Musings on the Written Word

Monday, August 28, 2006

The Tower of Ravens

The Tower of Ravens by Kate Forsyth is the first book in her new series in the world of Eileanan (previously visited in the six book series Witches of Eileanan) and what a great start.

I have to admit -- while I started reading the Witches series, I never finished it. Not so much because I lost interest as I started reading it as soon as it came out and it became lost in the shuffle as real life changes were taking place. I've always planned to head back and read them but when I saw this new series starting, I figured I'd give it a shot as well. Now, I'm hooked and am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the second in the series which I put on order.

In Tower of Ravens, One Horn's daughter doesn't quite fit in with the rest of the tribe. She's part satyr and part human -- and in appearance is very much human because she doesn't have any horns or hooves on her feet. So, she's looked down upon and knows her time is running out for survival the older her mother gets because sooner or later one of the other females will battle her mother and win. Which places her in a very bad position. She captures one of the flying horses after acquiring riding gear from a messanger the tribe has captured and escapes the area.

She finds herself helped by a young man and his family. She travels with the man, who's going to learn at a witch's Tower because they suspect she has magical abilities being able to listen to horses and after taming the wild horse so quickly.

The trip turns into a true test when Rhiannon (as they name her) must face learning about civilization as well as love with the young man. Mix in added danger as she learns they all knew the messanger who was captured by the tribe...and the story is quickly grabs hold and doesn't let go.

Forsyth writes extremely detailed descriptions which let you see the world the characters see, an added bonus for any fantasy story and definitely worth checking out.

Posted by Amme :: 8:03 PM :: 0 comments

Friday, August 25, 2006

Against the Tide

Book 15/20

John Ringo's Against the Tide

This is the last book of the Council War series that I have. I need to talk to my father to find out if there's another one (more on that in a moment) that is due out or this is it; my guess is there will be another book (mostly because, if there isn't, it should be advertised as a trilogy, not a series). Still, it would be just like an author to be annoying and leave everyone cursing their name. *-*

Where Emerald Sea was able to get away from the lessons on history and military, making it an enjoyable read, Against the Tide decided to make up for the lack by throwing you into the UFS Navy - mostly be describing how incompetent it was and ridiculing anyone who's ever participated in a yacht club. Edmund Talbot was sent in to fix everything and despite having ZERO Naval knowledge or background, he, of course, manages to get everything running perfectly. Talk about fiction. Not only does he manage to dodge multiple assassination attempts without breaking a sweat, but everything he plans goes exactly as he said it would. For me, that's seriously stretching things; nothing in the real world works that way. The entire book leads up to a massive battle that runs without a single hiccup - save maybe the death of Gunney (who wasn't all that important, anyway). Mr. Ringo tries to convince you that things are going to go wrong in the battle, but then he delivers all at the last possible moment, and no one gets so much as a scratch. Yes, ladies and genteleman, we're talking FICTION.

The story beneath this fantasy was actually pretty interesting. I'm a little confused as to why he wrote "In Time of Darkness" as a separate work, because without it, a lot of this book doesn't make any sense. I understand that he felt the work was too erotic (it wasn't), but it has a LOT of information you need to understand this book. Considering it was published in Emerald Sea, it couldn't have been a matter of word count or something like that, so I'm a little confused. As I said, he mentioned that it was erotic, but I really only saw a lot of suggestion, which he's had in every one of these books, so what's the difference? Of course, after reading Megan's story, I was expecting Paul's death to be a little more...dramatic, I guess? Instead, it was over done - cake. Seems to me that once you've built up an antagonist so much, it should be a LITTLE harder to completely take him out and erase him from the story. Also, Megan seemed to get over everything pretty quickly, considering she claimed to love Paul. As Mr. Ringo decided to play the "love at first sight" card, though, with Megan and Herzer, I'm convinced he isn't familiar with love. THAT element was downright annoying, unjustified, and it made me want to do evil things to the book (probably a good thing it belongs to Dad - I'd hate to be responsible for damaging a book). I was glad to see Megan emerge more as a character, and I love Joanna all the more, but it seems the more interesting characters (Karcher, Joie, Vickie, Rachel) get the short end of the stick in favor of Talbot and Herzer and, of course, Bast, who continues to serve NO purpose. Maybe it's simply a matter of the author being male.

What really got to me, though, was the ending: it just dropped right off! You couldn't have seen that cliff coming, and then you were pitched right over it without any clue as to what was happening. *~* Series or not, this book didn't even close the current problem! There weren't just dangling threads, the entire QUILT was hanging out the window! I honestly thought pages had to have been torn out of the book, because there was just no resolution. I now don't even understand what the point of this book was, which is why I'm guessing there has to be another one. If there really aren't further books for this series, I don't recommend that anyone bother to start reading them. I repeat, I understand that series need to leave things unresolved, but EVERYTHING?! Hated it - absolutely hated it, and I feel abused and cheated by the experience.

To be completely honest, I don't know if I'll read any more of John Ringo's work. It's a shame, too, because the story for this series is a GOOD one; it's presentation just royally sucks. His only redeeming quality, right now, is that he let Azure be the hero - anyone who lets the cat take out a bad guy isn't all THAT bad. ^-* For now, though, I think it's time I turned to another author (David Weber ended up being who I picked out of the box) and put Mr. Ringo's books back into my father's possession - out of destructive temptation's range. *-*

Posted by Andria :: 9:01 AM :: 0 comments

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Emerald Sea

Book 14/20

John Ringo's Emerald Sea

After There Will be Dragons almost put me to sleep with the info dumps and history lessons, I was leery about continuing the Council Wars series. To be honest, the only reason I went on to the second book was because I knew it was going to involve the mer and the ocean, and I wanted to see how Mr. Ringo would apply his knowledge of marine biology (something he cites in his biography). Let's just say on that aspect - and the diving aspect - that he miserably failed and disappointed me (more details, for the interested, can be found here: Four Years, Wasted. He showed a poor grasp of basic cetacean anatomy, and he violated multiple rules for diving (which he claims to have done, though he doesn't cite his level of certification or how many hours he's logged). I'm sorry, but Herzer would have been dead by the time he reached the surface in that last battle; I don't think Joanna decided to pause for a decompression stop, and, as he was already showing oxygen toxicity (hello, nitrogen narcosis?), he would have been one giant mass of nitrogen bubbles waiting to explode. That he walked away unscathed without so much as a cramp is a travesty.

Setting those complaints aside, though, the book was MUCH better than the first one. *-* Despite introducing the UFS Navy, there were no long lectures on seamanship, no new military concepts that I needed an explanation for, and no dragging history lessons. This time, there was a STORY to be read, with dialogue, action, and the ubiquitous sex references that make me question the man's sex life (at least at the time he was writing this series). The concept of a dragon carrier was fantastic, and I loved Joanna and the wyverns (and listing them as Disney gengineered creations was classic). The mer were nicely done, though it was a disappointment that they didn't show the character one expects from true mer. However, these are all just Changed humans, so I can excuse some of the wimps and whiners. The intrigue part of the story fell a little flat, mostly because it was obvious when he was trying to cover who the spy was by simply referring to him as "the skipper." It would have been okay, except that "the skipper" was used for almost everyone on the carrier, and it got confusing as to who was speaking/acting. If you need a score card to keep tabs on the characters, you have a problem.

It was really rushed at the end, and it seemed to just drop off out of nowhere, which was (of course) annoying. I know it's a series, but the first book at least had a tighter ending than this one. I was confused that everything managed to wrap up so neatly without any effort - almost a deus ex machina. Still, the story was great, and the pacing worked nicely up to the end. Bast and the rabbit (correctly surmised to be based on Bun-Bun - Google if you aren't familiar with the comic) reappeared, and, as before, served no real purpose (okay, except for the rabbit - he actually did something this time...and I have to admit the idea of a cute little bunny with a flamethrower IS funny ^-*). I know it's a running gag, but while that may work in video-type media, it falls flat in books. Still, as they aren't important, I was able to just scan through their scenes. The only real annoyance is that Bast's dialogue changes from primitive neanderthal to normal human being for no good reason. It doesn't even fit in with her character. I'm not sure why he plays around with her dialogue like that, but she's growing increasinly difficult to read and understand.

Finally, Mr. Ringo clearly thinks very highly of himself. I have never read another book where the author had the audacity to reference their own work in the book. *~* There are very blatant references to There Will be Dragons, as it's read by one of the characters. While I admit he pokes fun at a lot of the things I had complained about (including the grammatical mistakes - which I've not touched on), it's still an arrogance I dislike. Save the personal jokes for a Conference, where they belong. If he references this book in Against the Tide (which I will start after I finish [the short story? novella?] "In a Time of Darkness", which is in the back of this book), I'm not going to finish reading it. Authorial arrogance I can do without.

Posted by Andria :: 9:39 AM :: 0 comments