Reaper Man (Discworld #11 > Death #2) by Terry Pratchett
This is a very odd book. It’s part of the Death subseries, and I love Death but felt like he was still a secondary character here. The Powers That Be, the Bureaucracy Of The Universe, decide to retire Death. So he goes off to join the living and finds a farming job where he can use his scythe. Meanwhile, the Great Bureaucrats don’t replace Death right away, which leads to a backlog and results in a number of Undead.(minor spoilers ahead)
Windle Poons is the real main character here, an elderly wizard waiting for Death to get him. He dies but has nowhere to go so ends up a zombie. Those in similar circumstances start marching for equal rights and such. Then there are snow globes that hatch into shopping carts, which then evolve into an evil shopping mall of sorts — I said it was weird.
There are some good chuckles, as usual, and good writing, but I did like Mort more.
Favorite Bits
Inside every living person is a dead person waiting to get out
“Huh! Priests!” said Mr. Shoe. “They’re all the same. Always telling you that you’re going to live again after you’re dead, but you just try it and see the look on their faces!”
The wizards said that the University stood on magical ground and was therefore exempt from taxation and anyway you couldn’t put a tax on knowledge. The Patrician said you could. It was two hundred dollars per capita; if per capita was a problem, decapita could be arranged.
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The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
I listened to this in the car on a road trip. I think I dozed off once, and I zoned out several other times. So by the end I was getting confused about who was who, especially when there were two characters named Gil and Gilbert. I thought these were the same person until they started talking to each other.But the book is very well written. It was refreshing to see a writer use complete sentences for once.
About half the book is drinking alcohol.
The other half is sitting in rooms and talking to “suspects” while drinking alcohol. Then there’s a random historical account of cannibalism thrown in for no reason (or I slept through the reason).
If you like the classic hard-boiled detective, this is for you.
Moderate amount of mild to moderate language.
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Lock In (Lock In #1) by John Scalzi
I have never yet been disappointed by Scalzi, with his easy-going, engaging writing style. He writes my kind of science fiction.I guess this one sort of fits in the cyberpunk genre. A sizable minority of the population in the near future suffers from lock-in syndrome (which is very rare in today’s world). They can download their consciousnesses into both a virtual world and a robot body, commonly called Threeps after C-3PO.
The world-building is solid, and the world is fascinating to study. But it’s only the background for the real plot, which is a mystery/police procedural. It’s a good, solid, fun mystery. The book itself is rather short and keeps things moving right along.
The book also comes with an novella, which takes the forms of interviews about the plague that caused all the lock-in cases. It was more interesting than I expected (based on the premise), and it shows the great care that went into the world building.
I listened to the audio narration expertly performed by Wil Wheaton. I was informed that there is another version with a female narrator as the main character’s gender is never actually specified. Interesting.
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Fablehaven (Fablehaven #1) by Brandon Mull
This is a really solid MG fantasy. The characters are real; they have traits that are an advantage at times and a disadvantage at other times. The mythical creatures are all fascinating. The story does not pander to the audience and doesn’t sugarcoat serious situations. I never felt like the pacing dragged.I’m not sure if I like the narrator. He did rather well except it was like he was reading to a group of first-graders.
Clean content.
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Phasma (Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi #2) by Delilah S. Dawson
My husband and I picked this up from the shelf at the library at the last minute before our road trip. The only reason we listened to it is there was nothing else to do in the car for 28 hours (each way). Some spoilers ahead.This was so poorly written. Every phrase, every sentence was a cliche, and the “writer” had no idea. It was like she took a challenge to write a book using only 500 words of the English language: Enemies are “dispatched.” There is never another way to kill them. Feet “scrabble to find purchase.” “This next one is a doozy” is said twice, word for word. Get the idea?
The “writer” was tasked with writing a backstory about Phasma, a minor character in the Disney Star Wars sequels. I was hoping for a series of lifelong events. Instead, about 80 percent of the book is Phasma hiking through the wilderness in a Dune-meets-Mad-Max sort of way. She just kept throwing obstacles at the characters until the word count quota was met. Besides the hiking through the wilderness, the rest of it was kind of interesting.
The characters are all flat and cliched. Phasma is the determined survivalist with no conscience who lets nothing get in her way. The story alternates between present and past, where a Resistance spy is interrogated by a rival of Phasma’s. This spy is the most irritating character ever invented. Think Celaena Sardothien on steroids. She is “thin and wiry” with auburn hair but super tough and always ready with “witty” one-liners to throw at her opponent. I was waiting for this character to tie in to Phasma’s life on a personal level, but that never happened.
In addition to the poor writing, there are huge logical errors in the story.
- Phasma and her crew overcome overwhelming obstacles to get to Point X, then her rival crew just happens to show up all fit and healthy.
- The book talks about days becoming monotonous after a certain incident, and then they’re talking about the incident that happened “yesterday.”
- A TIE fighter has a hyperdrive, even though we all know they are short-range fighters only.
- The band of fighters gets attacked and totally forgets they have weapons and tanks.
- A mortally wounded character hikes to a shelter, gets healed, then puts on the blast shields even though the space bombs are sent minutes after she starts walking.
Then there are anachronisms, for lack of a better word. A red stormtrooper is called Cardinal. They have cardinals in the Star Wars universe? Or Catholics? Nuclear weapons leave radiation behind. Star Wars has nuclear weapons? That they use? Things like this feel too earth-like.
So overall, the book was very meh.
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One Word Kill (Impossible Times #1) by Mark Lawrence
This is a pretty short book, and it’s packed full of danger, mystery, time travel, and D&D. I was intrigued right from the beginning all through to the end. It was a thoroughly enjoyable adventure. I was hoping for more at the end, but then I found out there will be a sequel.
The book is set in Britain and written with British punctuation and spelling with a little American style. It’s an odd combination. Some occasional strong language.
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