Several people have read my review of Anthony Ryan’s Blood Song and have asked me to let them know when another craic read comes alongREAD THIS BOOK.
Several people have read my review of Anthony Ryan’s Blood Song and have asked me to let them know when another craic read comes along.
HERE IT IS. READ IT. READ IT NOW. READ IT TWICE.
Books like this are a privilege. Books like this remind you of why you are a person who reads for fun.
I started to write a deep analysis of what the book is about and why I love it. But that’s not what I want to do with this review because I don’t want to be the adult who takes apart the toaster right now. I don’t want to fiddle under the hood. Maybe some day.
But right now I just want to revel in this book the way I reveled in Heidi when I was 5. I want to revel in the memory of the book’s world and enjoy having been there.
This book goes on my Better Than Five Stars shelf.
Note to the author: I broke my Martin Rothfuss rule for you and read the first book before the others were complete and I am imploring you to keep faith and release the others. Yes, I know you’re not a slave to my whims (we’ll leave the misogynistic term to Neil Gaiman) and yet I’d love to read more of these people and their world. ...more
A few years ago I reviewed Anthony Ryan's _Blood Song_ here on Goodreads. That review gets me letters at least once a week asking me to recommend otheA few years ago I reviewed Anthony Ryan's _Blood Song_ here on Goodreads. That review gets me letters at least once a week asking me to recommend other books that are just as good as _Blood Song_, _Name Of The Wind_, and the rest of the titles I mentioned in that review. I usually have to tell people "I have no idea but as soon as I do I'll shout it from the rooftops." This is me, climbing up the ladder and preparing to balance on the shingles.
_Dawn Of Wonder_ is that book. It is the book I lost sleep over. The book that I got for free under Kindle Unlimited but loved so much I went back and bought both the Kindle and Audible versions.
Yes, I'm partial to Bildungsroman. Novels about the coming of age of heroes are infinitely more fascinating to me than the tales of subsequent heroics. I want to know how the hero is made.
This book is the best of that type of book since _Blood Song_. And like Blood Song was initially it's much cheaper than it should be. This is a $25 book being sold for $4. It's a "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY" book. It's the book I kept raving about while the doctor was trying to review my test results.
If I had a dollar for every mediocre book I'd read I'd use that money to buy a copy of this book for everyone in the English speaking world to read anIf I had a dollar for every mediocre book I'd read I'd use that money to buy a copy of this book for everyone in the English speaking world to read and enjoy. ...more
The most fun I've had reading in five months. And I'm saying that after just coming off _Bloody Jack_, another 5-star read. This book truly is craicinThe most fun I've had reading in five months. And I'm saying that after just coming off _Bloody Jack_, another 5-star read. This book truly is craicing great fun. ...more
This book takes three of my favourite topics--horror, history and post-apocalyptic fiction--and performs the sort of literary alchemy that is too rareThis book takes three of my favourite topics--horror, history and post-apocalyptic fiction--and performs the sort of literary alchemy that is too rare and almost too delightful for words.
I read it reluctantly because I hate HATE HATE Zombies. Like, really hate. I can't imagine anything stupider, frankly. So I ignored this book for years. Then when the movie was slated for release and everyone talked about how the novel was unfilmable and the movie was so different...I was intrigued.
I'm glad I'm old enough to set some prejudice aside.
First off, to those who say this book is unfilmable I say "hah! That's BS!" Because this book _is_ filmable. It should have been made into a miniseries structured like a Ken Burns documentary. Because that is what this book is...an oral history splendidly crafted.
I have read hundreds of books on WWII, WWI, the United States Civil War, the Spanish Civil War, and Vietnam. Apparently so has Max Brooks because he deftly made this book into one of those accounts. By the midpoint of the book I had to begin reminding myself that this was fiction, that I couldn't Google the various names for more background information.
I am thoroughly delighted with every aspect of this book, including the fact that the Zombie business is actually NOT a big part of the story. The actual narrative is how the world--from Australia to Zambia--is affected by a 'Zombie Apocalypse' and how that world slowly rights itself.
The book owes deep debts to WWII oral accounts and, oddly enough, to the film _The Longest Day_. The Zombies are the Macguffin that allows Brooks to write a splendid War History.
I completely love this book and am now setting about to beg everyone I know who has even the slightest interest in history to give it a read. ...more
When I first finished Patrick Rothfuss’ Name Of The Wind two years ago I was a bit sad. I knew that even though the book was wonderful (and had a sequWhen I first finished Patrick Rothfuss’ Name Of The Wind two years ago I was a bit sad. I knew that even though the book was wonderful (and had a sequel on the horizon), that great books which capture me as that one did don’t come along very often. Before Rothfuss was Harry Potter, and that was a good number of years before Rothfuss. It was five years before Potter that Pillars Of The Earth fell into my hands. So I’ve been working on an average of one Utterly Captivating Read every five years or so. Watching the last page of Name Of The Wind blink offscreen, I knew it was going to be another five years before I found one of those Utterly Captivating Reads.
Now, that’s not to say there haven’t been other great books. Other five-star books. George RR Martin has written a few. So has Lois McMaster Bujold. Five-star books, through and through–books that I’ve read more than once out of a desire to travel into them again.
But there are just some books that make five stars look like the sky on a cloudy night and beg for a constellation. Those are the Utterly Great Reads, the ones whose stories feel more real than the stories you know other people think are real.
I wasn’t expecting another Utterly Great Read for three more years. I wasn’t due for one, you see.
I certainly wasn’t expecting it to be independently published, released in near secret and available on Kindle for less than the price of my usual Vente Breve Chai Latte at Starbucks. Seriously. This thing was three dollars. I swear to you I want to send twenty bucks and a bottle of Macallan to the guy who wrote it. It’s that good. This is a book that should be in leather-bound hardback, smythe-sewn, gold tooling, deckle-edged paper. It’s a book that costs less than a large bag of cheetos, for crying out loud!...more
From now on whenever anyone says "why waste time re reading a book?" I'll have this handy reference. This is why. Because the person who c UPDATED 2014
From now on whenever anyone says "why waste time re reading a book?" I'll have this handy reference. This is why. Because the person who clicked open _Lies Of Locke Lamora_ in 2011 was coming straight from a full reread of Martin, Rothfuss and Brett. She was saturated with other speculative worlds and stories. This book, with its time-bending narrative and backstreets setup just didn't sit well. After my standard 60 page trial I shrugged a goodbye and moved on to other things.
Three years later, three years older, four hundred books down the line, freezing winter instead of balmy summer...the person who read this book is different. The book is the same, but the reader changes. And she changes her mind.
This is an excellent book. I now rank it up there with those few (_Name Of The Wind_, Blood Song_) that I consider better than 5 stars.
In my earlier review I can see how I was fooled by the time-bending into thinking there was no character growth. I can see how I was too saturated with other epics to bring an unjaundiced eye to the proceedings.
And THAT is why you reread a book. Because YOU are different and the book will have something different to say to the new person you have become.
1st Review: 2011
After slogging through the first part, Ive decided this book is not for me. I understand why others like it so well; it's sort of a fantastical version of a heist movie. And for me that was the problem, as the book has no more character depth than a ninety-minute caper film. In a book this large that is an unpardonable detail to overlook. Since i didnt care about the characters I was only marginally interested in their shenanigans....more