Review: A Touch of Dead

A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This a collection of short stories set in the Sookie Stackhouse universe. If you haven’t read any books about Sookie before I’d say that you shouldn’t start with this book. The reason is both that you won’t get a chance to enjoy the experience of Harris’s the plot and character development, but this books also contains plenty of spoilers so it won’t be very fun to after this book go on to read the whole series.

The short stories themselves are of mixed quality. A few are quite enjoyable, showing the strengths of Harris as a story teller, while other clearly show signs of either having been rushed or been limited due to word length restrictions.



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Review: Dead in the Family

Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


This was a fairly weak story, but a good continuation of the series.

In my view Harris fails to lift out a plot, from the many she has ongoing in the Sookieverse, and make it strong enough to carry the book or alternatively she allow the sub-/side plots to take over the book to the extent that the main story fades too much into the background. I kind off get the impression that she has let the work with the TV-series affect her ability to write a good book, as this feels very much like an episode in a series and doesn’t have the strength to really stand on its own.



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Review: Dead and Gone

Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


My way into the Sookie universe was through Sookie Stackhouse 8 Volume Set, a collection of the first eight books in the series, as I was looking for a new urban fantasy series. I was fairly new to urban fantasy and this was just before the HBO TV series aired (at least where I live) so I didn’t really have a clue what I got myself into. I did however fairly quickly get sucked into Harris writing style and went through the first eight books in less than three weeks. Afterwards I couldn’t really figure out the appeal of Ms Harris writing, that revelation didn’t come until I read this book. She manages to create an appealing mix of trivial details and character elements, such as how Sookie can’t wait until the first spring heat allow her to put on her bikini and soak in the sun - even if it’s no warmer than any breeze will bring out the goose bumps. Pet peeves of her house mates behaviour is mixed with paranormal death threats, ditzy mistakes are mixed with southern/christian indignation over minor slights to create a colourful setting for the story. It create a sensation of reading the diary of a fairly ordinary young woman that’s living a very unusual life.



The story of this book takes a somewhat unexpected turn, which i really liked. The following contains series spoilers, but not book spoilers, so if you haven’t read the series up until this book then avoid the following.

<spoilers>

I didn’t really appreciated when the fae were introduced to the Sookieverse. It was complicated enough before that and they felt like a cheep out to explain the origin of Sookies abilities, rather than trying to create something new and original.

Much of this book centres around the fae and their internal politics where a war is brewing, making Sookie a prime target as her great grandfather is one of the leaders among the fae.

</spoilers>



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Review: Night Shift

Night Shift by Lilith Saintcrow

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I have sort of mixed feelings about this book. I’ve been looking for UF-books centering around demons, but I’m not sure that this book carried it out that well. I like the dark gritty feel of the world, where things lurk in the shadows preying on more or less innocent humans. What I could have done without were the romantic aspects of the story, but I guess that this falls within PNR rather then UF, which is a shame. It’s starting to get really hard to find good solid UF books, without smoldering vamps or weres with puppy dog eyes.



I had a hard time trying to get half a star marked so I had to raise my mark from 3.5 to 4. Choosing between a 3 and a 4, the higher mark just won out, but it was a tough call and it came down to the amount of originality Saintcrow has put into the world building.



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Review: On the Edge

On the Edge by Ilona Andrews

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


PNR warning!

I like Andrews ability to create new worlds and play with the coexistence of magic and non-magic and On the Edge creates a new universe that lies in between the world of magic and non-magic. She does this very well, but the story itself feels a little weak and isn’t one of her best ones. I was particular disappointed in the ending, which strays into the fairy-tale territory and not in a good way. I liked the characters, but based on the blurb on the next book in the series Bayou Moon it’s far from certain that we’ll see them again anytime soon.



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Review: The Left Hand of Darkness

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I'm not sure that I would consider this a classic, but I'm also not fully aware of the original impact it had on the literary and real world. The reason is that the straight forward story of a diplomat trying to convince a world to join his planetary alliance just isn't strong enough, but also don't think that this is the story Le'Guin wanted to write. It's just the vehicle for her analysis of human behavior/society and sexuality.

I think the world building, with inserted lore between chapters of the main story and other tempo changing tricks made it an amazing read and I'm likely to re-read it at least once as it's the kind of book that leaves you with the impression that you haven't gotten everything when you've read the last word on the last page.



If you haven't read it, it's well worth a read.



PS. Just found the progress notes from my read and had to add a comment I made towards the end, just to show that even great writers make mistakes. "The reference of a thermometer going counterclockwise made me realize how absurd the Fahrenheit unit is for Winter."



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Review: Girl

Girl by David Thomas

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


It was quite a while since I read this, but it definitely left an impression even if it wasn't a great read. It's mainly the storyline where a man (Bradley) goes into hospital to have his wisdom tooths removed and wakes up to find that he has undergone a sex-change operation by mistake. I won't say that it can't happen, but it's not really believable.

The book is well written, with a tongue-in-cheek approach to how a womanizing bachelor has to accept that he's now woman. It has a lot of funny segments, which provide an insight into the everyday lift of women, from a man's perspective, but also the inescapable part of how it is to be haunted by the press.

It's not a classic novel, but a fun and somewhat thought provoking read.



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Review: Hyperion

Hyperion by Dan Simmons

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book created a bit of a backlog in my reviews, as it needed a lot of simmering before I felt up to writing out what I thought about the book. It also took some serious consideration as to whether to read the continuation The Fall of Hyperion before writing this review, but finally decided against it.



So the first thing you should know about this book is that it isn’t a book, but half a book. It’s strongly tied to the continuation and doesn’t contain a story in itself. With that in mind it’s a bit strange that it was rewarded with a Hugo in 1990.

That said, I can totally see what it was rewarded with a Hugo, as the writing style is magnificent and the world building is fairly unique (at least as far as I know). The blurb for the book reveals that this is about a pilgrimage that seven people undertakes to a terrifying creature in an attempt to save mankind. What isn’t revealed is that according to the legend at most one of them will return from the journey. This book contains the stories of why the seven people are risking their life to reach the creature at the end of the journey.

To me the very opening with a man sitting alone playing piano in a space ship parked on a hostile planet, a violent storm raging in the distance and the sounds of wild creatures accompanying his music promises a great space adventure. So I was a bit disappointed when the story turned out to be a ‘stories around the campfire’ setting, but I soon changed my impression again as I was sucked into the first life-story. The different life-stories are all different and each have an own theme, but what I came to really appreciate was how each one showed a different facet of the planet Hyperion and the surrounding universe in which it exists.

I came to really love this book, but a couple of things left sort of a sour taste in my mouth. The first was the complete lack of an ending and some closure. In a play this would have all been the first act, without the intrigue and conflict of the second or the resolution and revelation of the third. The second thing that took away from this book was the cinematic reference at the very ending of the book, which went down my literary windpipe and ignited a great deal of irritation on my behalf. I imagine that the author wanted to create a tongue-in-cheek reference, but to me it only served to ridicule the rest of the book.



So I can’t with good conscience give this book more than four solid stars, but those are also well deserved.



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