Ardneh's Sword / Fred Saberhagen

Ardneh's Sword

category: fantasy, sub-adult, author:

Fred Saberhagen

book 1 or ?? of (new) Empire of the East
original copyright 2006

read in November 2011

Agamedes' opinion: 5 out of 10

This book fails to excite. Fails to impress. It's a book which is written by the numbers.

Take one wimpy kid with obvious hero potential. Add a support cast of magician, wise old teacher, tough old soldier, loyal pet with claws. Throw in a mysterious relic, promise of treasure, group of healers who set up business as far from people as possible...?! Sweeten with attractive girl and a group of cute kids...

Yuk !

Arrgh... it flows... Without much rhyme or reason, but things happen in a somewhat logical sequence. The sequence of events has some logic. The motives and actual events lack logic.

I've included this book in the category "sub-adult". Not to insult younger readers... :-) but the plot and motives are simplified. I enjoy a simple plot. But even young readers deserve a less mechanical story-line.

The book is fantasy, based on a post-post-apocalyptic world. "Post-post-apocalyptic?"

The book is set 1000 years after the Empire of the East books... which appear to have been post-apocalyptic. Where a super-computer was battling against... demons?!

So there is an underlying idea of super-technology. In a battle against the demons of myth and magic. This is trite, a cliche, clever enough as the basis for a series... Perhaps the earlier series was fantasy plus science fiction. But enough, it's drifted into pure fantasy.

Especially the ending...

Trying to not give too much away: At the grand finale, the immortal gods of legend are recreated... With their original memories... So if they are immortal -- where have they been?! And what will the real immortal gods say -- and do -- when they find that they have been cloned?!

Good grief!

After all that hard-to-believe non-excitement... This book is revealed as being chapter one of a totally new series: The Post-Post-Post-Apocalyptic World of the New Old Gods.

Groan.

..o0o..

These reviews are provided by Agamedes Consulting. For an independent and thoughtful review of your processes, problems or documents, email nickleth at gmail dot com.

PissWeakly: the Index

The Isle of Glass / Judith Tarr

The Isle of Glass

category: fantasy, author:

Judith Tarr

book 1 of The Hound and the Falcon
original copyright 1985

read in November 2011

Agamedes' opinion: 5 out of 10

Historical fantasy. A mix of real history -- I guess -- with the added element of elves. (I'm not an historian so I only guess that the history is real. Though I guess that it is "real" history that is largely based on dubious documents and word-of-mouth myths. Anyway.)

It's a religious fantasy: an elf who is a monk who accepts the then-current religious belief that elves have no soul. Which raises a severe barrier to my enjoyment of the book.

I have just read a book where people use religious stories as the basis for their own drive for power (The Doomsday Prophecy). To me, Doomsday portrays an accurate view of religion: No matter what the basis of the religion there are always people who will misuse the religious beliefs for their own uses. Isle builds on that view.

The central character of Isle is an elf. A very religious elf -- in the sense that he believes and he is as close to saintly as it is possible to be. And his religious beliefs tear him apart...

This saintly, religious elf believes -- as his religion teaches -- that he has no soul. So he is doomed to have no after-life. No matter how saintly his actual life.

What a miserable premise for a story.

What a depressing book.

Worse yet, nothing much of interest happens.

I have a book from the library: The Hound and the Falcon. It contains three complete novels of which Isle is just the first. My question now is... should I read the next novel?

Probably not, if it's going to be more miserable religious prejudice.

Oh well.

..o0o..

These reviews are provided by Agamedes Consulting. For an independent and thoughtful review of your processes, problems or documents, email nickleth at gmail dot com.

The Doomsday Prophecy / Scott Mariani

The Doomsday Prophecy

category: action, thriller, author:

Scott Mariani

book 2 of Ben Hope
original copyright 2009

read in November 2011

Agamedes' opinion: 8 out of 10

There's a real problem with religious-themed thrillers: if you are not religious then the suspense is often rather weak. I mean, if you're not worried about a second coming then you won't be worried about whether it's this week or next... The Ninth Circle suffers badly from that loss of relevance issue...

So why am I so impressed by Mariani's thriller? I mean, it's just a book about "the end times", and whether they will be this week or next week or... never.

The Doomsday Prophecy is grounded in a reality that is believable -- whether or not you are a doomsday believer. Even the most cynical reader cannot dismiss the power struggle over doomsday-influencing relics. There is no need to believe that angels and demons are battling it out in our backyard. The conflict is very, very human.

The characters and the plot, though... well...

The hero is soooo heroic! No worries, it's a work of fiction :-)

The hero is also heroically nice... He is ethical. He is incorruptible. He is loyal to his friends and kind to passing strangers. He probably sends Christmas gifts to orphans...

All of which, I like.

So what about the plot? Well... It's a bit weak.

Doomsday is action. There is a solid plot, but simple. Twists and turns -- but simple in that the hero just has to follow his nose. Or, at least, to follow the clear leads, from one twist to the next turn.

There is one point though...

The hero has finally reached the end of a massive red herring. He has nowhere to go. No leads left to follow. So what happens?

The villains decide, This man is dangerous, he must be captured. Alive. Which, of course, brings the hero back on the villains' trail!

If only the baddies had kept their heads down, they would be safe. Ah! if only...

That little bit of silliness aside, the plot flows well. Simply, but well enough.

Clear plot, realistic motives, almost-super hero, all good!

This is a good thriller. With tension that does not depend on religious belief.

Well worth the read!

..o0o..

These reviews are provided by Agamedes Consulting. For an independent and thoughtful review of your processes, problems or documents, email nickleth at gmail dot com.

Bone Song / John Meaney

Bone Song

category: fantasy, author:

John Meaney

book 1 of Dark Suspense
original copyright 2008,

read in November 2011

Agamedes' opinion: 9 out of 10

This... is a very weird world! Yet -- within its weirdness -- absolutely logical. If corpses did provide a power source... then this could well be the world that they power.

Better yet... not all the world is the same...

The action is centred on Tristopolis. The central power plant is an awful place... which is no surprise... it is haunted by the dead people who are being tormented to provide the city with power. The power station in the country of Illuria is equally awful... yet in a different way. The energy of the dead is extracted in a different way.

One fantasy world with a variety of self-consistent countries. The countries are inspired -- loosely -- by our own. With a passing reference to a fantasy book series where power is extracted from fossil fuels...

A dark world. Gothic. Yet very human... including the non-humans.

There is a touch of humour in Bone Song. Sometimes black humour, often cynical. The occasional quotable chuckle in a dark detective novel.

The cops are tough, determined and dedicated. Okay, they are very tough. They also work closely with each other, support each other, care for each other. It's easy to like them.

I liked the characters enough to be upset by the sudden death near the end of the book.

Still, that's just me: I like all the good-guy characters to survive...

This is a great book. I hope that there are more.

..o0o..

These reviews are provided by Agamedes Consulting. For an independent and thoughtful review of your processes, problems or documents, email nickleth at gmail dot com.

Opening Atlantis / Harry Turtledove

Opening Atlantis

category: fantasy, author:

Harry Turtledove

book 1 of Atlantis
original copyright 2007,
read in November 2011

Agamedes' opinion: 6 out of 10

Ho hum. A history book.

Okay, it's called an alternative history book. Still starts out boring.

So here's a new very large island, halfway between Europe and America. It's uninhabited. The settlers decide to call it Atlantis.

So what?!

Sometime in the future -- perhaps in the second or third book of Atlantis -- there may be some impact on the world as we know it. So far, it's just settlers settling. And fighting.

The first section of the book -- initial settlement -- is really, really boring. It's a new land. There are new animals. No-one can explain why they are different to animals everywhere else in the known world. Doesn't stop the settlers killing the animals.

The second section is a battle of pirates versus settlers. A bit more excitement. Trouble is -- despite reading quite a few pages of the book so far -- we don't know the characters... Okay, we quickly learn about them. But anyone that we met earlier -- is dead.

Ditto with the third section: Descendants of original settlers fight it out. Quite exciting. Though the British fleet is so powerful that it can provide deus ex machina as and when required.

Am I supposed to be pleased that the British settlers wiped out the French settlers? Well, I'm not. Not that I have any preference for the French...

But wouldn't it be nice if the two groups could find some other way to settle their differences?

In the first section of the book, one settler uses his influence to prevent inter-settlement wars. That's nice, I thought. Perhaps Atlantis will be different.

But no.

Every native animal is being exterminated. Every native plant is being killed. Feral pests -- introduced from the home countries, deliberately and accidentally -- are taking over. Every accessible area of land is being cleared, populated, over-populated and polluted. Every person who is not "one of us" is hated, feared, conquered or killed.

It's a history of Australia...

It's a history of America...

It's a history of the human destruction of any part of our world...

So what's "alternate" about this history?

What Turtledove is saying is, Give humans any new piece of land and they will treat it like dirt.

Not an alternate history.

Just history as it happens. Everywhere.

Depressing.

Boring.

..o0o..

These reviews are provided by Agamedes Consulting. For an independent and thoughtful review of your processes, problems or documents, email nickleth at gmail dot com.

The Ninth Circle / Alex Bell

The Ninth Circle

category: fantasy, author:

Alex Bell

original copyright 2008,
read in November 2011

Agamedes' opinion: 6 out of 10

A man wakes up with no memory of who he is nor of how he lost his memory. A very bad start to any novel.

Sometimes it works, to have the reader follow the protagonist as he struggles to remember. Some very few times. For me, the amnesiac start is a turner-offer.

In Circle, the character is not particularly pleasant. He seems to be involved in some battle over the second coming... of Christ or the anti-Christ. Whoop-dee-doo. He may even be an angel, working with -- and against -- other angels. Other angels who still have their own memories. Boring, over-the-top, may work if you're seriously concerned over traditional good versus evil, and the second coming.
After a very slow fifty pages I start to read faster. Doesn't work... the book is still tedious. I jump ahead, almost 200 pages, to the final memory recovery.

Okay, the denouement is worth reading. Not worth reading the entire book to get there, but worth reading. An interesting idea.

Which then degenerates into a pointless battle with an inconclusive ending.

Really, when you are dealing with supernatural forces which can neither be killed nor defeated -- any story is bound to have an inconclusive ending.

There are, however, two aspects of the book that I do appreciate...

There is no such thing as absolute good, nor absolute evil. Though my impression -- from the bits of this book that I read -- is than Bell has taken that one step further: What appears to be "good" may be mostly "evil". And vice versa. Or, perhaps, what we see as "good" and "evil" is simply PR from creatures battling for their own selfish reasons.

And the second positive aspect?

I am left with the urge to visit Budapest, to see the sights and sculptures and magnificent memorials!
Though I may settle for a visit via Google Earth.

21apr18: 

I start reading again. Start... and give up.

Now that I've looked at my original review -- I agree. A main character who is easy to dislike. A lot of pointless worry as he fails to find his memory but manages to worry -- mostly about himself -- in a pointless and negative fashion.

Ho hum. This time I don't even bother to skip ahead; I'm not interested in how it ends. Nor even in how it develops, since I'm well short of a start let alone an ending.

On the bright side: Since the first review I *have* visited Budapest! And it is indeed a fascinating city! Well worth the visit.

Judging by the view out the windows of the main character's apartment -- he and I stayed in much the same part of Budapest.

Don't bother with this book. Do visit Budapest :-)

..o0o..

These reviews are provided by Agamedes Consulting. For an independent and thoughtful review of your processes, problems or documents, email nickleth at gmail dot com.

Collision Course / William Shatner et al

Collision Course

category: science fiction, author:

William Shatner, with Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens

book 1 of Star Trek Academy
original copyright 2007,
read in October 2011

Agamedes' opinion: 8 out of 10

Okay, this is not great literature. I've said it before and I'll say it again: cliches are not all bad...

I mean...

I've said it before and I'll say it again: 8 out of 10 is my opinion. Based -- mostly -- on how much I enjoyed reading the book. And I thoroughly enjoyed reading Collision Course.

You have to admire William Shatner. He has taken to his role as ex-Starfleet Captain James T. Kirk. He has taken to it... but he has not taken it too seriously.

Better yet, he has written a pre-Star Trek novel which maintains the elements which made the original Star Trek great. Characters with high moral standards. With amazing -- unbelievable! -- skills. A lot of clever and intuitive problem solving by Kirk (and by Spock). Some fisticuffs and the ability to charm the socks off attractive women. (But only the socks...)

William Shatner "has written"...??

There are two co-authors. And a comment that this is "an imaginative work deriving solely from the author's personal vision." Perhaps Shatner simply added comments based on his memories of playing the role... Still. I'd rather he take advantage of his previous and most famous role. Rather than deny it. Or, worse yet, run it down. It's nice to have good memories untainted and unchallenged...

If you love the Start Trek characters -- the original Star Trek characters -- then you can't help but love this book.

On the down side, the "science fiction" aspect of the original series is a bit light on in this book. It's almost Star Wars: an adventure which happens to be set in a future world.

Still, who cares?! This is young Jimmy Kirk teaming with young Mr Spock to solve puzzles and beat the baddies! Sure, there are holes in the plot...

The starship is evacuated... Next minute the supposedly empty ship requests permission to leave dock... Permission granted... But who cares!

Just think, "Captain Kirk rules!" and sit back to enjoy the ride :-)

..o0o..

These reviews are provided by Agamedes Consulting. For an independent and thoughtful review of your processes, problems or documents, email nickleth at gmail dot com.