2009 October » Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog

Review: Candle Man, Book One: The Society of Unrelenting Vigilance by Glenn Dakin

Posted by Anastasia on October 17, 2009 No Responses »

Oct 172009

Candle Man big Candle Man, Book One: The Society of Unrelenting Vigilance by Glenn Dakin
Publication: EgmontUSA (September 22, 2009), ARC Paperback, 300pp / ISBN 1606840150 (hardback)
Genre: Action, Mystery, Middle Grade
Rating:
Find @ Amazon or IndieBound
Challenges: Countdown 2010 (2009 #5)
Read: October 2009
Source: ARC from the publisher

First off, I think I should mention that right before I read this book I had just finished Leviathan, and any book that comes after Leviathan has a tough act to follow. So I was kinda expecting not to feel overwhelmed with adoration for Candle Man, and that turned out to be true. However, if I had gone into reading Candle Man any other time– i.e. not right after reading the awesomeness that was Leviathan, then I’m pretty sure I would have had a stronger, more positive reaction to it.

At the moment I’m just feeling sort of ambivalent. Is it a bad book? No, not by any means. But is it as good as Leviathan? Well, no. And I know it’s not fair to really compare the two (Scott Westerfeld is a veteran book-writer, and this is Glenn Dakin’s first book; Leviathan is YA/teen and Candle Man is middle grade, etc), so I’ll try not to take Leviathan into account for this review. Unfortunately my prejudices colored my reading a bit, but I’m going to try to even things out a bit if I can here. Okay?

Okay. Here we go–
Continue reading »

Review: The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey

Posted by Anastasia on October 16, 2009 No Responses »

Oct 162009

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey
Publication: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing (September 22, 2009), Hardcover, 434pp / ISBN 9781416984481
Genre: Horror, Fantasy, YA/Teen
Rating:
Find @ Amazon or IndieBound
Challenges: R.I.P. IV (#3), Countdown 2010 (2009 #3)
Read: October 2009
Source: Library

I spotted this on the new books shelf at my campus library last week, and I want to know who’s picking out these books because whoever you are: THANK YOU SO MUCH. This is the second time I’ve found a fantastic book on that shelf (the first was Andromeda Klein), and without you I’d have probably never read them.

Summary from Amazon:

These are the secrets I have kept. This is the trust I never betrayed.

But he is dead now and has been for more than forty years, the one who gave me his trust, the one for whom I kept these secrets.

The one who saved me…and the one who cursed me.

So begins the journal of Will Henry, orphaned assistant to Dr. Pellinore Warthrop, a man with a most unusual specialty: monstrumology, the study of monsters. In his time with the doctor, Will has met many a mysterious late-night visitor, and seen things he never imagined were real. But when a grave robber comes calling in the middle of the night with a gruesome find, he brings with him their most deadly case yet.

I had previously read Mr Yancey’s The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp and didn’t love it, so it was with a bit of trepidation that I started reading The Monstrumologist. The plot was really tempting, however, and I was immediately hooked into the narrative, so I very quickly forgot my troubles with Alfred Kropp and enjoyed the journey through The Monstrumologist.

Mr Yancey’s writing has, I think, gotten much more polished and inviting, though it still sounds old fashioned. But since The Monstrumologist takes place in 1888, the old fashioned-ness fits in well, and it’s not so old fashioned-sounding that it’s a chore to read. It’s actually really elegant and powerful, and it made the book a pleasure to read.

What I liked best about The Monstrumologist was the set-up (I love societies dedicated to weird things) and the characters. Doctor Warthrop is a weirdo, though not an unsympathetic one. He’s kinda like a mix of Sherlock Holmes and the Arthurian Pellinore but cranked up to 11. He’s kinda likable, in a strange way.

Will Henry is a little harder to like, mostly because he’s writing from 80 years in the future and a lot of times he describes himself in a way that sort of…sets himself apart from the reader. Like there’s a kind of fog over his memories because he’s influenced by the future, if that makes sense?

But overall, I thought he was a decent enough person, and at the end he had enough interesting character growth that I want to see how he acts in the second book compared to how he acted in this book. Will he be more confident? More forceful of his opinions?

The Monstrumologist is gory, with enough disgusting stuff in it that I actually had trouble eating while read it. It’s not anything like the Saw movies, but it is more gory than I was expecting for a YA book and if you have a weak stomach you may want to skim (or even skip). Think The Last Apprentice books times, like, ten.

The gore wasn’t scary– it was just gross. The scary stuff came from the people, the monsters, and the atmosphere of the entire book. The monsters are scary enough (they pop out of the ground and eat people! holy crap!) but the people who hunt them are even scarier. It’s a great horror story, and it’s perfect for the RIP IV challenge, by the way.

I loved reading The Monstrumologist. It was scary and sad and sometimes it poked me in the “ow, my heart” place, and I love everything about it. I think it’ll be a great series, and I can’t wait until the next book comes out. I’m so happy I gave Mr Yancey’s books another chance, and that he wrote this book! Yay!

Get your own copy from Amazon or IndieBound!

Other reviews: Genre Reviews | Falcata Times | Good Books for Kids

Thursday Tea: October 15 (Candle Man)

Posted by Anastasia on October 15, 2009 No Responses »

Oct 152009

Thursday Tea is a weekly meme hosted by yours truly. To play along, all you need is some tea, a book, and the answers to these questions: what tea are you drinking (and do you like it)? What book are you reading (and do you like it)? Tell us a little about your tea and your book, and whether or not the two go together.

The tea: Actually, seeing as I’m now on my fall break and only just woke up, I’m drinking coffee! I love coffee. It’s so delicious. I used to put tons of flavored creamer into it, but now I just put some half and half and it’s great.

Plus, you know, it keeps me awake enough to do blog posts.

Candle Man #1 The book: I’m actually being responsible for once and reading a review book! Oh yes! It’s Candle Man, Book One: The Society of Unrelenting Vigilance by Glenn Dakin, and I’m enjoying it a lot. The back of the book compares it to the Percy Jackson books and the Septimus Heap books, but it’s not really like them, I think. It reminds me more of The Mysterious Benedict Society, but a little bit funnier (and shorter).

Here’s a summary of it:

Murder, mystery, and adventure aren’t your typical birthday presents . . .

But for Theo, anything that breaks up his ordinary routine is the perfect gift.

A mysterious “illness” and Theo’s guardians force him into a life indoors, where gloves must be worn and daily medical treatments are the norm. When Theo discovers a suspicious package on his birthday, one person from the past will unlock the secret behind Theo’s “illness” and change his life forever.

Molded into an exhilarating steampunk adventure that gives birth to the next great fantasy hero, Theo Wickland, Candle Man: The Society of Unrelenting Vigilance is the first book in a trilogy by debut author Glenn Dakin.

It’s not really steampunk, but whatever.

Do they go together? Does coffee NOT go with anything? Plus, some of the characters were totally drinking coffee in Candle Man. I think that proves coffee goes with it.

What are you drinking/reading this Thursday?

Review: Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

Posted by Anastasia on October 14, 2009 4 Responses »

Oct 142009

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
Publication: Tor Books (September 29, 2009), Paperback, 416 pages / ISBN 0765318415
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Horror, Steampunk
Rating:
Find @ Amazon or IndieBound
Challenges: It’s the End of the World II (#4), Countdown 2010 (2009 #2)
Read: October 2009
Source: Bought

It’s a slightly involved story regarding how I discovered Cherie Priest, so I won’t get into it here. But very quickly: I discovered her blog, I discovered her newest book, I preordered it, I got it, I read it, I liked it a lot.

Okay, not “loved.” Liked a lot. Really a lot. Very nearly loved– but it’s so dark and kinda depressing and it scares me a little, and those things keep it from earning a place on my “OMG I love it” list. (I suppose that means it’s actually terribly good and I’m just a wimp.) It’s like I have to keep some of my feelings about Boneshaker to myself, because they’re different than I’m used to and I’m kinda embarrassed about them. And I have to think about them some more before I can tell anyone about them, so right now I just like Boneshaker a lot.

I hope that makes sense. And even though I can’t go into detail about what exactly Boneshaker makes me feel, I’ll try to tell you enough about what I like so maybe you’ll feel compelled to read it for yourself.

Summary from Amazon:

In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born.

But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.

Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.

His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive.

Generally I don’t like books where parents tag along with the kids on the adventure. Do I want my parents following me on my awesome fantasy journey? Hell no. But if I had a mom like Briar? Hell yes! Especially since she doesn’t show up in Zeke’s storyline until the end. (Also, she can shoot like a mofo.)

I like how Briar and Zeke have an intertwining journey. They don’t follow the same path, they don’t have the same character growths, and they don’t even meet back up with each other until the very end of the book, yet they’re still connected to each other by blood and by fate. It’s pretty nifty, and it doesn’t offend my YA fantasy sensibilities.

For all that I appreciated Briar and Zeke’s adventures, I didn’t much like them as characters. When I started reading Boneshaker, Briar annoyed me with her woe-is-me, woe-is-you hardcore frontier woman shoot-a-cow-skin-it-with-my-teeth-then- make-it-into-a-jacket-and-wear-it-better-than-you-could sort of personality (if that makes sense to anyone but myself) and Zeke annoyed me with his naitivite. I knew I’d either end up loving them or hating them, and unfortunately I’m leaning towards the latter at the moment.

I do appreciate some of their qualities, of course, like Briar’s hardheadedness and Zeke’s instinctive ability to keep himself from being killed, but they were actually overshadowed by the awesomeness of the secondary characters. I found myself wanting to read more about the dude in a steampunk suit of armor than Briar’s reunion with Zeke, and I don’t know if that’s just because I didn’t identify with any of the protagonists or just because they weren’t that likable.

The world of Boneshaker really freaks me out, and it’s not just because zombies scare the crap outta me. Seattle in Boneshaker is not the ideal, stereotypical Western town found in 1950′s movies. It’s more like London in 28 Days Later, mixed with a bit of London in this Sherlock Holmes movie. It’s dark. It’s dangerous. It’s depressing. And inside the walls where the gas lives? It’s all that times TEN. I would hate to live in the world of Boneshaker, even with all the nifty steampunk technology (the airships!).

There’s a whole bunch more I could go into, but I think it’d be more fun if you found some stuff out for yourself. If you like horror movies (or books), if you like steampunk, if you like Southern Gothic or alternate Victorian settings, if you like gun-toting women with a chip on their shoulder, you’ll like Boneshaker. You may even end up slightly speechless, like I am!

Get your own copy from Amazon or IndieBound!

Other reviews: Jawas Read, Too! | King of the Nerds | SciFiGuy.ca | Rat’s Reading

Book Trailer Tuesday: Pastworld

Posted by Anastasia on October 13, 2009 8 Responses »

Oct 132009

Book Trailer Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by me, Anastasia. It’s very simple to play along: find a particularly awesome book trailer, embed it in a post, then proceed to coo all over it. Or, y’know, talk about whatever you want to talk about. Why did this book trailer catch your eye? Why do you want to share it with people? Did it make you want to read the book? Why was it effective (or not)?

It was actually kind of hard to find a trailer to feature this week, since all the ones I was watching were a) boring, b) bland, c) dull or d) all of the above. We desperately need some new ones that aren’t just text put on top of a copyright-free image, please! I see text flying at me, I’m x-ing out of that tab right quick.

Anyway, I eventually found this:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRtAOFkUyuc]

It’s Pastworld by Ian Beck!

Okay, so it’s not the best. The acting is kind of…eh. And it looks like a less subtle (and less awesome) ripoff of last week’s BTTues, right down to the security cam feed shots. But it has PEOPLE in it, and somewhat good special effects, and it’s infinitely more interesting than all of the other trailers I crawled through.

Does it make me want to read the book? Yes. Kinda. I’m hoping that the actual book is better than those poor kids’ acting, because it sounds like a really interesting story. Here’s the summary from Amazon:

What if all of London were really an amusement park—a whole city returned to Victorian times to entertain visitors from the twenty-first century? That’s the wildly original premise of Ian Beck’s Pastworld, a high-stakes mystery set in a simulated past.

Eve is a lifelong resident of Pastworld who doesn’t know she’s living in a theme park until a mysterious threat forces her to leave home. Caleb is a visiting tourist who finds the lawlessness of the past thrilling—until he suddenly becomes a fugitive from an antiquated justice system. And in the midst of it all, in the thick London fog a dark and deadly figure prowls, claiming victim after victim. He’s the Fantom, a creature both of the past and of the present, in whose dark purpose Caleb and Eve will find their destinies combined.

And even if it’s not, the trailer is still a decent effort! If only the rest of them tried as hard.

Review: Nevermore (Supernatural tie-in #1) by Keith R.A. DeCandido

Posted by Anastasia on October 12, 2009 No Responses »

Oct 122009

Nevermore (Supernatural tie-in #1) by Keith R.A. DeCandido
Publication: HarperEntertainment (July 31, 2007), Paperback, 336 pages / ISBN 0061370908
Genre: Paranormal, TV tie-in
Rating:
Find @ Amazon or IndieBound
Read: July 2009
Source: Bought

I haven’t really read that many tie-in novels for television shows, at least not since I went through my big Doctor Who tie-in novel phase two years ago (seriously, I read, like, 30 tie-ins in a month). But I was desperate for some Supernatural this summer and so I decided to try one of the official tie-in novels.

Summary from Amazon:

Sam and Dean have hit New York City to check out a local rocker’s haunted house. But before they can figure out why a lovesick banshee in an ’80s heavy-metal T-shirt is wailing in the bedroom, a far more macabre crime catches their attention. Not far from the house, two university students were beaten to death by a strange assailant. A murder that’s bizarre even by New York City standards, it’s the latest in a line of killings that the brothers soon suspect are based on the creepy stories of legendary writer Edgar Allan Poe.

Their investigation leads them to the center of one of Poe’s horror classics, face-to-face with their most terrifying foe yet. And if Sam and Dean don’t rewrite the ending of this chilling tale, a grisly serial killer will end their lives forevermore.

Writing a successful tie-in novel seems like a terribly difficult thing to do, and I’m not even sure how to measure “success.” By its very definition a tie-in novel is meant to be a supplement to the original source, and not to necessarily stand out on its own as a regular book would. Is “success” when a tie-in novel can stand on its own as a separate entity, like a movie version of a TV show does sometimes? Or is “success” when a tie-in novel can fit in neatly with the original source, like a behind-the-scenes kind of thing?

I think I mostly judged Nevermore on the definition of a stand-alone novel, and it definitely doesn’t hold up to that standard. What is does do, however, is provide a little bit something extra to the TV show, and it does it pretty well. If you think of Nevermore as an extra episode to season 1, it works a lot better. But then you also have to consider things like writing style, plot development, character development, etc, and since those sorts of things stick out a lot more in text than they do in film, it makes it pretty hard for me to enjoy tie-in novels. And I don’t think it helped that I was bored a lot of the time when I read this.

The plot was fine. It did feel like a real Supernatural episode, and the Winchesters did all the things I’d expect the Winchesters to do. Because it’s set early in season 1, things are a bit prickly between the brothers but the stories aren’t depressing like in the later seasons and neither of them get seriously hurt. Huzzah for early season 1 episodes, back when things were fun and quirky and scary and awesome! But, uh, it wasn’t a fun/quirky/scary/awesome book, sad to say.

The mystery was pretty good: very literary-oriented, which was nice. We got some new plot stuff with a secret ring of hunter-helpers, and an introduction of a new character who I liked– tough-talking lady cop!– but who unfortunately seemed like a one-off. The other characters were fine, too, pretty much in line with just about every secondary character ever introduced in the TV show. Unfortunately their personalities were as forgettable as their names, and Sam and Dean’s characterizations weren’t too much better, either. Some of the dialogue seemed in line with the show, but overall everything was a lot more bland than most of the season 1 episodes were.

Nevermore was okay. It wasn’t overly horrible, but it wasn’t as good as some of the best Supernatural episodes were. Would I read another Supernatural tie-in novel? Eh…maybe not.

I think because I was already expecting it to be subpar, I wasn’t all that surprised when it was subpar. Like I said, it’s not horrible, but the writing was a little bit bland and since there wasn’t any real character growth and nothing super-duper important happened, I didn’t really care what happened to anyone or even what the answer to the mysteries were. I think maybe this is why I generally stay away from tie-ins and novelizations– they’re almost never as fun as the original source, and oftentimes after reading them I feel as if I just ate a bag of pork rinds: full, but kinda gross.

If you need a Supernatural fix between new episodes, or if you miss the feeling of season 1, then maybe you could give this book a shot. Otherwise– maybe not.

See for yourself and get a copy from Amazon or IndieBound.

Other reviews: Amberkatze’s Book Blog | Alpha and Omega | entil2001 | readingmuse

TSS: October 11 (Too many choices!)

Posted by Anastasia on October 11, 2009 No Responses »

Oct 112009

For the first time in a while I’m feeling overwhelmed with reading choices. For the last few months I’ve been sticking to a pretty heavy diet of library books-TBR pile books-library books, but this month I’ve been getting a lot of review requests for some reason, and now I’m not sure what to read. I’ve got about 20 books out from the library, a buttload of my own books, and about five-ish review books. What should I focus on first?!

The review books aren’t super high priority (most of them haven’t even shown up yet), and I’ve only got three library books due soon. Meanwhile my personal collection is quickly spiralling out of control, and I so wish I could read quicker than I do. Sigh.

Having too many reading choices is actually making me feel a bit stressed, and while I’m trying to read evenly (I read a TBR book yesterday and a library book the day before), I think I’m going to have to take some action. And by action I mean: returning library books I’m not going to get to quickly. Basically.

How do you all balance the reading load? What do you do when you have too many choices (or too many reading responsibilities)?

Meanwhile, I’ve finished my 200th book! My reading goal for this year was 200, so I’m super excited I managed to reach it so quickly. I wonder how many books I’ll actually end up reading by the end of this year?

Also I’m behind on my daily Dracula reading. Also my blogoversary is in 30 days. Aaaah!

Books read this week:
199. Second Foundation – Isaac Asimov [rating: 3.5/5]
200. Foundation’s Edge – Isaac Asimov [rating: 3.5/5]
201. Boneshaker – Cherie Priest [rating: 4/5]
202. The Silver Branch – Rosemary Sutcliff [rating: 3.5/5]
203. The Feng Shui Detective’s Casebook – Nury Vittachi [rating: 4/5]

Books reviewed this week: