Tag Archives: Dangerous Journey

Stone of Farewell by Tad Williams

Posted on by
2

Synopsis:
Young Simon is in the middle of the biggest adventure his land has seen in years, but if he and is friends fail their mission, the wicked Storm King will prevail. Book Two of Memory, Sorrow and Thorn.

Review:
I know it sounds like Lord of the Rings, but it’s all in the details, people. (Though he does team up with a dwarf and spend some time with some Elf-like folk.) I found the first book in the series, The Dragonbone Chair, a bit of a slog, but this book picked things up considerably. Williams has no great facility with dialogue, but by the end of the book I’d forgiven him because he’d come up with some wonderful set pieces and had deepened the mythology to a suitably intriguing point. Continue reading →

One Door Away from Heaven by Dean Koontz

Posted on by
Reply

Synopsis:
Young Leilani has a deformed hand and a brace on her leg–and she’s just told her alcoholic ex-con neighbor that her differences are why her deranged doctor stepfather and whacked-out druggie mother are going to kill her unless she’s abducted by aliens when she turns 10.

Review:
I read this book because it was recommended by Wesley Smith, a leading voice against utilitarianism bioethics, which is the concept that death is the optimal choice for anyone living a less-than-perfect existence, physically speaking. Rather than “first do no harm,” doctors are succumbing to a growing trend in believing that many lives are simply not worth living, regardless of the will to live of the patient or patient’s family. These philosophers differentiate themselves from Nazi eugenicists by arguing that their standards for determining who lives and who does not are better–but the end result is the same. Death to the physically and mentally disabled, and to the terminally ill. Continue reading →

Luck of the Wheels by Megan Lindholm

Posted on by
Reply

Synopsis:
Gypsy teamster Ki agrees to ferry a most disagreeable boy to another town, and discovers a world of trouble when she and her companions find themselves in the middle of an uprising.

Review:
Luck of the Wheels, the fourth and final installment in the Ki and Vandien Quartet, is the best Lindholm I’ve read so far. Here, she pushes her protagonists as far as they can be pushed, taking the kinds of story risks that make her books so accomplished. She’s not afraid to enact events upon her characters that change them fundamentally, and she recognizes that our pain and suffering changes us in fundamental ways. Healing doesn’t mean erasure. Continue reading →

The Windsingers by Megan Lindholm

Posted on by
Reply

Synopsis:
The second in the adventures of gypsy teamster Ki, hired by a wizard to reunite his head with the rest of his body, which have been seized by the menacing Windsingers. Meanwhile, Vandien has contracted himself to a fool’s errand retrieving a treasure of the Windsingers, trapped in a sunken temple.

Review:
As I mentioned in my post on Harpy’s Flight, it doesn’t seem like Lindholm will be developing an overall mythology, though she is using some recurring characters, and might be continuing some of the Windsinger conflict in the next book, Limbreth Gate. Continue reading →

Harpy’s Flight by Megan Lindholm

Posted on by
1

Synopsis:
After her husband and children are brutally murdered by a god-like Harpy, Ki undertakes an act of vengeance that severs her ties with her husband’s people, and sends her on a dangerous journey up an icy mountain overseen by a malevolent force.

Review:
Megan Lindholm is Robin Hobb, whom I love. Harpy’s Flight is the first in a 4-book series featuring teamster Ki and her unlikely partner Vandien, and while the storytelling isn’t as accomplished as in her later works, Harpy’s Flight is a marvelous read. Continue reading →

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik

Posted on by
5

Synopsis:
The setting is the Napoleonic wars, in a world where dragons exist and are part of military operations. An English naval captain captures a French vessel, and on board is a particularly valuable treasure: a dragon’s egg, and joins the Aerial Corps with Temeraire, a very rare Celestial breed, and together they join the fight.

Review:
I loved this idea the minute I read about it in one of Entertainment Weekly’s capsule reviews. The book reads more like an adventure tale than a fantasy–lots of military proceedings and maneuvers and protocol. I’ve never read the Horatio Hornblower books or anything by Patrick O’Brien, but I imagine that this book is cut from the same sailcloth as those. Continue reading →

Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen

Posted on by
1

Synopsis:
A woman flees from her abusive husband, building a new life while constantly looking over her shoulder. Gee, I wonder what’s going to happen?

Review:
This book was an Oprah book AND the movie (with Mary Stuart Masterson) was just on Lifetime the other night. I read this while on jury duty this morning. It passed the time. Stephen King’s Rose Madder was better. Continue reading →

Cell by Stephen King

Posted on by
2

Synopsis:
Cell phones turn the world into a post-apocalyptic nightmare, and a small band of survivors must try to figure out how to stay alive. Continue reading →