The Book Plank

With the Review Round-up  posts to plan to make a monthly review round-up based on the books that I have read in those months, since this blog is about one month old this will be the first round-up post.  In October I have read about 20 books minimum, and to my pleasure they were all great. I haven't come around a book lately that did not met up with my expectations and some even exceeded them. Genre wise I have read books from urban fantasy, supernatural, young adult, historical fiction, epic fantasy, steampunk and science fiction. To list all the books it would be to big of a post so I want to just highlight a few that I found particularly enjoyable. My top 5 of favorite book of October are: 1. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde 2. MetaWars: Fight for the Future by Jeff Norton 3. The Kings Bastard by Rowena Cory Daniells 4. The Buntline Special by Mike Resnick 5. Maria and the Devil by Graham Thomas 1. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde The Eyre Affair ...

The Devil has ridden out. Montana’s most feared outlaw has left his secret lover, Maria, alone in their secluded house deep in the wilds. If he had known that she was pregnant the Devil might have stayed. That was almost nine months ago and Maria is still awaiting her lover’s return. But while Maria waits for the Devil, a vengeful band of gunslingers are hunting him. Led by the relentless Rickman Chill, the gang have ventured deep into the dark wilds of Montana and they will stop at nothing to bring the Devil to justice. It is not long before the Chill gang happen upon a lone house in the woods where a pregnant woman seems to be the only inhabitant. Vengeance is a dangerous game, but as the Devil said to Maria before he left her: “There is nothing more dangerous than lovers”. Maria and the Devil is the third book by Graham Thomas, of whom I have had the pleasure of reading both Hats off to Brandenburg and Kiss Me I’m Dying. This book however is way, way different than ...

Sorne, the estranged son of a King on the verge of madness, is being raised as a weapon to wield against the mystical Wyrds. Half a continent away, his father is planning to lay siege to the Celestial City, the home of the T’En, whose wyrd blood the mundane population have come to despise. Within the City, Imoshen, the only mystic to be raised by men, is desperately trying to hold her people together. A generations long feud between the men of the Brotherhoods and the women of the sacred Sisterhoods is about to come to a head. Picking up Besieged after The King’s Bastard was quite the change in story. Rowena mentioned to me that the books would be totally different from each other. They were story wise but just as with The King’s Bastard, Besieged was just as great a read. Taking on similar aspects on both a grander and smaller scale. The grander scale of everything is noticeable from the introduction to the world Chalcedonia and the Five Kingdoms as well as its inh...

The year is 1881. The United States of America ends at the Mississippi River. Beyond lies the Indian nations, where the magic of powerful Medicine Men has halted the advance of the Americans east of the river. An American government desperate to expand its territory sends Thomas Alva Edison out West to the town of Tombstone, Arizona, on a mission to discover a scientific means of counteracting magic. Hired to protect this great genius, Wyatt Earp and his brothers. But there are plenty who would like to see the Earps and Edison dead. Riding to their aid are old friends Doc Holliday and Bat Masterson. Against them stand the Apache wizard Geronimo and the Clanton gang. Battle lines are drawn, and the Clanton gang, which has its own reasons for wanting Edison dead, sends for Johnny Ringo, the one man who might be Doc Holliday’s equal in a gunfight. But what shows up instead is The Thing That Was Once Johnny Ringo, returned from the dead and come to Tombstone looking for a ...

All young Zak Corbin wants is a robot – in a time when nearly everyone has one. But there is great fear of the Corbin name. Doctor Elias Corbin was regarded as a famous builder of robots until he unleashed an attack on a military factory. Branded a madman and a traitor, Zak’s uncle was sentenced to spend the rest of his days on Penitentiary Island. When fifteen-year-old Zak tries to build a robot of his own, mostly to get the attention of pretty sophomore Lisabeth Ryan, it leads to an adventure of gigantic proportions. Zak builds one of his uncle’s banned robots, which he dubs Pogo, and he quickly discovers the machine goes far beyond what ordinary robots can do. But when Zak wishes he could set his uncle free, Pogo breaks Doctor Corbin out of prison, leading to a confrontation with a secret weapon: a terrifying giant war machine. When I first came across Zak Corbin: Master of Machines I immediately got the urge that I just had to read this book. Featuring a fifteen ye...

Katharine Geryon is living the life her family name has dictated, and why not? After all, it has given her a good job in the family company and a fine life with all the things she should want. But all that changes as increasingly disturbing events begin to occur: soot stains on the carpet, glimpses of strange black animals, and cryptic messages written on her bathroom mirror. Baffled and afraid, Katharine begins to doubt her own sanity. At the same time, two charismatic men enter her life: Allistair, her new assistant at work, and Zachary, a well-heeled neighbour who just moved into her building. Katharine soon finds each of them inextricably entangled in her affairs. As her life becomes stranger and her dreams more terrifying, she realizes neither man is what he seems and that she’s caught in something far beyond her own comprehension. For the first time, she must reach beyond her own boundaries. God’s Eye is a supernatural thriller featuring an Angels and Demo...

There is another 1985, where London’s criminal gangs have moved into the lucrative literary market, and Thursday Next is on the trail of a new crime wave’s Mr Big. Acheron Hades has been kidnapping characters from works of fiction and holding them ransom. Jane Eyre is gone. Missing. Thursday sets out to find a way into the book to repair the damage. But solving crimes against literature isn’t easy when you also have to find time to halt the Crimean War, persuade the man you love to marry you , and figure out who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Mad as pants. Yes truly, The Eyre Affair is mad a pants in the best, terrifically possible way. Having be dropped right smack into the action of The Woman Who Died a Lot (which was released earlier this year by Hodder and Stoughton) and being convinced that the Thursday Next series was a series that I really wanted to read, Lee offered me this book to review and I am pleased, well more than pleased. Meeting Thursday from ...

Captain Alexander Outland of the Sixty-Nine (short for Space vessel 3369, of course) is the best pilot in the galaxy. He’s also a pirate, smuggler, and loved and loathed by women in umpteen solar systems. His crew of strays and misfits includes and engineer of dubious sanity, a deposed planetary governor, an annoyingly unflappable Sexbot copilot, and a slinky weapons chief who stubbornly refuses to give the captain a tumble. Outland just wants to make a decent living skirting the law, but when an invisible space armada starts cutting into his business, he soon finds himself in hot water with the military, the mob, mad bombers, and an extended family of would be conquerors. And that’s not counting the occasionally telepathic spy. Like any sensible scoundrel, he hates heroics. They’re risky and they don’t pay well. But to keep his ship and crew in one piece, and make time with a certain hard-to-get weapons chief he might have to make an exception – and save the galaxy in spite of hi...

Feisty young governess Charlotte Markham discovers a dark alternate world called The Ending, the place for things that cannot die, in which the deceased mother of the two boys under her care has been waiting. She invites them into the ominous House of Darkling, a wondrous, dangerous place filled with enchantment, mystery and strange creatures that are not quite human… The invitation of “We bid you welcome to the House of Darkling” was quite luring, and I accepted it without any reluctance. And I’m glad that I did. The House of Darkling is just magnificent. Let’s start with the characters. Charlotte Markham, a governess, and now taking care of the children of Henry Barrows, features as the main protagonist and you see the story through her eyes in a third person way. Charlotte was for me a great character, part motherly towards the children, part caring towards Henry and when actions require, even a heroine. Her character grew strongly after Charlotte and the children stumbled, th...

In an unforgiving future, two warring factions – the Millennials and the Guardians – are locked in a brutal battle over control of an online virtual world called the Metasphere. Jonah Delacroix has always known which side he’s on – the same side as his dead father. But when he assumes his father’s avatar, he learns that things aren’t as black and white as he once believed. He’s catapulted into a full throttle race through both worlds – but can he find the truth? Finishing this book just 10 minutes ago my mind is still buzzing with excitement with the whole concept of Metawars: Fight for the Future. It is quite an advanced book for a younger audience, giving a take on how dependent we have become on certain things and what this might translate into in the near future. Even though this book is targeted for children age 9 and up it still got my heart racing a few times. One theme that is quite noticeable from the start is the dystopian theme. Fight for the Futur...

Unprofitables are banished to work camps to pay off their credit. Other tie-men and women look on apathetically. Fair is fair. Everyone knows you shouldn’t use more credit than you are worth to the Company. They turn their attention to the next repackaged but highly coveted N-Corp product on the market, creatively advertised on the imager screens that adorn virtually every available flat surface. All the while, their mandatory cross-implants and wrist-worn “ICs” keep them focused on the endless cycle of work and consumption to which they are enslaved. May Fields – the CEO’s daughter – would like to believe she is above all that. Head of N-Corp’s marketing team, the young woman who has almost everything anyone could want spends her days dreaming up ingenious ways to make workers buy more of what they already have and don’t need. Even before May discovers that the Company is headed for its first loss in thirty years, she is feeling the stirrings of dissatisfaction with ...

Only seven minutes younger than Rolencia’s heir, Byren has never hungered for the throne. He laughs when a seer predicts that he will kill his twin. But the royal heir resents Byren’s growing popularity. Across the land the untamed magic of the gods wells up out of the earth’s heart. It sends exotic creatures to stalk the wintry nights and it twists men’s minds, granting them terrible visions. Those so touched are sent to the Abbey to control their gift, or die. At King Rolen’s court enemies plot to take his throne, even as secrets within his own household threaten to tear his family apart. The King’s Bastard is the first book in The Chronicles of King Rolen’s Kin trilogy written by Rowena Cory Daniells which follows the footsteps of Byren, one of King Rolen’s sons. From the blurb I could make a educated guess what was in store for me but once I started reading I was off. I expected a somewhat hack and slash style to it but instead the The King’s Bastard combines sever...

Cloud Atlas I recently came across the trailer of “Cloud Atlas” on the internet. Quickly checking up with IMDB is saw that the cast has nice line featuring among others Tom Hanks and Halle Berry. The directors of this movie were none other than Tom Wyker from “Run Lola Run” and the Wachowskis who did the matrix series.  Here's the trailer: I watched the trailer and after it was finished it took me a few moments to fully let it sink in. The trailer itself was kind of confusing. The ending finished with the statement “Everything is connected” . But I could not make heads nor tails from it. So I did a little digging on the internet and found that “Cloud Atlas” is actually based on a novel written by David Mitchell and was published by Hodder and Stoughton in 2004. Taken from the Hodder and Stoughton website: The novel features six characters in interlocking stories, each interrupting the one before it: a reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disi...