Reading Realms

REVIEW: 'Blood Song' by Anthony Ryan

` “The Sixth Order wields the sword of justice and smites the enemies of the Faith and the Realm.” Vaelin Al Sorna was only a child of ten when his father left him at the iron gate of the Sixth Order. The Brothers of the Sixth Order are devoted to battle, and Vaelin will be trained and hardened to the austere, celibate, and dangerous life of a Warrior of the Faith. He has no family now save the Order. Vaelin’s father was Battle Lord to King Janus, ruler of the unified realm. Vaelin’s rage at being deprived of his birthright and dropped at the doorstep of the Sixth Order like a foundling knows no bounds. He cherishes the memory of his mother, and what he will come to learn of her at the Order will confound him. His father, too, has motives that Vaelin will come to understand. But one truth overpowers all the rest: Vaelin Al Sorna is destined for a future he has yet to comprehend. A future that will alter not only the realm, but the world.

REVIEW: 'Red Rising' by Pierce Brown

Darrow is a miner and a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of the future. Like his fellow Reds, he digs all day, believing that he and his people are making the surface of the planet livable for future generations. Darrow has never seen the sky. Yet he spends his life willingly, knowing that his blood and sweat will one day result in a better future for his children.

But Darrow and his kind have been betrayed. Soon he discovers that humanity already reached the surface generations ago. Vast cities and sprawling parks spread across the planet. Darrow and Reds like him are nothing more than slaves to a decadent ruling class. Inspired by a longing for justice, and driven by the memory of lost love, Darrow joins a resistance group in order to infiltrate the ruling class and destroy society from within. He will stop at nothing to bring down his enemies… even if it means he has to become one of them to do so.

REVIEW: 'The Huntsman's Amulet' by Duncan M. Hamilton

` Alone in a foreign land, Soren must come to terms with loss and a gift that has been as much a burden as a benefit. A long abandoned city may hold the answers he seeks about the Gift of Grace, but a lethal assassin proves that old enemies have not forgotten him. As misfortune pulls him ever farther from an unsettled score, he finds hope in an unexpected place… The Huntsman's Amulet follows The Tattered Banner and is the second part of the Society of the Sword trilogy.

REVIEW: 'Mist' by Susan Krinard

Mist lives a normal life. She has a normal job, a normal boyfriend, and a normal apartment in San Francisco. She never thinks about her past if she can help it. She survived. That’s the end of it. But then a snowy winter descends upon San Francisco. In June. And in quick succession, Mist is attacked by a frost giant in a public park and runs into an elf disguised as a homeless person on the streets…and then the man Mist believed was her mortal boyfriend reveals himself to be the trickster god, Loki, alive and well after all these years. Mist’s normal world is falling apart. But thankfully, Mist isn’t quite so normal herself. She’s a Valkyrie, and she’s going to need all her skill to thwart Loki’s schemes and save modern Earth from the ravages of a battle of the gods.

REVIEW: 'The Wobbit: A Parody' by The Harvard Lampoon

When Aaron Sorkinshield and his band of Little People embark on a quest across Widdle Wearth to reclaim the hoard of Academy Awards stolen from them by the lonely Puff the Magic Dragon, senile wizard Dumbledalf suggests an unlikely and completely unqualified accomplice: Billy Bagboy, an unassuming wobbit dwelling in terrorist-riddled Wobbottabad. Along the way, the company faces internet trolls, moblins, one really big spider that must be at least an inch and a half wide, and slightly worse. But as they journey from the wonders of Livinwell to the terrors of Jerkwood and beyond, Billy will find that there is more to him than anyone—Tolkien included—ever dreamed. Propelled to his destiny by a series of courageous adventures and indented paragraphs, Billy will set out on the greatest YOLO of all time…one that leads deep into the dark caverns hiding a mysterious man named Goldstein, who’s just trying to have a nice Seder.

REVIEW: Maybe it’s from growing up with the Naked Gun movies, maybe it’s from my lifelong enjoyment of “Weird” Al, maybe its the genius that is South Park, or maybe it’s all Mel Brooks’ fault, but I know, deep down in the cockles of my heart, that “parody” does not have to mean “stupid.” There can be plot, character development, themes, motifs, and all those other things that “real” stories have, along with the references and the funny. Sadly, The Harvard Lampoon’s newest book, The Wobbit: A Parody fails to live up to what I know a parody book can and should be. I’ll admit, reading the description of the book put me in a good mood. The Harvard Lampoon is “the world's longest continually published humor magazine” and has produced some great talents such as Conan O’Brian and B.J. Novak, there was no reason for me to expect this to disappoint, except reality. Devoid of a coherent plot, likeable characters, or anything regarding substance, The Wobbit is a referenced filled jumble of nonsense from a hodgepodge of popular fantasy franchises that would make the writers of Scary Movie proud. Character names are uninspired mashings of well known charcters as are the situations they find themselves in.  The plot, such as it is, of The Wobbit reads like the writers tore pages out of The Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter, and Game Of Thrones and tossed them into a manatee tank (see how you like a random reference). Trudging through The Wobbit became a chore that I had to finish (because I said I’d read it) and by the end I loathed everyone in the book, involved with the book, the book itself, and my Kindle for not telling me to stop reading and go back to my fifth time through the Robotech novels. BOTTOM LINE: I would like to say that there were some good points in this book, heck I remember almost chuckling twice, but beyond that I can think of nothing positive to say about The Wobbit. There is much more that could be said about this book, but I really don’t want to think about it anymore.