Cook. The Dread Empire omnibus looked cooler. But after reading the covers and glancing at on line reviews the Black Company seemed to be the much better choice in terms of depth. They were not wrong.

It is a story where generalizations hide so much and characters really do seem to come to life especially the morally questionable ones. The writing moves quickly and unlike a good deal of fantasy does not spend ungodly amounts of time describing the land, the food, or what someone looks like. Almost immediately you get the tension between the characters and a real sense of the dangerous life they lead. I found them to be as real as any I have ever encountered. Croaker, one of the main voices, is as sympathetic a character you can get but little asides leave no doubt that he is as dark and has the same capabilities as his companions.

One thing that originally had been a concern was the names. The Lady, The Dominator, things like that always make me pause regrettably since some fantasy books are just far too simple minded. This is not simple in the least. I don’t care what they’re called I’d never want to meet them.

Over all a great trilogy that I couldn’t put down and I am dying for a chance to read The Books of the South, the next part of the Black Company epic.

(For whatever reason Glen Cook seems to be not that well known. After reading this I have absolutely no idea why.)

Charge!

It has begun. My forray into book reviews and all out literary geekdom. Here it goes....

Hello and welcome to Masterpiece Theatre....

Just kidding. The review coming up is The Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook. Just getting my bearings as of right now and fighting with blogger. Technology always wins, the one lesson the Terminator movies taught me as a child. /sigh Happy Saturday!