Books Reviews
Not really reviews, just comments I have on various books I'm reading.
The Knight - by Gene Wolfe
I absolutely love this book. It's part one of Wolfe's "The
Wizard Knight" novel. I'm puzzled by the comments of various
readers on Amazon.com. Some complain of no character development
or juvenile fantasies. I wonder if they're reading the same
book. Gene Wolfe has a reputation of being hard to read; his
novels are like a slowly blossoming flower. The worlds his
characters reside in are slowly revealed, piece by piece until their
magnificence stands unveiled.
The premise of the books is that a young teenage boy,
raised by his brother away from the hubbub of much of modern life,
finds himself in a fantasy realm loosely based on Nordic
and Celtic myth. Through various encounters, he decides he
wants to be
a knight and strives to become one. As a scrawny teenage
boy suddenly finding himself in a fully grown man's body, he at first
relies much on his physical strength. His purity of character win
many to his side. Many mysteries are brought up for the
reader's enjoyment and slowly over the course of this book and the
next, solved like a bits of a jizsaw puzzle coming
together. For readers who want everything spoon fed to
them, perhaps this isn't their cup of tea (though things are explained
much more so than in Wolfe's earlier works).
Another Amazon reviewer claimed the world of The Wizard
Knight was rather like a male juvenile fantasy - naked Aelf girls
cavorting around trying to get the main character to bed
them. But one of the points of introducing those nubile
nymphs is to show that Sir Able's love of Disiri isn't simply
sexual. He rejects the Aelfs' advances and remains pure to his
love of Disiri.
This was one of those books that I simply couldn't put
down. Highly recommended to lovers of heroic fantasy who have a
good head on their shoulders.
The Revenge fo the Sith - by Matthew
Stover
If after watching the movie, you said, "huh?", then this
book is for you. Novelizations used to be simple retellings
of the films - home videos machines weren't around yet, so a
novelization was the only
way to relive the movie over and over again without going to the
theater. Nowadays, movie novels (as exemplified by this one) try
to go deeper into the story and character motivations. In Sith,
Stover manages to artful portray the fall of Anakin Skywalker. He
shows the tortured, conflicted person that Anakin is and how he loses
faith in the Jedi and becomes seduced by the dark side.
Stover doesn't give just a simple retelling of what we see
on the screen. He digs into the thoughts and motivations of all
the characters. Scenes that were very weak (or even corny) in the
movie take on added weight and significance. In fact, I'd
recommend reading the book before watching the movie in order to get
the full story and maximum impact.
Stover wrote this novel while the movie was being made, so
while it underwent a line-by-line edit from George Lucas, many of the
last minute changes that Lucas is famous for aren't reflected in the
novel. We'll never know why Anakin chose such a stupid
finishing move in the film. At any rate, this book is
highly recommended for Star Wars fans!
The Expectant Father -
Facts, Tips, and Advice for Dads-to-Be - by Armin A. Brott
I really don't like this book. One of
the
reviewers on Amazon.com sums it up well when he says that this book
isn't for everyone. I think it's for father-to-bes with
fragile egos who get upset over anything minor that doesn't make them
feel in control. Or perhaps super-sensitive namby-pamby men
who are hurt by every little thing that goes on around
them. Not that I'm a Manly Man (far from it), but most of
this book made me gag when reading it. To be fair, there is
some useful information contained within, but you can find that info in
a lot of better written books.
Or maybe Mr Brott's intent was to make the reader
feel better by showing that they're not as pathetic as other expectant
dads. Nah. He just wants to talk to the inner woman
in every man. Funny, considering he markets the books as
being the only one that talks to men. Bleh. Stay away
from this one unless you're (as the Govenor of Kalifornia says) "a
girly man".