Tag: reading

The Books I Read in September

~ Veselin ~ 3 Comments

Last month I made an off-by-one error and posted the list on August 30th, leaving a day not covered. The Troll Mountain was read on August 31st. So technically, I read 9 books last month but this post will cover 10.

Best books from last month:

  1. Dodger – there are books you can imagine when you close your eyes. The imagination takes you to a warm place. Dodger has that feeling. I gave it 5*, and it sits like that.
  2. Bion 1&2 – looking forward to book 3, which is supposed to be 70% complete, according to the publisher
  3. The Sunlit Man – Brandon Sanderson got a boost by the nice cover and illustrations

Worst book:

  1. The Sum of All Men – I gave it 4/5 but all that I remember in the weeks following the completion of that book is the horror of the main magical skill. The forceful extraction of people’s skills. I wouldn’t touch the continuation with a flagpole.

The Sunlit Man by Brandon Sanderson

~ Veselin ~ 6 Comments

I read this book out of order. Should’ve read Dawnshard first.

The world of Canticle has a sun so close that it melts the rocks and causes a constant fire storm that travels around the world with the day. A somewhat advanced civilization exists in a constant motion, running away from the dawn. Nobody can see the sun because they’ll immediately burn. The legends tell the story of a Sunlit Man, who can survive the sunlight and bring great change.

Brandon Sanderson experimented with The Sunlit Man. It has too much of everything. Magic, explanations, aliens. It won’t become my favorite Sanderson book but it’s fine and the world is magical.

4.5*/5

Bion by Satanasov

~ Veselin ~ 7 Comments

These books were part of my Alley of Books harvest.

In a post apocalyptic world, one intact city remains habitable. Everything else is a radioactive desert. The survivors are highly dependent on a mythical high-tech building called “The Factory”. The further you go from it, the more destroyed the environment is. However, The Factory is clearly evil, and a resistance movement is forming.

A few very deep observations:

  • Part one is for 15+ audience, part two is for 16+. Part three can be expected to be for 17+ 🙂
  • Part one is a comic book. Part two introduces a robot girl with big eyes and some reviewers say it’s Manga

I enjoyed both, Manga or not. 5*/5

Lee Child’s Safe Enough

~ Veselin ~ 8 Comments

I’m not a big fan of books with short stories. Too much context switching. Context switching is hard. Makes you stop reading the book. Not all short stories are good. Some are bad. Bad stories make you want to throw away the book.

Safe Enough is no exception. But it’s Lee Childs. The good stories are good enough.

4.5/5

PS. Lee Child is known for his short sentences and simple vocabulary. Tried to replicate it in the post.

The Sum of All Men, Runelords #1 by David Farlang

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

“The Sum of All Men” is an epic fantasy set in a world where the strong and powerful can extort and extract skills from ordinary humans. The poor give up their intelligence, strength, or beauty in exchange for care and protection for themselves and their families. Once they make this sacrifice, they become disabled and are kept in storage until their rune lord dies.

This is the most brutal magic system I’ve read. Most of the gifts come at a great cost, causing severe suffering on the donors. It’s not a typical RPG-style system where taking a thousand strength gifts makes someone superhuman. The strongest gift is metabolism, which grants extraordinary speed but each gift taken reduces the lifetime of the lord.

The main antagonist of the story has taken tens of thousands of gifts from people and has superhuman strength, speed, and healing. His voice can make the strongest people submit to his will. He wants to conquer the world and become the sum of all men, a person with the talent of millions. The main protagonist is also a superhuman of a slightly different kind – one that can get away with anything. He understand that taking gifts is evil. Who is going to win?

The top review on Goodreads is by Mark Lawrence, the author of Prince of Thorns. If there’s a fantasy book more cruel than Runelords, it’s Prince of Thorns. Mark Lawrence gave it a 4, and I would agree.

4*/5