First book was Book 2 of the Darkwar Saga: Into A Dark Realm by Raymond E. Feist. Now REF is one of my favorite authors of all time. How this came about was I got my first book by him for a Birthday many years ago by one of my Best Friends Bar. After tearing through Magician: Apprentice I went and bought his next few books of the Riftwar Saga. Magician: Master, Silverthorn and Darkness at Sethanon. This first two books were actually one book upon first publication called Magician. The books center around an orphan boy named Pug and his adopted, well somewhat, brother Thomas. The stories follow the path of both boys throughout the war. I'll keep from explaining more so as not to give it away to anyone who would like to read them. He since has gone on to write more books and stories for award winning video games that center around the world him and his friends created while making their own RPG based on the D&D core rules but which they found not up to snuff (See. Midkemia Publishing). Well for most of his books Pug is usually found with the exception of his one book outside this realm of fantasy called Faerie Tale which is set in the real world but is fantasy. I'd say more but it's been a while since I read this. Anyway, back to the book at hand. I blasted through this as I can never seem to set down one of REF's books ever. It was good but just not as good as the original series and the series he did with Janny Wurts which are probably the two best complete series he did. I continued the story of the Epic battle between the Conclave and a certain Diety. But in order to continue the struggle Pug and some friends have to make a trip to the dimension below theirs. Which without the proper guide and training would kill them within minutes of arriving. It also brings in the story of one young Dasati to give you, the reader, a look into the enemy's point of view. Good book can't wait for the next one as it left me wanting more.
After finishing this book I immediately dove into the Final Chapter of the Harry Potter books The Deathly Hallows by J.K Rowling. Ok you might be asking how I got into this series. Well at first I thought they were just kids books but after seeing the first movie I loved the story line, characters, and originality so much I just started pounding through the books. One thing I love about these books is they are written for children but unlike many children's books these don't talk down to children. As she's gone through the series she has almost made them like a progression for children to increase their reading skills by including more vocabulary as she's gone along. The books are quick and easy reads for me as an adult but they also speak to me greatly. As for the latest, and possibly last installment from her on this subject matter (but that is a debate for another post), book it just one up the previous book as that book did to the previous and so forth.
See Possible Spoiler
In this book we see Harry finally grow out of his angry teenager phase into while not quite adult at least a maturing young adult. While I appreciated his angry phase as I was once a unreasonably angry teenager mad at the world and everyone around him it was nice to see him come out of that. After the last book everyone was wondering who is Snape and what side is he on. I read one article that was quite nicely done if I could find it I'd link it. It was about is he on the side of the OOP, a Death Eater or possibly his own side. I personally thought Snape killed Dumbledore at his own request, which turned out to be true, but I also thought it was a elaborate ruse and that Dumbledore was still alive, which turned out not to be the case. I was truely bummed out about that one not being true. The body count in this book continued along and some characters we've loved time came to an end. Well in War people die and at least she wasn't afraid to go there and take down some characters she had devoted a lot too in order to make it more true to real life. The biggest tragedy for me was Dobby the freed House Elf. That was truely a tragedy for he was an Elf who fights the bonds of his master to help Harry out even if he almost got him killed/expelled, which as we all know is the same thing to Hermione, a few times. Dobby will be missed but his death brought about a key turning point in the chase for the Horcruxes so it was not in vain. Voldemort goes down with some help from the stories subtle other Hero Neville who takes out the final Horcrux before Harry finally brings Voldemort down. I aslo enjoyed the first day of school for the next generation of children and Harry's tribute to Snape.
I'm now working on plowing through the next two books in the Star Wars series Legacy of the Force. I'm a big Star Wars fan. My friends and family call me fanatic but in the grand scheme I'm probably just a big Star Wars fan compared to the people I've seen at convensions and movie premieres. Ok yeah if I was artistic enough I'd make my own Stormtrooper, Chewbacca and Jedi outfits but alas my talents do not lie in that arena or at least I'm not sure where to begin on that. So maybe I'm just a fanatic in the wings. I've always loved Star Wars but never thought I'd get into reading the books since there were so many and I wasn't sure which would be the good ones. Then one day I got a shipment from the Science Fiction book club by mistake and it had a book called I, Jedi by Michael Stackpole. I read the book and immediatly got into the character of this book and Stackpoles writing. So I started at the begining of the story line with the X-Wing Series of books by Stackpole and others. These told the tale after RoJ and take place before the much acclaimed books by Timothy Zahn. In these books the Rogue Squadron group grows and then a second unit gets formed called Wraith Squadron. A great set of books if you want a good read and are into Star Wars at all. Since then I've read almost all the books in the Star Wars universe. I'm still short by about 10 or less books I think. The New Jedi Order series in my opinion changed how stories are told in book series. This was a refreshing idea they mapped out a story line over 20+ books and then assigned different Authors different points along the story arc. This gave the series an advantage over other long series in that you got a different voice to hear from in each book. Now that could have easily backfired on them but I think it worked out great as you never felt like you had read this before as you do with some long running series with only one Author. This led to the next mixed Author story chain Legacy of the Force which I'm now reading. It is a 9 book series writen by 3 authors who will each write 3 books in the series. I'm currently reading the 5th book Sacrifice. This is the story so far anyways of a potential Second Empire to come about by a new Sith Lord. One different twist in this series is we the readers got a chance to submit names for the new Sith Lord to take. So this gave us some ownership which is unique to anything I've seen before. In these books you see a rift forming in the Skywalker/Solo clans who throughout the years together have kept things going but apart will it tear everything they worked so hard for apart? Will history repeat itself? Well we'll have to stay tuned and find out.
If you have any questions or comments please feel free to post them. If you'd like more detailed reading lists for REF or Star Wars please let me know and I'll give you my opinion on where to start to see if you'll be into it or not.
1 comment:
Love how you were able to talk about book 7 w/o spoilers... clever! I agree with all the points you made. :)
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