Title: Generation A by Douglas Coupland
Jacket summary: Generation A is set in the near future in a world where bees are extinct, until five unconnected people from around the world-in the United States, Canada, France, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka- are all stung. Their shared experiences unites them in ways they never could have imagined.
Generation A mirrors Coupland's debut Novel, 1991's Generation X. It explores new ways of storytelling in a digital world. Like much of Coupland's writing, it occupies the perplexing hinterland between optimism about the future and everyday apocalyptic paranoia. Imaginative, inventive, and fantastically entertaining, Generation A is his most ambitious work to date.
My Take: The cover of the book lies, it is not his most ambitious work yet. Seriously, it was disjointed and I have no idea why I was still reading around page 100. The book started out hilariously but around page 100 it started to fall apart. Coupland's wit and brash view of the world was really the only interesting part of this book. The characters were slightly flat and really did not develop. It was one of those books that once finished the reader can piece the story together in under thirty seconds. I have stated in the past that Coupland and I have a love hate relationship. I don't feel that this was one of his better books. Maybe next time Mr. C.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
A new year
Ok kids, sorry I neglected my updates last year. I am going to do a better job of writing about the books I read in 2010. My goal is forty books by December. Even as I write this I know that is not really that many, but on top of a fuller than full class load and all the housewifery that I have to do I am thinking it will be a nice light attainable goal.
So without further rantings
2010
So without further rantings
2010
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Run for Your Life- James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
Title: Run for Your Life by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
Summary: (from Amazon.com)
A calculating killer who calls himself The Teacher is taking onNew York City New York
Only one man can tackle such a high-profile case: Detective Mike Bennett. The pressure is enough for anyone, but Mike also has to care for his 10 children-all of whom have come down with virulent flu at once!
Discovering a secret pattern in The Teacher's lessons, Detective Bennett realizes he has just hours to saveNew York
My take: It was a fast read and entertaining to boot. I will be checking out more books by James Patterson in the future. It was very fast paced and mixed the job of a NYC homicide detective with that of a widowed father of ten during flu season.
Rating- 4 out of 5
Summary: (from Amazon.com)
A calculating killer who calls himself The Teacher is taking on
Only one man can tackle such a high-profile case: Detective Mike Bennett. The pressure is enough for anyone, but Mike also has to care for his 10 children-all of whom have come down with virulent flu at once!
Discovering a secret pattern in The Teacher's lessons, Detective Bennett realizes he has just hours to save
My take: It was a fast read and entertaining to boot. I will be checking out more books by James Patterson in the future. It was very fast paced and mixed the job of a NYC homicide detective with that of a widowed father of ten during flu season.
Rating- 4 out of 5
Omen by Christie Golden
Title: Omen by Christie Golden
Summary: (from Amazon.com)
The Jedi Order is in crisis. The late Jacen Solo’s shocking transformation into murderous Sith Lord Darth Caedus has cast a damning pall over those who wield the Force for good: Two Jedi Knights have succumbed to an inexplicable and dangerous psychosis, criminal charges have driven Luke Skywalker into self-imposed exile, and power-hungry Chief of State Natasi Daala is exploiting anti-Jedi sentiment to undermine the Order’s influence within the Galactic Alliance.
Forbidden to intervene in Jedi affairs, Luke is on a desperate mission to uncover the truth behind Jacen’s fall to the dark side–and to learn what’s turning peaceful Jedi into raving lunatics. But finding answers will mean venturing into the mind-bending space of the Kathol Rift and bargaining with an alien species as likely to destroy outsiders as deal with them. Still, there is no other choice and no time to lose, as the catastrophic events on Coruscant continue to escalate. Stricken by the same violent dementia that infected her brother, Valin, Jedi Knight Jysella Horn faces an equally grim fate after her capture by Natasi Daala’s police. And when Han and Leia Solo narrowly foil another deranged Jedi bent on deadly destruction, even acting Jedi Grand Master Kenth Hamner appears willing to bow to Daala’s iron will–at the expense of the Jedi Order.
But an even greater threat is looming. Millennia in the past, a Sith starship crashed on an unknown low-tech planet, leaving the survivors stranded. Over the generations, their numbers have grown, the ways of the dark side have been nurtured, and the time is fast approaching when this lost tribe of Sith will once more take to the stars to reclaim their legendary destiny as rulers of the galaxy. Only one thing stands in their way, a name whispered to them through the Force: Skywalker.
My Take: Ya know, this book was ripped apart by reviewers and I don't see why. It was an entertaining read that was quick to finish. Yes the pricetag was a little ballooned for what you got but that is what you pay for a Star Wars book. The reviewers were quick to judge on this piece of writing. My only comment to them would be "was it entertaining? Yes? That is all you are going to get out of a Star Wars book!"
Rating- 3.5 out of 5 (I felt it was a tad short!)
Summary: (from Amazon.com)
The Jedi Order is in crisis. The late Jacen Solo’s shocking transformation into murderous Sith Lord Darth Caedus has cast a damning pall over those who wield the Force for good: Two Jedi Knights have succumbed to an inexplicable and dangerous psychosis, criminal charges have driven Luke Skywalker into self-imposed exile, and power-hungry Chief of State Natasi Daala is exploiting anti-Jedi sentiment to undermine the Order’s influence within the Galactic Alliance.
Forbidden to intervene in Jedi affairs, Luke is on a desperate mission to uncover the truth behind Jacen’s fall to the dark side–and to learn what’s turning peaceful Jedi into raving lunatics. But finding answers will mean venturing into the mind-bending space of the Kathol Rift and bargaining with an alien species as likely to destroy outsiders as deal with them. Still, there is no other choice and no time to lose, as the catastrophic events on Coruscant continue to escalate. Stricken by the same violent dementia that infected her brother, Valin, Jedi Knight Jysella Horn faces an equally grim fate after her capture by Natasi Daala’s police. And when Han and Leia Solo narrowly foil another deranged Jedi bent on deadly destruction, even acting Jedi Grand Master Kenth Hamner appears willing to bow to Daala’s iron will–at the expense of the Jedi Order.
But an even greater threat is looming. Millennia in the past, a Sith starship crashed on an unknown low-tech planet, leaving the survivors stranded. Over the generations, their numbers have grown, the ways of the dark side have been nurtured, and the time is fast approaching when this lost tribe of Sith will once more take to the stars to reclaim their legendary destiny as rulers of the galaxy. Only one thing stands in their way, a name whispered to them through the Force: Skywalker.
My Take: Ya know, this book was ripped apart by reviewers and I don't see why. It was an entertaining read that was quick to finish. Yes the pricetag was a little ballooned for what you got but that is what you pay for a Star Wars book. The reviewers were quick to judge on this piece of writing. My only comment to them would be "was it entertaining? Yes? That is all you are going to get out of a Star Wars book!"
Rating- 3.5 out of 5 (I felt it was a tad short!)
Millenium Falcon by James Luceno
Title: Millenium Flacon by James Luceno
Summary: (from Amazon.com)
Two years have passed since Jacen Solo, seduced by the dark side and reanointed as the brutal Sith Lord Darth Caedus, died at the hands of his twin sister, Jaina, Sword of the Jedi. For a grieving Han and Leia, the shadow of their son’s tragic downfall still looms large. But Jacen’s own bright and loving daughter, Allana, offers a ray of hope for the future as she thrives in her grandparents’ care. And when the eager, inquisitive girl, in whom the Force grows ever stronger, makes a curious discovery aboard her grandfather’s beloved spacecraft–the much-overhauled but ever-dependable Millennium Falcon–the Solo family finds itself at a new turning point, about to set out on an odyssey into uncertain territory, untold adventure, and unexpected rewards.
To Han, who knows every bolt, weld, and sensor of the Falcon as if they were parts of himself, the strange device Allana shows him is utterly alien. But its confounding presence–and Allana’s infectious desire to unravel its mystery–are impossible to dismiss. The only answer lies in backtracking into the past on a fact-finding expedition to retrace the people, places, and events in the checkered history of the vessel that’s done everything from making the Kessel Run “in less than twelve parsecs” to helping topple an evil empire.
From the moment the Falcon broke loose from a Corellian assembly line like an untamed creature with a will of its own, it seemed destined to seek out trouble. It wasn’t long before the feisty YT-1300 freighter went from shuttling cargo to smuggling contraband. But it‘s a fateful rendezvous on Coruscant, at the explosive height of the Republic/Separatist uprising, that launches a galaxywide cat-and-mouse game whose newest players are Han, Leia, Allana, and C-3PO. And they’re not alone: Crime lords, galactic pirates, rogue politicians, and fortune hunters alike loom at every turn of the quest–each with his or her own desperate stake in the Millennium Falcon’s most momentous mission. Through the years and across the stars, from the Rim worlds to unknown points beyond, the race will lead them all to a final standoff for a prize some will risk everything to find–and pay any cost to possess.
My Take:
The great thing about Star Wars books is that you can start anywhere in the series and still have an idea of what is going on. This was a great book that actually took the time to answer the call for the history of the famed ship. There was just enough action paired with dialogue and it left room for the next books in the canon.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Summary: (from Amazon.com)
Two years have passed since Jacen Solo, seduced by the dark side and reanointed as the brutal Sith Lord Darth Caedus, died at the hands of his twin sister, Jaina, Sword of the Jedi. For a grieving Han and Leia, the shadow of their son’s tragic downfall still looms large. But Jacen’s own bright and loving daughter, Allana, offers a ray of hope for the future as she thrives in her grandparents’ care. And when the eager, inquisitive girl, in whom the Force grows ever stronger, makes a curious discovery aboard her grandfather’s beloved spacecraft–the much-overhauled but ever-dependable Millennium Falcon–the Solo family finds itself at a new turning point, about to set out on an odyssey into uncertain territory, untold adventure, and unexpected rewards.
To Han, who knows every bolt, weld, and sensor of the Falcon as if they were parts of himself, the strange device Allana shows him is utterly alien. But its confounding presence–and Allana’s infectious desire to unravel its mystery–are impossible to dismiss. The only answer lies in backtracking into the past on a fact-finding expedition to retrace the people, places, and events in the checkered history of the vessel that’s done everything from making the Kessel Run “in less than twelve parsecs” to helping topple an evil empire.
From the moment the Falcon broke loose from a Corellian assembly line like an untamed creature with a will of its own, it seemed destined to seek out trouble. It wasn’t long before the feisty YT-1300 freighter went from shuttling cargo to smuggling contraband. But it‘s a fateful rendezvous on Coruscant, at the explosive height of the Republic/Separatist uprising, that launches a galaxywide cat-and-mouse game whose newest players are Han, Leia, Allana, and C-3PO. And they’re not alone: Crime lords, galactic pirates, rogue politicians, and fortune hunters alike loom at every turn of the quest–each with his or her own desperate stake in the Millennium Falcon’s most momentous mission. Through the years and across the stars, from the Rim worlds to unknown points beyond, the race will lead them all to a final standoff for a prize some will risk everything to find–and pay any cost to possess.
My Take:
The great thing about Star Wars books is that you can start anywhere in the series and still have an idea of what is going on. This was a great book that actually took the time to answer the call for the history of the famed ship. There was just enough action paired with dialogue and it left room for the next books in the canon.
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Monday, June 1, 2009
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet-Jamie Ford
Title: Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Book Jacket- In the opening pages of Jamie Ford's stunning debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown, It has been boarded up for decades, but now the owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol.
This simple act takes Henry back to the 1940's when his world was a jumble of confusion and excitement, and to his father, who was obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American, While "scholarshipping" at the exclusive Ranier Elementary, where white kids ignore him. Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship and innocent love that transcends the longs standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left with only the hope that the war will end and that their promise to each other will be kept.
Forty years later, Henry Lee, certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko, searches the hotel's dark, dusty basement for signs of the Okabe family's belongings and for a long lost object who's value he cannot even begin to measure, Now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice; words that might explain the actions of his nationalistic father; words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son; words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago.
Set during one of the most conflicted and volatile times in American history, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope.
My Take: This book may just be the best one I have ever read and if you have been paying attention, I read a lot of books. The story was raw and beautifully written. Ford managed to tell an enduring love story without flowery pros and long winded descriptions. His way of writing Henry as a conflicted individual battling with what he wants (Keiko) and trying to remove himself from under the thumb of his strict Chinese father is brilliant. protracting Henry's struggles with the pre-conceived notion his son Marty carries about him and his nationalistic upbringing is the subtle undercurrent that colors the present set portions of the book. The supporting cast of characters doesn't fade into the background and by no means do they disappoint. Everything is wrapped in a nice, emotional bow at the end of the book. the reader will be left satisfied and touched by the tale of these star crossed lovers and the journey they take together that spans 285 pages, forty years, and numerous turns on an old record player.
Jamie Ford will defiantly be under this book worms eye for years to come.
Length- 285 Pages, About three days
Rating- 5 stars out of 5 stars. Go read this book, Now.
Book Jacket- In the opening pages of Jamie Ford's stunning debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, Henry Lee comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown, It has been boarded up for decades, but now the owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of Japanese families, left when they were rounded up and sent to internment camps during World War II. As Henry looks on, the owner opens a Japanese parasol.
This simple act takes Henry back to the 1940's when his world was a jumble of confusion and excitement, and to his father, who was obsessed with the war in China and having Henry grow up American, While "scholarshipping" at the exclusive Ranier Elementary, where white kids ignore him. Henry meets Keiko Okabe, a young Japanese American student. Amid the chaos of blackouts, curfews, and FBI raids, Henry and Keiko forge a bond of friendship and innocent love that transcends the longs standing prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family are swept up in the evacuations to the internment camps, she and Henry are left with only the hope that the war will end and that their promise to each other will be kept.
Forty years later, Henry Lee, certain that the parasol belonged to Keiko, searches the hotel's dark, dusty basement for signs of the Okabe family's belongings and for a long lost object who's value he cannot even begin to measure, Now a widower, Henry is still trying to find his voice; words that might explain the actions of his nationalistic father; words that might bridge the gap between him and his modern, Chinese American son; words that might help him confront the choices he made many years ago.
Set during one of the most conflicted and volatile times in American history, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is an extraordinary story of commitment and enduring hope.
My Take: This book may just be the best one I have ever read and if you have been paying attention, I read a lot of books. The story was raw and beautifully written. Ford managed to tell an enduring love story without flowery pros and long winded descriptions. His way of writing Henry as a conflicted individual battling with what he wants (Keiko) and trying to remove himself from under the thumb of his strict Chinese father is brilliant. protracting Henry's struggles with the pre-conceived notion his son Marty carries about him and his nationalistic upbringing is the subtle undercurrent that colors the present set portions of the book. The supporting cast of characters doesn't fade into the background and by no means do they disappoint. Everything is wrapped in a nice, emotional bow at the end of the book. the reader will be left satisfied and touched by the tale of these star crossed lovers and the journey they take together that spans 285 pages, forty years, and numerous turns on an old record player.
Jamie Ford will defiantly be under this book worms eye for years to come.
Length- 285 Pages, About three days
Rating- 5 stars out of 5 stars. Go read this book, Now.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Neverwhere: Neil Gaiman
Title: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Jacket Cover-
Richard Mayhew is an unassuming young businessman living in London, with a dull job, and a pretty but demanding fiancee. Than one night he stumbled across a girl bleeding on the sidewalk, He stops to help her --and the life he knows vanishes like smoke. Several hours later, the girl is gone too. By the following morning Richard Mayhew has been erased from his world. His bank cards no longer work, taxi drivers won't stop for him, his landlord rents his apartment out to strangers. He has become invisible, and inexplicably consigned to a London of shadows and darkness-to a city of monsters and saints, murders and angels, that exists entirely in a subterranean labyrinth of sever canals and abandoned subway stations. He has fallen through the cracks of reality and has landed somewhere different, somewhere that is Neverwhere.
For this is the home of Door, the mysterious girl whom Richard rescued in the London Above. A personage of great power and nobility in this murky, candlelit realm, she is on a mission to discover the cause of her family's slaughter, and in doing so preserve this strange underworld kingdom from the malevolence that means to destroy it. With nowhere else to turn Richard Mayhew must now join the Lady Doors's entourage in their determined and possibly fatal quest.
My Take:
It was not his best work to be honest. The book was dark and held my attention. Some of the characters seemed two-dimensional. They were not developed enough before they were killed off or written out of the book yet Gaiman tried to pass them off as meaningful parts of the story. So far Stardust is still my favorite of this spooky author's works.
Time- Once I got started it took about a week to read.
Rating- 3.5/5 stars
Jacket Cover-
Richard Mayhew is an unassuming young businessman living in London, with a dull job, and a pretty but demanding fiancee. Than one night he stumbled across a girl bleeding on the sidewalk, He stops to help her --and the life he knows vanishes like smoke. Several hours later, the girl is gone too. By the following morning Richard Mayhew has been erased from his world. His bank cards no longer work, taxi drivers won't stop for him, his landlord rents his apartment out to strangers. He has become invisible, and inexplicably consigned to a London of shadows and darkness-to a city of monsters and saints, murders and angels, that exists entirely in a subterranean labyrinth of sever canals and abandoned subway stations. He has fallen through the cracks of reality and has landed somewhere different, somewhere that is Neverwhere.
For this is the home of Door, the mysterious girl whom Richard rescued in the London Above. A personage of great power and nobility in this murky, candlelit realm, she is on a mission to discover the cause of her family's slaughter, and in doing so preserve this strange underworld kingdom from the malevolence that means to destroy it. With nowhere else to turn Richard Mayhew must now join the Lady Doors's entourage in their determined and possibly fatal quest.
My Take:
It was not his best work to be honest. The book was dark and held my attention. Some of the characters seemed two-dimensional. They were not developed enough before they were killed off or written out of the book yet Gaiman tried to pass them off as meaningful parts of the story. So far Stardust is still my favorite of this spooky author's works.
Time- Once I got started it took about a week to read.
Rating- 3.5/5 stars
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