Book Reviews for April

Happy First of May, everyone!

You remember the surplus of amazing books that I was fortunate enough to read last month? Neverwhere, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, The Caves of Steel, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Frontier Wolf . . . Yeah, it was amazing! Unfortunately, I can't say the same about this month. I managed to read eight books, but none of them qualify as amazing. In fact, most of them were boring or utter disappointments. It just goes to remind me of the sad fact that there are, in fact, many more bleh books out there than there are beautiful ones.

Still, the month was not a complete loss. So here you go, my book reviews for the cruelest month!

Foundation, by Isaac Asimov
I've heard a lot about how this is one of the best science fiction novels ever written. So perhaps I began reading it with too-high expectations. No matter what the reason, I was very underwhelmed. I need characters to attach to and care about, otherwise novels just don't work for me. While this book was chock-full of brilliant concepts and interesting ideas, it was too disjointed and too lacking in developed characters for me to really like it. Asimov has a tendency to use characters only to illustrate the plot instead of the plot to showcase the characters, and that is (sadly) very evident in this story. So although many science fiction lovers may adore this one, I am not so enthused.

The Naked Sun, by Isaac Asimov
This was pretty much the month of Asmiov; I read three books he authored. Unfortunately, I didn't love any of them. This was by far the best of the bunch to me, but the mystery was not as interesting as the mystery in the first novel of the series, "The Caves of Steel", and I felt that Olivaw was criminally under-used aside from a very compelling and brief scene towards the end. More Asimov philosophy and cleverness, and more Asmiov lack of interesting characters. Gladia really grated on my nerves, I couldn't bring myself to care for her at all. Sorry. That might just be my problem.

The Robots of Dawn, by Isaac Asimov
And this was by far the worst of the bunch. If you read "Caves of Steel", please do yourself a favor and skip this last book in the trilogy. The plot was inane and boring, the characters even worse, Olivaw was again underused, and I was even disliking Baley by the end of it all, which is a tragedy, since I loved him in the first novel of the trilogy. This book is basically just long, dull, and morally questionable essays on sexuality, strung together by a repetitive and very thin plot. How sad. I will forget I ever read this one and just reread "Caves".

The Looking Glass Wars, by Frank Beddor
I forget why I became interested in this book months ago, but I did, and this month I finally managed to read it. And again--what a disappointment! The writing was painfully bad--I mean, come on, 'tarty tarts'? You really expect me to read stuff like that with a straight face?--, and although some characters were intriguing, they were ultimately left flat and fake-feeling thanks to the poor prose. The plot was also lackluster. When compared to the real "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", in particular, this book is, in my opinion, a complete waste of time.

Fall of a Kingdom, by Hilari Bell
The description on the back of this book described it as a blend of Persian mythology and Roman military history, which sounded really compelling. Unfortunately it, too, was very dull. I don't know exactly what was wrong with it, but I couldn't bring myself to care about any of the characters or the politics at all. I won't completely dismiss it, but I don't really want to read it again either, nor do I want to read any of its sequels.

Never After, by Rebecca Lickiss
This was an entertaining book, full of fairy tale spoofing. I liked the idea that, after struggling through a castle full of sleeping people and bashing his way through a hedge of thorns and all that, a questing prince discovers that sleeping in the tower is no princess, but instead a prince. That's pretty hilarious. There were some other good elements too, like a wizard being cursed to only speak in Shakespearean quotations. But there were grammatical errors. And clunky prose. And plenty of dull moments and characters to combat the good. So, basically, this one was ultimately a dud as well. I've read better fairy tale spoofs.

Only You Can Save Mankind, by Terry Pratchett
This story's premise is great, but it should have been a short story; it got old fast. Again, a disappointment. Sigh. If you see this book, I'd recommend reading the first chapter, and then the last page, but that's it.

Snow-Walker, by Catherine Fisher
Aaaaand, here's the Book of the Month.

There's a lot to like about this book. I liked the play on the idea of 'reflections'. I liked much of the style. I liked a few of the characters. But it wasn't fantastic. I felt it was okay, but it could have been much better, which is frustrating. There is a part, for instance, where the bard burns his harp so that his friends can keep warm. Sound familiar? It should, if you have read Lloyd Alexander's "The High King" (and if you haven't, go read it now). Fflewddur's sacrifice in that book makes me emotional whenever I read it, no matter how many times I read it. The harp-burning in "Snow-Walker" barely registered to me other than as failing in comparison to Alexander's version. Also, events move too quickly for any sense of real peril to thrive. And Fisher gets stuck using the same words and phrases to describe characters in a way that tends to be more distracting than poetic--I got tired of reading that Kari is 'pale' on practically every other page, and he did a lot of 'pushing the hair out of his eyes'--But this was still a good book, imaginative and refreshing in its originality, and I'd recommend it to my younger siblings. It also had this winning bit of dialogue:

'"I thought Ironwood was just a place in tales."
"So it is," Skapti said promptly, "but all tales are true. They're just the way we struggle with the world."'

So bravo, "Snow-Walker", you are the Book of the Month! And, moreover, the only book of the bunch that I'd really be interested in reading again or recommending to others. Let's hope that May has better reads forthcoming!