Brian Jacques

What I Read in April

/ skoce / Leave a comment

This is not what I read last month but the month before because I kind of got distracted and didn’t finish in time. Then I went on vacation and still didn’t get it posted. Books for May will come later in the week. I read five books in April, 3 of them were really good. I’m mostly satisfies with my reading pace this year; I should manage to read more than fifty books this year, which was my goal. Getting on with it:


Emma, Jane Austen

Jane Austen was the master of the novel of manners, and Emma may be her masterpiece. Personally, I’m slightly more fond of Pride and Prejudice, but it is a near thing.

Unlike Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility, the protagonist of Emma, Emma Woodhouse, is often the target of the comedy. We are not reading just her reactions to the hypocritical, pompous or foolish actions of those around her but also seeing her act the same as those around her. She constantly makes mistakes or misreads situations, but still the reader sympathizes with her. None of her mistakes are out of any sort of malice; she merely overestimates her social abilities. Elizabeth Bennet mostly stands apart from the stupidities of those around her, like her mother or Mr. Collins. They may affect her, but she does not partake in their foolishness. Emma, though, is just as capable of foolishness as anyone in her story is. She is a highly entertaining character.

What puts Pride and Prejudice over Emma, for me, is the near complete lack of plot in Emma. Things happen, to be sure, but there isn’t much of a central plot to tie everything together. Also, Emma is half again as long. I have no complaint with long books, but combined with Emma’s lack of plot it is a slight problem. Emma is a classic for a reason and a classic that is still worth a read today simply for the enjoyment of it.

Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
In not exactly anticipation, more like serendipitous recognition, I read Water for Elephants just before the movie came out. I did not see the movie, and have no plans to, though I wouldn’t avoid the opportunity if is arose, but the book was all right.

The parts that are about the circus are genuinely enjoyable. Gruen does a great job of making the setting real. While circuses are no something I’ve ever really cared for, I can see why running away to join the circus was a thought of young boys for a long time in this book. And I can see even more clearly how dangerous and treacherous circuses were. The setting in this book is an astounding combination of wonder and ruthlessness. The setting alone is a good enough reason to read this book.

That is a good thing, because the love story that makes up the central plot is mostly lifeless and dull. Once the players are on stage anyone who had ever read a love story can tell how it will play out. There are no surprises or twists, just a tale of falling in love centered on the two least interesting characters in the novel. Still, I would give Water for Elephants a tenuous recommendation.

The Devil’s Eye, Jack McDevitt

I am not familiar with the writer of this book at all; I found it on the clearance rack at Books-a-Million and thought it looked interesting. The Devil’s Eye was a surprisingly good read.

The book starts as a Sci-Fi Detective novel, which is great. Chase Colpath and Alex Benedict try to solve a mystery involving the disappearance of a horror writer by following her trail at the last place she was seen. It has a great mix of Sci-Fi action, with alien monsters and space travel, and regular mystery solving. It is obviously not the first story starring the intrepid investigators, but The Devil’s Eye doesn’t skimp on letting the reader get to know these characters. For as long as the mystery was being solved I thought this was going to become a new favorite of mine.

The problem arises when, about two-thirds the way through, they solve the mystery and then must deal with the aftermath. It could be an interesting way to go about ending this book. The protagonists never really consider the implications of rooting out the mystery and whether or not it was right to (it absolutely was) until after it is too late. However, the aftermath part ends up lending an importance to the main characters that rings false. When they are investigating a disappearance and discrepancies about it, they role makes sense. Later they seem to have world changing power. It is as though a police detective started hanging out with the President. It just makes no sense.

All that said The Devil’s Eye is still a fine read. I’ll be looking into McDevitt’s other works, but my enjoyment of this one did take a big it as it floundered to it end.

Pemberley Shades,  DA Bonavia-Hunt

A couple of months ago I had the bright idea to read what was basically published Jane Austen fan fiction. I purchased three books (I have to note that I got them for pennies) and the two I read went over about as well as one should expect. I had that third one just sitting there, so I decided to go ahead and read it so I could get rid of it and be done with this disaster of an idea

I wish I had read this one first, because it is actually not bad. For three quarters, it is almost good. Pemberley Shades is another sequel to Pride and Prejudice, though fortunately it reads more like the continuing life of the characters from the book and not new people who happen to share their names. The new characters fit right in to Austen’s milieu as well.

Unfortunately, as the book concludes you begin to realize that while the characters are mostly right, the author did not actually have a story to tell. Things that felt like they were building fizzle unsatisfactorily, motivations change for no reason and then it just sort of ends. I would not recommend this. I am not sure why I read it.

The Bellmaker, Brian Jacques.

This is where my re-read of the Redwall series ends for now. Not because I’m not liking the books, far from it, but because they are all so similar to each other that reading them in rapid succession makes them all run together in my mind.

The Bellmaker is, as far as I can tell, one of the few Redwall books to be a sequel that features the same cast as an earlier book. This one is again about Mariel and her cohorts. Though it is titled The Bellmaker, Joseph the Bellmaker has little to do with it. It has all the hallmarks of the other Redwall book; swashbuckling action, dangerous but cowardly villains and larger than life heroes. It also focused more on seafaring than most of the previous books. It is present in most of them to one degree or another, but it is more prevalent here than in any others. The Bellmaker is not the best book in the series, but neither is it out of line with the general quality.

Related articles

Last Month in Reading: March

/ skoce / Leave a comment

This was not a good month for me, reading wise.  Mostly because all the new handheld games I intend to buy this year came out this month and I used time that would normally be reading time as Tactics Ogre and OkamiDen time.  But I still got four books read, so it wasn’t a complete waste.

Fer-de-Lance Rex Stout

This is the first of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries.  I can see why he is considered one of the greats of the genre.  This is a terrific mystery.  Nero Wolfe seems to be a progenitor of the irascible, eccentric detectives popular today, like TV’s Monk or House (Doctor, yeah, but House is totally a detective).  Wolfe’s eccentricities, for those unfamiliar, has him refusing to leave his house to investigate, leaving it all to his assistant Archie Goodwin, who is the narrator.  Archie Goodwin does all the legwork, but Wolfe uses his findings to solve the case.  It is an interesting, workable good set-up. The actual case they solve is not exactly complex, but it is not too simple.  The brother of an acquaintance of Wolfe turns up missing, then a respected man turns up dead with little explanation.  Wolfe puts the two together and realizes that they are connected.  So he sends Archie to look around.  It follows in the standard manner of mysteries, with Archie and Wolfe getting closer and closer to the truth.  Though it ends with Wolfe crossing the line from eccentricity to sociopathy.  I’d recommend it, and I’ll be reading more of Stout’s mysteries.

Napoleon’s Wars An International History 1803-1815 Charles Esdaile

Charles Esdaile’s Napoleon’s Wars is a thorough account of the Napoleonic Wars.  I should have known how annoyed I get with this book when I purchased it.  Esdaile is British, I am a Napoleon apologist;  should have known his take on Napoleon would be one I did not like. Don’t get me wrong, the book is well written and accurate, but he seems to be trying to equate Napoleon with Hitler and cajole readers into thanking Britain for saving the world from him. Every good thing Napoleon did is set as merely a ploy to get to more war and killing.  While no one can argue that Napoleon was not inclined to battle, I do not think the rest of what he did is easily swept aside.  The wars of the time were almost as much the fault of the leaders of other nations as Napoleon.  Still this is definitely a worthwhile read, though possibly more dense that a casual reader would appreciate.

Mariel of Redwall Brian Jacques

Mariel escapes from the pirate Gabool the wild, journeys to Redwall and then goes back to rescue her father, Joseph the Bellmaker. (Remember the Joseph Bell from Redwall?)  Joined by new friends from the Abbey she treks back to the fortress of the increasingly insane Gabool.   I actually like the cast of this book more than the ones from Redwall or Mossflower.  Martin is kind of boring in life, but as a ghostly protector, he is great.  But here we get Mariel and the first more nautically themed Redwall book.  Also, the first female main character.  It is kind of hard to separate these books after a while, because they all are very similar.

Martin the Warrior Brian Jacques

This is my least favorite of the Redwall series so far.  The bad guys are ridiculously incompetent, and the knowing what happens next makes the book is predictable.  It seems like Jacques realized that Martin did little in his previous book (Mossflower) and needed another book to make him seem as important as he does the books where only his spirit appears. This book details an adventure of Martin’s before he comes to Mossflower.  As usual, there is a horde of vermin and imperiled good animals.  The most interesting thing in this one it the troupe of traveling performers, who sadly get to do little performing.  Martin and his newly met friends escape from  , then bring an army back to take him down.  You know, the usual Redwall stuff.  The fun of these books is not in their plots, which are standard adventure fare, but in the execution.  And Martin only slightly under delivers on that.

Last Month in Reading

/ skoce / Leave a comment

It’s time for the monthly review of the books I read last month.   Quite the variety in terms of subjects and quality.  Still a good month for in terms of number of books read.

Opening Atlantis, Harry Turtledove

The first of Turtledove’s trilogy of Atlantis alternate history novels, Opening Atlantis is an adequate read.  It is not mind blowing or anything, but it is sufficiently competent and entertaining to be worth reading.  The novel tells the story of an alternate history where a large island, or small continent, (I’ve since realized that it is the East Cost pulled off of America) sits between Europe and America.  Dubbed Atlantis by its discoverers, the novel follows it is colonization up through its equivalent of the French-Indian War through the eyes of the original English settler and his descendants.

One problem with it is that it covers too much time and is too much of a history to really develop the characters.  This is very much a novel of plot and not character, but the viewpoint is too close to the characters to give a wide, history like view. Another problem is that Atlantis’ history too closely mirrors America’s.  What is the point of an alternate history when it sticks so close to actual history?  This is more of a mild disappointment than a big problem, though.  With all of history to use as a canvas, Turtledove transplants what we already know with some cosmetic changes.  I hope the latter books deliver on the promise that Opening Atlantis nearly squanders.

Continue reading →