Two Series Finished: mini-reviews

I recently read the final installment of two different book series, and I'm sad to say that I'm glad they're done.

My Wife Reviews: Geek Girls Unite

I recently saw mentioned somewhere the book Geek Girls Unite and thought my wife would love to read it, being somewhat of a geek herself. I brought the book home for from the library the other day and she started reading it.

Here are her Twitter posts regarding the book Geek Girls Unite:

Rubi_ Rubi_ I respectfully disagree with this blogger: bit.ly/qLw17P That book was *terrible*


Rubi_ Rubi_ Among other thing, the book's author says that "muggle" is a word for hardcore Harry Potter fans.


Rubi_ Rubi_ 
Oh, she also says the Twilight series is "required reading" for geek girls.


Rubi_ Rubi_ 
@
@mr_ex Hah, no kidding. My geeky teenage daughter saw it on my dresser, got all excited, asked if she could read it. I told her yes. 15 minutes later she returned, threw the book on my bed in disgust, and stomped out. deck.ly/~fffUj

 My girls take their geekdom seriously! 

 

Book Review: Adam & Eve

I hate giving bad reviews, but since I asked to read this book and was given a copy for review I have to be honest.  IJustFinished provided Adam & Eve for me to review.

I'm not sure what to say about this book. The description sounded interesting so I gave it a chance (the description gave it a kind of Da Vinci Code kind of feel). It just didn't do it for me though.


A scientist discovers proof of extraterrestrial life. A discovery in the Holy Land of an ancient text that contradicts the biblical book of Genesis.(I enjoy seeing how authors approach this topic.) A group from all three major religions that will stop at nothing to keep those secret. ...and a man (Adam) and woman (Lucy) that end up naked in a desert oasis seemingly just to have a naked man and woman in the story to give it that Adam and Eve feel.

You almost had me at first there.

To be fair, this book is not my usual genre.

The plot had an almost dream-like randomness to it. Characters seem to do things with no motivation. Seriously? A woman crash lands her plane and all her clothes burn off. Convenient for the plot. She decides to stay in the oasis for months with a crazy man she's never met before that thinks he's the biblical Adam? And she's okay with this? There's a feral boy that feeds sheep hearts to unconscious people. Characters show up to advance the story and then disappear or die. My favorite character was the old mule-riding father of Pierre.

There's some action in the book towards the end when the bad guys finally show up for a short chase through some caves.  If the book had ended with Lucy waking up from a nap and realizing she was late for her lunch date with her husband, I would have believed the book more. Otherwise, it just didn't work.

Book Review: The Acronym - White Nights of St. Petersburgh

The Acronym - White Nights of St. Petersburgh
By Rebecca Lerwill
ISBN-13: 9781934938409
A review for IJustFinished.com.

Mia Trentino is a key witness is a trial against a Russian mafia boss and is under the protection of a U.S. government agency known only as The Acronym that can go places and do things other U.S. agencies can't. Mia and her team of special agents assigned to protect her arrive in St. Petersburgh to await her turn on the stand only to find Mia's fiance, Acronym agent Farland, has been accused of treason and their support from the U.S. is non-existent. Mia must survive until the trial, and the innocence of her fiance must be proven.

The Acronym - White Nights of St. Petersburgh is a sequel to Relocating Mia, but you don't have to have read that to understand what's going on. This book is good on plot, action, and character development and kept me reading through to the end.

But there was something missing from it; I just can't place my finger on what it was. I enjoyed the book, but it didn't feel... real. Perhaps it was the name of the agency: "Acronym". My wife read the back of the book, and said "A government agency called Acronym? That's pretty funny!" To which I replied, "Unfortunately, it's not supposed to be funny."

That being said, the book was still enjoyable enough to keep me reading and interested in going back and reading the first Mia novel.

The Sacred Sin by Estevan Vega - a Review

If you like dark supernatural thrillers, with demon possessions and a homicide detective struggling for redemption against immortal odds - this book could be for you.

Here's how the author describes the book:

The Sacred Sin bleeds with honesty and emotion, and tells the story of Jude Foster, a cynical self-loathing detective, assigned to bring down a serial killer capable of stealing victim's souls without ever touching them. Stopping this ghost killer, fighting against his demons, his inner darkness, may be the only path toward sanity and a new beginning. With a curiosity for the supernatural, as well as a feeling of disconnection from the complacency of mankind, Vega’s story-lines dwell somewhere in between fiction and reality, a place where the world is as blurred and irregular as human choice and consequence.

I would sum up The Sacred Sin as dark and disturbing. There is little-to-no light within the darkness of the this story. And perhaps it could have used some light to make me care more about the characters and their motivation. None of the characters except maybe the new partner, Rachel Cragin, seemed to have any redeeming qualities. Everyone was messed up in some way and didn't show us they had any qualities worth caring about, apart from being broken individuals. The point of the story seems to be "no matter what happens, life goes on - even if it does suck."

Although this book kept me reading to the end to find out what happens, I can't say I really enjoyed it. The Sacred Sin is extremely well written, more so than many mass-market books that I've read. The author, Estevan Vega, published this book when he was 18 years old. That is impressive! And he was kind enough to send me a copy recently for review.

Book Review: Millennium Falcon

Star Wars: Millennium Falcon by James Luceno.

 

A much-anticipated novel about the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, this book did not live up to it's expectations in my opinion.  Star Wars fans love the Millennium Falcon, and this book gives us the history of the ship in an interesting story-telling method from two different main points-of-view going forward in time from an early owner and going back in time from the current owner, and the story lines meet at the end.

 

But first, the book opens with the initial construction of the ship causing mayhem on the production line and suffering damage that plagues the ship through it's long life and from owner to owner.  Then we start to follow the ship briefly from owner to owner until we get to a couple of low-end agents for some pro-Republic group shortly before Order 66 goes out in the final days of the Old Republic.  Dispatched on a mission, it is these agents that had hoped to one day own the ship for themselves, but instead are ordered to fly it to another agent and turn it over in a mission to restore honor to the Republic. And that is the start of the mystery that drives this particular story line. 

 

Finally, three or four chapters in, we finally to the current owner of the Falcon - Han Solo, hero of the Rebellion. His grand-daughter Allana convinces him and Leia to take her on an adventure to discover the history of the ship.  For some reason, Han has never found the time in some 40 years of ownership to actually discover anything about the history of his ship.  Wars and such always kept getting in his way.  Off they go to track down the previous owners of the Falcon, starting with Lando Calrissian and working backwards until they cross paths with one of the previous mentioned agents who has been tracking the Falcons owners since he had flown the ship some 60 years ago. Through the story, we learn of the different names the Falcon had been called, different modifications she had, who put in the hologame table and why, and even learn the origin of the name Millennium Falcon (which also was a let down).

 

As I mentioned, this was a much-anticipated book, because Star Wars fans love the Millennium Falcon.  It didn't pay off, and I don't like to report that because I usually enjoy James Luceno's Star Wars novels.  The Falcon was just a background element driving the plot and taking the characters from place to place.  Except for the opening where we see a problem during the production of the ship, she really doesn't have any character at all.  The ship should have had more character in the story, maybe even have some scenes actually told from the point-of-view of the ship. This book should have elevated the status of the Falcon from fan-favorite to something more.  Instead, the Millennium Falcon becomes just another ship in a galaxy full of ships.

 

Then there's the story featuring the agent from the Old Republic era.  It's supposed to be a mystery/treasure hunt. The ending of that is just a plain let down.  I'll tell you now - they don't find anything!  Well, they do - but it's a pointless find that does nothing for the story.  If they were really searching for something to "restore honor to the Republic", they should have found a lost nugget of Jedi lore that is crucial to Luke's New Jedi Order, or a hidden history of Palpatine with evidence of his manipulations, or something with significance to the current era or even the Legacy era.  Instead they find a fake piece of Republic Senate decoration.

 

As for the other Star Wars characters: Luke and the new Jedi, Daala and the Galactic Alliance, the Mandalorians...  They're only mentioned in passing.  The main story here focuses on Han, Leia, and Allana from the current era.  We only get glimpses into what is going on around the galaxy with other characters and the normal galactic politics that drive most Star Wars novels.  These glimpses hint at what's to come in future novels.

 

I'm sure those will be better books.

 

 

 

 

Deeper by Jeff Long

Deeper, by Jeff Long, is a sequel to Descent that came out a few years ago. I enjoyed Descent, though it was dark, morbid, and creepifying. Deeper is too. And gory (I don't recall if Descent was gory).

Deeper takes places 10 years after Descent. The huge expanse of the underworld discovered in Descent is being colonized and exploited in Deeper. But the Subterrain still has an unwelcome effect on most people that spend any time at all below: it can change you physically in the form of physical mutations or just plain drive you crazy.

The residents of the underworld, the Hadals, were thought eradicated in Descent. Some have survived and have kidnapped groups of children from across America on Halloween.

The novel follows two stories: one mother's quest to form an army and recover her beloved daugher, and the only survivor from the first book is searching for the "king" of the underworld, what she thinks is the true Satan.

In between those two main stories, the book also gives us glimpes at a brewing Surface war with China, and conversations between that leader of the underworld and one of his captives. Those conversations hint that this king really is the devil that has lived thousands of years and tinkered with our world from his hiding spot in the bowels of the earth.

As I mentioned, this is a dark book. And gloomy. I'm not sure what the point of the story is. We start out in one place, and apart from the war with China, pretty much end up at just about the same place with no real resolution to anything. It's a quest story where nothing happens besides people dying and going crazy. There's no happy ending here. Although... now that I think about, the main character - Ali from the first book - wants to know what the symbols in the caves mean, and she gets to a point at the end where she can finally spend time figuring them out.

If you like horror/suspense/adventure novels. You might like Deeper, but it's a little too dark for me.

Book Review: Angelos

Jerome went on, "Our Lord is the Lord of all, Lord of all worlds." The cat nodded. "So He's Lord of the old world and Lord of the New World." Quant shook his head wearily. "You don't really get it, do you?" "Get what?" "Precisely."

Angelos, Christian fantasy fiction written by Robina Williams, tells of a recently deceased friar named Jerome and his travels through the afterlife and through time. Jerome is accompanied by a pet cat that is much more than he seems. With the gentle naggings of the cat, Jerome comes to realize that even in the midst of great paganism and the worship of many "lesser gods", God - the God of the Bible - is still the one true God.

The friars in the book are somewhat comical in their lackadaisical approach to their friarly duties. The cat (called Leo, or Quant depending on where he's at), is both somewhat amusing in the way he puts up with the ways of the friars, and somewhat awe-inspiring in his methods in the afterlife.
Art plays a strong role in the story; art influences the head friar's religious life, art is made by another friar, and art leads Jerome to realize where it really was he was standing.

Some readers might find it odd that reincarnation and "lesser gods" play a role in the series. I don't think reincarnation has any place in Christianity; and "lesser gods" (the gods of the various "mythological" pantheons") aren't deserving of worship, but arguably may have existed in one form or another with the fallen angels pretending to the thrones of these pantheons to lead civilizations away from the one true God - which, in a veiled way - seems to be what the author to the reader, and Quant to Jerome, is hinting at.

Angelos is the second book in the Quantum Cat series. The ending of this book is somewhat bittersweet, but leaves the way open for the third book in the series, which the author says she is working on now.

The author's afterword tells of her living near a monastery in the Welsh mountains, where a cat would come to visit her during the summer. This, along with the Schroedinger's Cat paradox, were some of her inspirations for writing this series.

While this book is the second in the series, it reads more like a second chapter or a second part of a whole - like one book was spit into three short books. This book is only 171 pages long, including the afterword and author's notes. It's a short, quick read.
Quite enjoyable, but I feel I would have gotten more out it had I read the first book first.

That having been said, I'd still rate it a 7 out of 10.

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Book Review: Help! Mom! Hollywood's In My Hamper!

Help! Mom! Hollywood's In My Hamper!

 

Mind & Media sent me this book to review. It's a sequel to Help! Mom! There Are Liberals under My Bed!

 

Written for children with conservative parents, this book pokes fun at liberals from Hollywood, while trying to show that what Hollywood tells you isn't as important as what your parents tell you. 

 

Good lesson. Bad execution.

 

I'm a conservative, I enjoy children's literature, I'm a Christian, and I like cartoons.

I do not like this book. It comes across as mean-spirited, spiteful, poorly written, with obvious jokes and references aimed at particular Hollywood people and liberals in-general.

 

Christians are supposed to show the world Christ's love through how we live our lives and our actions more than our words. If this book is indicative of Christianity, I wouldn't want anything to do with it. Good thing that there are other Christians out there living the life and showing the world what it really means to be a Christian.

 

Recommendation: Stay away from this series.

 

 

 

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Book Review: Help! Mom! There are liberals under my bed!

Reviewed for Mind&Media:
Marketed as a childrens book to promote conservative values, Help! Mom! There are liberals under my bed! is more an exercise in mean-spirited liberal bashing.
Now, don't get me wrong: I'm all for satire, caricatures, lampooning, parodies, making-fun-of, etc. And I'm mainly conservative in my politics as well. (Although I enjoy any good-spirited humor than makes fun of politics/politicians no matter their affiliation, like the Capitol Steps).

Help! Mom! Could have been a book that demonstrated conservative values. Instead, the book just shows extreme liberalism without explaining view-points, or even showing the conservative alternative well at all.

I wont read anymore of this series.

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