Review: Hammered

Hammered by Kevin Hearne

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I found Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid series thanks to Charles de Lint's review in Fantasy and Science Fiction a few months ago. He compared it, in tone, to Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber and, being a lover of that series, I knew I had to give it a try. I sped through the first two books, Hounded and Hexed. I loved the world, I loved the characters... it was just a wonderful series that I couldn't wait to read more of.

And then I hit Hammered.

I'm not sure what it was about it but I had a hard time getting through it. I actually started it sometime last year and it took me several months to decide to pull the ebook back out of the library and give it another try. (Thanks to Amazon keeping track of these kinds of things, I was able to pick back up where I left off.) While there were some scenes that I enjoyed quite a bit - Atticus' meeting with Jesus, his conversations with the Widow MacDonough, his meeting with Morrigan near the end of the book - most of what happened in Asgard, as well as the bits leading up to it (from the time the group gets together for the attack) just didn't keep my attention. And I wish I knew why it wasn't, because it would seem to be things I would love. Maybe it was because I knew that Atticus didn't really want to be taking this journey either, but it didn't seem to bug him as much as I would have thought to.

I'm not ready to give up, though. From the moment Atticus set foot back on Midgard through the very end, I was back to feeling that old love for the series. Particularly when Oberon dropped the bombshell about... well, never mind. I don't want to spoil things. But I will say that I can't wait until I can get my hands on the next one. I'm just waiting for it to either be available through my library's digital media or for the paperback to be waiting for me at the library.



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Review: The Mark of Athena

The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan is the third book in the Heroes of Olympus series. It takes place in the same world as his Percy Jackson series, with only a few of the main characters from the last series crossing over. At the end of the Percy Jackson series, the Titans had been defeated, Mount Olympus was restored and all was well. Until, of course, the next crisis.

The Heroes of Olympus series involves not one but two camps having to save the world. The Greeks of Camp Half-Blood and the Romans of Camp Jupiter. Of course, neither knew the other existed until Hera pulled Percy Jackson out of Camp Half-Blood and Jason Grace out of Camp Jupiter and plopped them in the opposite camp without their memory. The first book, The Lost Hero, tells Jason's story. The second book, The Son of Neptune, tells Percy's story. In this, the third book, members of the two camps finally come together to quest and stop the rise of Gaea. I'd been looking forward to this one quite a bit, as I enjoyed the previous series and the previous books in this series quite a bit.

Things don't go smoothly for Annabeth, Jason, Piper and Leo when they land in Camp Jupiter. They aren't trusted by some and, when Leo is taken over by an Idolan and fires on the camp, they need to beat a hasty retreat and start their quest. Percy, Hazel and Frank join the group in their quick retreat to their flying trireme and they head toward Rome to try to stop Gaea.

Annabeth has another task. She's been tasked by her mother, Athena, to follow her mark and find something that was stolen from her when the Romans conquered the Greeks. As much as she'd like the help of her boyfriend, Percy, she's got to go this one alone.

I enjoyed the story itself very much. It was good to see Percy and Annabeth back together, and the dynamic between the five heroes was interesting. I loved that it wasn't an easy journey in any sense of the word. I'm also glad to have the mystery of Hazel and Leo cleared up. Each character got a good amount of screen time (though a little less to Jason and Frank, but not by much) and there was some good character development in the story. And the ending - even if my husband did call it - had my heart in my throat. It really makes me want to pick up the next book as soon as it comes out to see what's going to happen next.

That said, there were a few things that niggled at me as I listened to the story. There was a lot of passive voice in this story. I don't remember as much telling in the previous books as I saw in this one. But that could be my memory. Also, Percy's little, "What do you mean they didn't want to meet me?" scene when Leo and Frank came back from seeing Chiron's brothers struck me as shades of Harry Potter in The Order of the Phoenix Very whiny, very self-absorbed. I'd never really gotten that feeling regarding Percy before. I'm glad that it wasn't something that continued through out the rest of the book.

I listened to the audio book and, like in my review of The Son of Neptune, I had a lot of problems with the pronunciations of some of the names. Having heard some of the God names pronounced differently most of my life, it was very jarring and took me out of the story. Otherwise, his reading was very good. He had fairly distinctive voices for each character and kept the flow of the book moving quite well. I'm probably still going to listen to the audio books for the rest of the series, even though I know the pronunciation issues will be there.

All said, it was a fairly good book. Excellent story, with a few minor quibbles, and some issues with the reader.



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TBR Pile Challenge

I'm going to try to give the TBR Pile Challenge hosted by Adam at Roof Beam Reader. The challenge is to read 12 books that have been on your TBR Pile for at least a year. You also have 2 alternate books in case one or two of your 12 just don't work for you. So I have a list of 14 books to try to read next year. If you want to get in on the fun, click the TBR Challenge link above.  You have until December 31, 2012 to list your books and link them back at Roof Beam Reader.

Now on to the books that I've chosen from my TBR Pile:

1. What If ?: The World's Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been ed. by Robert Cowley
2. Take a Thief by Mercedes Lackey
3. The Handmaid' s Tale by Margaret Atwood
4. Gloriana by Michael Moorcock
5. Soldier of the Mist by Gene Wolfe
6. The Soldier of Arete by Gene Wolfe
7. The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGion
8. Fantasy Gone Wrong ed. by Martin Greenberg & Brittiany A. Koren
9. Silverlock by John Meyers Meyers
10. Cold Street by P.N. Elrod
11. Unicorn Variations ed. by Roger Zelazny
12. The Lion in Winter by James Goldman

Alternates:

1. Night by Elie Wiesel
2. Middleworld by J & P Voekel

Unlike last year, I'm not jumping into a ton of challenges. So far, this is the only one I'm formally joining. I just haven't had a chance to look around and see what else is up there.

Review: Smash Cut

Smash Cut by Sandra Brown

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This is a book that's been sitting on my shelf for awhile, one that I won through GoodReads. Like many of the other books on my shelves, I'd been meaning to get through it for some time. It took a badly sprained ankle to do so and I wondered why I'd waited.

Julie Rutledge stands by helplessly while her companion, Paul Wheeler, is murdered in what seems to be a hold-up in the elevator of a hotel. But she knows that robbery wasn't the motive. Murder was. And the person responsible, Paul's nephew Creighton, has a rock solid alibi. She needs to find a way to make him pay. When she finds out that the Wheelers have retained high-profile lawyer Derek Mitchell to represent him, she does her best to discredit him. Instead, she finds a man that becomes enamored with her, and who realizes that Julie just may be telling the truth about how unbalanced Creighton really is.

Creighton is one of the creepiest villains I've come across in a long, long time. He's a psychopath through and through, expertly using the plots of his beloved movies to plan and execute his uncle's murder while laying the blame purely at Julie's feet. And his money and charm make it next to impossible for most people to see the truth. What was really scary was finding just how far back his depravity went.

The story started strong and exciting and from the first page turn, with more mystery being added to the mix with each chapter. Who was the mysterious woman that Derek met on his flight back from Paris? What is Julie hiding? Could Creighton be right about her? It had me wanting to turn to the back of the book and read the end just to figure out what was going to happen.

The book had me so engaged that I fought sleep and stayed up until midnight to finish it. Each page turn brought more excitement, horror, sexiness and intrigue. The only problem I had with the whole book was the surprise twist at the end. And not because of the twist itself (which I'm not going into so I don't spoil this for anyone), but because it really didn't seem to be alluded to through the rest of the story. I have no problem with twists, as long as I can go back later and say, "I should have guessed that!"

Even with this small annoyance, it was still a very solid book, heavy on the mystery and not overly sexed. I've enjoyed Sandra Brown's books in the past, and I was glad to find that this one did not disappoint.



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Royalties on Volunteer Reading?

As I was perusing my blogs this afternoon, I came across a post on AbeBook's Reading Copy Book Blog talking about a blog post they'd read regarding SABAM (a Belgian responsible for collecting royalties money) trying to collect royalties from libraries every time a volunteer reads a book to a child. Yes, you read that right. When a volunteer reads a book that the library purchased, they want the library to pay royalties on it.  And it's not like these volunteers are doing large production readings.  No.  They are reading to children at a library story time.

I know that I'm not in Belgium, but it still makes my blood boil.  Yes, in this digital age it's important that writers, musicians and other members of the arts community don't get screwed.  But stopping a library from reading stories to kids to foster the love of reading?  Give me a break.

Don't they realize that they are shooting themselves in the foot?  For some, this story time is their introduction to books.  It's where they learn to love the written word and, hopefully, to become addicted to it.  As the writer at Reading Copy points out, these are kids that will grow up to be not only lovers of books, but purchasers of books.  In 15 to 20 years, and beyond, they will be spending their money on the latest sensation, anxiously awaiting the smooth feel of the cover, the weight of the pages within.  But SABAM is looking at today instead of tomorrow.

And, as I pointed out in my comment, it's more than just the money that the kids will spend by becoming bibliophiles.  Reading to kids, particularly from a young age, fuels the imagination.  Science Daily pointed, in an article from 2008, to a review in the Archives of Disease in Children.  The study concluded that children that are read to by their parents in an interactive manner are more likely to be better prepared for learning in school.  It speaks to describing the pictures, talking about the story and explaining things the child doesn't understand.  Now, I'm not sure about others, but the librarians that do story time around here read in exactly that manner.  So I'm going to extrapolate that it would work with volunteers reading to them as well as it does with their parents' reading to them.  Which makes these readings beneficial in many ways.

And I know this from experience that reading to kids helps kids be ready for school.  We've been reading to my eldest since he was born, thanks in part to Books from Birth (though, with the bibliophiles that my husband and I are, chance are we would have had quite a few books anyway).  We started bringing him to Story Time at our local library from the time he was 2 1/2 years old.  (My youngest started coming about then too - at two weeks old.)  My eldest was reading by the time we started going to story time.  He recognized words that a kid his age usually doesn't.  He's surprised teachers, librarians and other adults (including some of the ladies at church).  And right now, in kindergarten, he's reading at a 4th grade level.  I am convinced that if it weren't for the books that were read to him, and the way they were read to him, he wouldn't be such a fantastic reader.

As I pointed out in my comment, it's not just about being prepared to reader either.  Libraries open up a whole new world of things for kids to learn and explore, and story time helps them on the way to that.  My boys have heard stories about animals hibernating in the winter (including bringing their own teddy bears to put to "sleep" for the winter), about apples and how to make apple pie.  They've learned about different holidays outside of their own religion, and about famous people like Martin Luther King.  They've learned folk tales from other lands and stories from their own heritage.    Hearing stories of dinosaurs has made my youngest want to seek out more information about them.  Hearing Blueberry Girl be read made my eldest seek out other books by Neil Gaiman.  The stories that they've heard at the library have broadened their minds, sometimes to places I would never have thought to go with them.  And I don't regret it in the least.

Honestly, I think that what the SABAM is doing is far from stopping criminals.  Instead, I believe that it borders on the criminal itself.