Category: Books

May in Books

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t read much in May. The month started with Christopher Paolini’s To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, a monumental 1200-page space opera. I think that wore me down and I mostly chilled without books after that.

Best

  • To Sleep in a Sea of Stars – 5/5, a book I enjoyed and touched me, despite its absurd size.
  • Howl’s Moving Castle – 5/5, a sweet low-stakes fantasy story. It’s not the type of book you can binge but it is kind of cool the way Legends and Lattes is. Something that can flush your brain a bit if you feel down.
  • City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett – 5/5, an epic dark fantasy, almost steampunk, where tech faces miracles and gods. It has an unique world and even better developed characters than City of Stairs. Robert Bennet is clearly a very strong fantasy author. Looking forward to finding his other works.

Worst

  • The Belgariad #2 – DNF at around 30%.

I think this is is the worst month for reading since I started writing the monthly reports here. However, the 3 books I completed were all great, so it evens things out a bit.

My first impactful books

~ Veselin ~ 9 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What’s the first book you ever finished and still remember to this day?
View all responses

The first was a comic from a series called Daga (Rainbow). My first Daga was number 14, and I don’t think I was able to read when I got it. The Daga series featured stories from popular books, including the entire Hobbit, from start to finish. There were also lots of space stories, things you can try to draw yourself.

Then came children’s books, like Pinocchio, Alice, Pippi, and so on. Then came pirates, adventure, the Wild West, Dumas, and Jules Verne. By the age of 10, I was already in the hundreds of books finished, but there was no Goodreads, and it’s difficult to say for sure. My mom would frequently bring me fresh books from the library.

There were several milestone books that had a big impact on me:

  • Pippi Longstocking – for its unlimited re-readability and for showing true friendship.
  • Winnetou – it’s difficult to say what I saw in this one. I guess it was a certain moral superiority in the main characters that looked appealing at the time.
  • The Three Musketeers – the first half is just so satisfying, with imperfect characters following their paths and accepting the present.
  • The Lord of the Rings – for the depth of its world-building.
  • Foundation – for introducing me to the world of truly great science fiction.

Now that I look to my book reviews, I still read Fantasy and Sci-Fi, occasional adventure/pirates, and some of the folks who published Daga keep impacting the gamebook genre to this day. Lost interest to the Wild West.

Howl’s Moving Castle, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ 5 Comments

A sweet fairytale about three sisters coming of age in a magical world. The eldest is doomed to failure, according to fairytale traditions. The oldest sister must take care of the family business. On top of that, she is cursed by the Witch and turned into an old woman, and her joints hurt.

The story is very low-stakes, low-stress, and almost romantic. 5/5 from me.

And a photo of me, reading the book while waiting for the peloton to arrive: Also shows the beautiful print quality by Artline Studios.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini, Review

~ Veselin ~ 4 Comments

It takes courage to write something like this and even more courage to read it.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini is a monumental space opera. It’s 1219 pages, printed in small letters, sprawling across planets, ships, battles, and alien diplomacy. The story meanders between strongly engaging, tolerable, and occasionally exhausting, but it never becomes boring.

Despite its weaker scenes, particularly the space battles, I think it’s an excellent novel. It’s very ambitious, brave, and enormous in scale. It’s not the kind of science fiction you see often.

The premise is fantastic. Kira discovers an alien parasite with great superpowers, reminding me of Venom. Their connection starts a series of catastrophic events that only she and the parasite can stop. From there, the novel launches into a difficult to explain interstellar war. Spaceships fly left and right through the void, missiles hit and miss, long battles, strange species. Nothing to win and everything to lose.

There’s plenty of action, though the book is also emotional and a little sentimental.

I liked it, but I may not try reading another 1200-page space opera any time soon. Kira and the parasite are cool. 5/5

This is row 1 of the Nebula series, Paolini’s book is #3 from the left. 12 down, 3 to go.