An apology

Firstly, I am sorry that I have been putting up with posts with no reviews on them.  I will edit them soon to contain the reviews.

Secondly, for the next month, I will not be posting at all.  I will instead be working on my own book.  An effort will be made to not engage in non-creative activities, with the exception of schoolwork, and this includes reading.

I will continue the blog on my birthday, April 18th.

On a lighter note, if you know of any books that you would like me to review once this period is over, please let me know.  I'm always open to suggestion.

Shannah McGill

The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells

The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kipling

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Willows by Algernon Blackwood

Accelerando by Charles Stross

Cirque Du Freak by Darren Shan

There's a freak show coming to town.  It's hushed up, since freak shows are illegal, but Darren Shan and his friend Steve are able to get tickets.  Darren sees wondrous things that he had never thought possible.  One of them is a man with a large spider that he can control with a flute.  Soon, he gets it in his head to steal that spider, which leads to a charming adventure filled with secrets and monsters.  Vampires are involved.

The prose seemed incredibly familiar to me, but for a while I couldn't place it.  I soon realized that I had read words that flowed in a similar fashion in every interview I had ever read, from the ones in science magazines to those of famous authors.  It sounded in my head like a real person was speaking the words.  There were a few too many exclamation points for my taste, but I could never manage to pinpoint a single occasion when one seemed off.  This gave it a realistic quality like no fantasy book I have ever read.  It was incredibly easy to slip into the pages and ignore the passing of time.  An excellent read.

The Unparalleled Invasion by Jack London

Golf in the Year 2000

Elene by Cynewulf

Wool 5 by Hugh Howey

I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream

Wool 4 by Hugh Howey

Wool 3 by Hugh Howey

Juliette, the new mayor, has to get used to her job, which is far different from being a mechanic.  Interested in the person who held her seat before her, she asks for the file on Holston, and then for the contents of his wife's computer.  She learns everything about the cleaning that makes Holston's wife go insane.  Meanwhile, she talks with Lukas, who is working on mapping out the stars from the occasional breaks in the clouds.  Slowly, we are given a picture of the world behind the world the characters live in.

I have never had a book get me so emotionally involved before.  I literally screamed "Yes!" like a sports fan near the end.  Wool 3 is one of the greatest books I've ever read, and I've read thousands.  It seems very different from Wool, but when you think about it, the events in Wool 3 wouldn't have happened without the events in Wool.  I just can't wait to read the next one, because the ending creates more problems than it resolves.

Wool 2 by Hugh Howey

Wool 2 expanded the giant silo that the characters live in to well over a hundred floors.  With Holston gone, Jahns, the mayor, has to find a new sheriff.  The current deputy highly suggests Juliette, who works with the mechanics at the bottom of the silo.  On the way down, they meet with the mysterious IT people who run the servers.

Two books came into my mind while reading this.  The first was The World Inside, where people live in buildings hundreds of stories tall and entire communities exist in floors next to each other.  The second was The City of Ember, where a generator that powers an underground city is failing.

Most of the drama in the first book is lost, and Wool 2 seems to be more about constructing the world.  It also had a bunch of useless, needless romantic content that did nothing but add to the word count.  It made me respect the Jahns and Marne a whole lot less.