Category: Books

October in Books

~ Veselin ~ 3 Comments

For a second month in a row, I’m tempted to give up on the monthly reading summaries. I had full weeks with no reading whatsoever. No excuses for me – shelves are stocked with highly respected books. Nothing felt right. I couldn’t find time for it or when I found time, couldn’t keep my attention on the books long enough to gobble them like I’d normally do. I wouldn’t say I did anything particularly interesting in the time slots I’d normally use for reading.

Best book

  • What Happened That Night by Nicci French – 4/5 but nice 4, rather than bad 4. I chose to not use the new half-star ratings on Goodreads for consistency with my previous decades of using the service. It was one of the books that you identify as not great but it is so interesting that you want to keep reading. So overall, I think it was the best and I should keep reading the series.

Not the best book

  • Survivor’s Quest by Timothy Zahn – 3/5, a space opera with Jedi. Found it boring but objectively, the story wasn’t bad. Perhaps if it wasn’t with Jedi, it could’ve been an easy 4/5. Jedi masters are too powerful and don’t face real resistance by non-Sith opponents. There were no real reasons for Luke Skywalker to be in this book.
  • Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames – 5/5, a very well made story but difficult to read. I think the target audience is folks who are into epic fantasy. This book got me deep into the reader’s block, so I think it was the worst for the month, despite the clear 5* review. A book can be generally good, but at the same time bad for me. I think Bloody Nose would’ve been a better name 🙂

What Happened That Night by Nicci French

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

29 years ago, someone killed Leo. The murderer Taylor got convicted and stayed in jail for most of his life. He’s now out of jail under supervision. Out of the million things he could’ve done when out, he decided to gather a group of 10-ish friends in an Agatha Christie type event and tell them it was one of them who killed Leo. That wasn’t very smart of him and lead to another murder, for which he got immediately arrested.

I got strong Agatha Christie vibes, with clues dropped left and right, pointing in different directions. As it turns out, everyone’s business is dirty but not everyone is responsible for a murder. Will Maud O’Conner figure it out? Will you guess the murderer(s) before she does?

Nicci French writes the Maud O’Conner books in distinct parts. First part shows a terribly unfair event. Second part shows Maud O’Conner bringing justice. The first part in this book is clearly separated and about 100-150 pages long. This is actually better than the previous two books, where we had to suffer a lot longer to get to the point. I think the first part shouldn’t have been longer than 30-40 pages.

I gave the book 4/5 on Goodreads. It was quite good, after the first 100-150 pages, may even be my top pick for the month.

Survivor’s Quest by Timothy Zahn

~ Veselin ~ 4 Comments

Luke and Mara Skywalker join a diplomatic mission to enter the crash site of an old spaceship. The mission is visibly pointless and way below their Jedi levels and qualifications. However, someone somewhere knows this is not the case and their powers are going to be needed. The plot thickens, as the story progresses.

This wasn’t bad at all but the story suffered from a slow start, followed by endless descriptions of battles. I didn’t fancy any of the details about the precise lightsaber’s movements. I found this boring. Jedis are also too OP for my taste. Someone that OP doesn’t even need to move to disarm an enemy, as we known from many scenes with Darth Vader.

Somewhere below the surface hides Thrawn and the threat he so much fears. However, the book gives no new information about Thrawn or his nemesis.

Overall, not bad, but maybe better for a movie script than a book. 3/5 stars on my shelves.

PS. This is only my second book this month. I got stuck again and find it difficult to read. I even ordered some thrillers to help me get out of the block with no luck yet.

Bloody Rose by Nicholas Eames, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

Holy cow. Took me two weeks to complete this somewhat little book. The Bulgarian edition is a bit short of 600 pages.

Why? I’ll try to explain it to myself first before I can blog about it.

The book is dense. A lot is going on. Tam, the main character, is a teenager who grew up, surrounded by heroes, and wanted to become one. What better opportunity than joining Bloody Rose’s band Fable? And of course, one of the most legendary bands wants to hire a teenager because she can sing, when they plan to participate in a million dangerous battles.

Bands in this world are like our rock bands by but rather than perform on stage, they fight monsters in Roman-style arenas. The monsters are sometimes evil, and sometimes human, branded as evil. Not necessarily good or bad, mostly just alien. Also big and scary. Each band has a bard, who will witness the heroic acts and write songs about them, then eventually die. Bards are in high demand, which could explain why Fable took the young Tam.

So, this setup is complex, and Tam, being a minor, has to develop and grow as a character. Also, the environment at the start is not particularly scary. It takes forever for the despair to level up and reach another Kings of the Wyld type of shit storm that can’t possibly be resolved without Rose and Tam shining like stars.

I opted out of using the new half-ratings on Goodreads. It is a very good book and I gave it 5*/5. The final 0.25 came from the autograph Nicholas Eames put in my book. It is dense, different, has some very awkward moments, and all you can read at times is 10-20 pages before you need a break. But it’s also well-made and courageous. I can’t promise you’ll like it but surely, it will be difficult to forget.