What’s this 52 Books in 52 Weeks thing about?

And finally, I’m done with the fourth book in the Potter series! As I mentioned previously, my vigor for the series was dampened a bit when I tripped over a nasty spoiler at amazon.com. Alas, such things happen, and I’m still going to finish the whole lot of them. As usual, I’m going to remark that if you’ve not read this book, you really should stop reading this entry, because it will, most definitely, contain spoilers. Having set forth that warning, onward, with unsorted thoughts about the book:

• The ending of the book really threw me for a loop. I didn’t see it coming at all. I was quite bummed to find that Mad-Eye Moody was the hidden Death Eater at Hogwarts – and then pleasantly surprised to find that was only sort of true. Kind of. Not really. Moody has definitely moved up into one of the top spots on my favorite character list.
• This bit is directed specifically at Cas: I saw in this book, perhaps only a little, of what you were talking about, in regards to Dumbledore having a side other than the happy old man. For example, when he was speaking to Cornelius Fudge in the hospital ward about the return of Voldemort. I definitely see what you were talking about in regards to Richard Harris vs. Michael Gambon. I’m not sure how well Harris would have been for the “other” side of Dumbledore. I still like his portrayal of the happy Dumbledore more, however.
• Aha! So Lucius Malfoy really was a Death Eater, and it wasn’t just speculation on Ron’s part. All the more reason for Harry to beat the crap out of Draco, I say. (Not that Harry needs much more reason…)
• I’d like a Pensieve, please.
• If I’m not mistaken, other than Harry’s parents, Cedric Diggory was the first named character in the series to die, right? I get the feeling that character deaths become much more regular in books five, six, and seven. Not looking forward to it – I hope Hermione doesn’t die.
• The book was long. Really long. Admittedly, I was reading the large print version (the library didn’t have any regular print copies in), but it looks like the regular print paperback weighs in at 752 pages. However, while it was long, I honestly can’t think of anything I’d want to see taken out. All of it served a purpose. At least up to book 4, Rowling hasn’t fallen into the Stephen King trap: writing excrutiatingly long books just because he knows folks will buy it.
• Snape continues to intrigue me. Despite his general sliminess and nastiness, I can’t help but like the guy in a strange way. His character gained a lot of complexity in book 4, and I’m interested in seeing where it goes in the last 3 books. I never know whether he’s to be trusted or not, and perhaps that’s exactly what Rowling was going for. As an aside, Alan Rickman has done a wonderful job in bringing Snape to life in the movies.
• I am still a bit confused as to how I fell into this Harry Potter obsession. I recall a time, not too far in the past, yet hazy all the same, in which I despised the very idea of reading the Potter books. Why, they were beneath me! Childrens’ books. Hmph. I can’t, however, continue with that line of thought anymore right now; I’ve got to get back to the Order of the Phoenix.

What’s this 52 Books in 52 Weeks thing about?

Three down, four to go!

Like my post on the Chamber of Secrets, with this one, I’m not going to go too much into the plot bits; everyone who reads my blog knows about the books, I think. Instead, here are a few random thoughts I had about the book. One major spoiler below:

• I was let down with what “the prisoner of Azkaban” ended up meaning. I was hoping that Harry, Ron, and Hermione would end up inside Azkaban, getting someone out. That turned out to be quite far from what was actually being referred to in the title.
• I want a Time-Turner. Period. My birthday is coming up, you know… Wow. Think of how many more books I could read if I could roll back time!
• I ended up also being let down about Hagrid’s course on magical creatures. I thought it’d be an interesting diversion, to “sit in” on his classes, but they ended up amounting to nothing. Thanks, Malfoy!
• The ending was great. I would have liked it even more if Harry could have stayed with Sirius, as Sirius offered, but just him being set free and the truth being revealed was good.
• Hmm. Dementors = floating Ringwraiths?

What’s this 52 Books in 52 Weeks thing about?

And then, I had read two of them. With that, my addiction was sealed. Sigh.

I thought book two of the series was better than the first. It seemed to me that with book two, Rowling, while still writing with kids as her target audience, made things a bit darker. From what I’ve heard, this is a continuing trend throughout the series.

I don’t think I need to write much about the plot per se, because I get the impression that everyone who reads my blog has already read it. And, for that matter, I’m not crazy about spoilers, so I try to not spoil things for others (and when I do spoil things, I put a hefty warning at the top of the post). Having said that, here are some random things that I thought about the second Harry Potter book, in bullet point form. Before proceeding, keep in mind that reading the list could be considered spoilerish, so go forth with caution:

• Professor Lockhart – ugh. Rowling did a wonderful job in making this character obnoxious. I shared with my friend Ethereal that I thought Harry and Ron should have gone further with him; they should’ve killed the irritating chap. He was merely annoying when he was always bragging about his books, himself, etc.; my frustration with him, however, shot through the roof when he openly admitted to Harry and Ron that he’d stolen the tales from his books from other people.
• My love for Hermione grows with each book I read. I don’t mean that in a sick way (I’m not lusting after the actress, although that does seem to be a common occurrence with male Potter fans). I just really, really like her character. She reminds me a bit of a younger, female version of… well, me. Always has her nose stuck in a book, and likes it that way. I think we’d get along splendidly.
• I’d like a house-elf for Christmas, please.
• My loathing of the Malfoys grows with each book. I do hope that at some point in the series, Harry has a good old fashioned fist fight with Draco, and wins outstandingly. I think my utter dislike for Draco is amplified by the fact that I’ve seen some of the Potter movies, and the kid who plays him does a great job. Little jerk (Draco, not the actor).
• This brings me to my final bullet point, something which came up when I was talking to Ethereal: now that I’ve read two of the books, I think that Rowling is wonderful at creating real characters, characters you can really like and hope for (or characters you wish would fall off a nasty cliff, or perhaps get eaten by a dragon). I said in my review of the first book that a lot of the characters are stereotypes, and I stand by that judgment, but, that doesn’t change the fact that the characters are well written, with their own flairs, types of dialogue, etc. Even if the main plot of the series didn’t interest me (and it does), at this point, I’d probably read through the whole series just to see what happens to all of the characters.

One last note, which isn’t about the Chamber of Secrets, but is instead about the Prisoner of Azkaban. (Warning – mild spoiler alert if you’ve not read book 3!):

I’m ecstatic for Hagrid, the big oaf. When I learned that he had been made a teacher at Hogwarts, I very nearly jumped off of the couch (my preferred reading habitat) and cheered. Then I read that he was all teary about it, and wanted to give him a hug. Following, I’d probably be sent off to the hospital wing to be treated for a few broken bones, but oh well.

I can’t believe how completely I’ve fallen into these books…

What’s this 52 Books in 52 Weeks thing about?

Note: The widely loved Cas (well, I love her to bits) brought it to my attention that in the United Kingdom, the book was apparently called Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, not the Sorceror’s Stone. I read up a bit on this here, and learned that many words were translated from the original English to American English. For this, I may very well hunt down a copy of the original version and read it instead. Really, are we Americans that stupid? And now, on with my little review:

This was not the first time I read this book. I don’t recall exactly when I read it the first time – perhaps a couple of years ago? When I read it the first time, I was reading it to try and figure out what the big deal about Harry Potter was. On that first reading, I didn’t really find what I was looking for. It seemed like an okay book, but I certainly didn’t love it. I think, however, that my first reading was marred by something, namely, me. I think I went to Harry Potter expecting it – perhaps even wanting it – to not hold up to the hype, to fall on its face. I believe that mindset drastically altered my perception of the book. (Well, duh!) With the recent release of the final book of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I decided I’d give the books another try with a more open mind. Instead of reading them to figure out the hype, I’d read them for – here’s a concept! – enjoyment.

So, how’d this second reading go? Great. I enjoyed the book a a lot. If I were to sum it up in a few words, those words would probably be “a fun little book.” Sure, the book isn’t written amazingly well. The characters are not hugely unique (and indeed, quite a few are very stereotypical). But when you get past that, if you skip criticizing it like I did previously – all in all, the book is a blast to read.

I came to really like a lot of the characters. I felt sorry for Harry, having to live with the intolerable Dursleys, and I simply loved Hagrid. If he were real, I’d invite him to come live with me. Albus Dumbledore could come visit, too, as long as he promised to do a bit of magic. (Speaking of Albus – Gandalf, anyone?)

Continuing with the fun and likeable mindset: Hogwarts. There are now two fantasy places that I’d love to live in for a while: Bag End and Hogwarts. Bag End could be the place I hang out to relax and read; Hogwarts could be the place I go when I want to get lost in an old, magical, spooky castle.

I suppose it’s a testament to how much I enjoyed this book, to say that I’m already reading the second one, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, alongside another sequel I’m reading, The Pale Horseman. If my enjoyment of the second one is on par with the first Potter book, I’ll probably end up reading the whole series. Ah – the power of having an open mind.

If there were any more books coming out (and I’m still not entirely convinced that there won’t be, but I’ve not read the last), I wouldn’t be going to the release parties, nor dressing up as a wizard. I’m not that into it. However, I can understand now what people see in the books. They’re not masterpieces by any means, but they’re a genuine blast to read.

Three notes:

1. Yes, I enjoyed the first book – a lot. Yes, I think I was a bit too hard on poor Harry and Co. on my first reading of the book. But – no, the books are not on par with Lord of the Rings. So there.

2. Look at this amazon.com search for “sorceror’s stone” in books. See anything peculiar? Why is the Urdu edition of it in the #1 spot? I have nothing against Urdu (or any other language), but my gut feeling is that the vast majority of folks searching on amazon.com for Potter books are looking for them in English. Strange.

This last note is really, really important…

3. PLEASE DO NOT POST SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS. I have NOT read past book one (well, besides a little bit of book 2), and I don’t want anything spoiled. I don’t know who dies and who doesn’t, I don’t know who the half blood prince is, etc. etc. Please – no spoilers. Thanks.

This is the second book of Cornwell’s I read, the first being Sharpe’s Tiger. I enjoyed Sharpe’s Tiger, but I absolutely loved this book.

The book is the tale of Uhtred, a Northumbrian who finds himself in the midst of the Danish invasion of England in the late 9th century. After Danes kill his older brother, they capture Uhtred, who ends up being taken under the wing of one Dane in particular, Ragnar. He is raised as a Dane, helping them conquer his own country. As he grows older, the tension between being a Dane and being an Englishman grows, and he flips back and forth between the sides. Throughout the book, Uhtred’s relationship with the king of Wessex, Alfred, grows.

I enjoyed this book on a couple of different levels. First – it’s just a good story. The characters are believable and likeable (or unlikeable!), which made me give a damn as to what was going on. I found Uhtred’s troubles in choosing sides to be fascinating – should he fight with those he “likes”, the Danes, who raised him, or should he fight for his own land?

The other level that I enjoyed the book on was the historical level. It’s clear that Cornwell has done his homework. The Danes didn’t have horns on their helmets; furthermore, they were called Danes or Northmen, rather than Vikings. He actually remarked on this in the back of the book. Why are they referred to as Danes or Northmen? Because that’s what the people of England thought of them as (or pagans); they didn’t think of them as Vikings.

I learned a bit about warfare in that area during the 9th century, namely that often, armies would fight in shield walls. For whatever reason (perhaps my old memories of Braveheart), I thought that battles during that time period were just a bunch of fellows running at each other, hacking away, with little to no organization at all. Granted, battles are inherently chaotic, but still, I didn’t know that the Anglo-Saxons / Danes fought in shield wall formation.

I’m looking forward to the next one in the series, The Pale Horseman, which I checked out from the library earlier today. I’ll be starting it as soon as I finish up Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone.

The Mote in God’s Eye was written by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, the pair that wrote Lucifer’s Hammer. When I read Lucifer’s Hammer previously, I loved it. Later, I read Ringworld by Niven alone, and found it to be alright, but nothing spectacular. I tried following it up with Ringworld Engineers, but I ended up abandoning that one altogether. It just didn’t do much for me. I figured that I wouldn’t care much for further works by Niven alone, but might find collaborations enjoyable.

So, when I saw The Mote in God’s Eye at the library, written by both authors, I had my hopes up. I imagined a book written in the style of Lucifer’s Hammer, but set far in the future. And, to an extent, that’s what the book is. Plot-wise, the book is about humans in the distant future (3016) making first contact with an alien species. The species they encounter, which they call Moties, are quite different from humans, both physiologically and psychologically. The goal of the human expedition is to figure out as much as possible about the aliens. You can read the rest of the plot summary here if you’d like.

I ended up reading 400 of the 460 pages of the book before I gave up on it. Why? I’m not really sure, truth be told. I can’t pinpoint what it was about the book that turned me off. The writing was alright; the plot was an interesting one. Similar to Ringworld, there were too many instances of “science chatter” for my tastes (usually regarding how many Gs they were travelling at, spin in the ship, etc.), but they weren’t earth shattering. Whatever was wrong, I just couldn’t really stay interested in the book. It felt like it was going to take me the next 5 years to finish up the last 60 pages. The closer I got to the ending, the slower it dragged.

I read the plot summary at Wikipedia in full to know how the book ended, and I don’t think I missed much. Too bad I didn’t give up on it sooner and just read the plot summary, heh.

Next on my to read list: The Last Kingdom by Bernard Cornwell.

Oh, by the way: even though I didn’t quite finish the book, considering I read 400 out of 460 pages, I am counting it towards my 52 books in 52 weeks thing. I spent too much time on it to not count it.

I finished up The Subtle Knife today, the second book in the His Dark Materials series. After having read and enjoyed The Golden Compass, I was looking forward to see where the plot was taken in The Subtle Knife.

The things I complained about in The Golden Compass – namely, the main plot seeming to move a bit slowly, particularly information regarding Dust – have been “corrected” in the sequel. While I’m still not entirely clear on what Dust is, what’s going on overall is fleshed out a lot in The Subtle Knife. Specifically, a war is getting ready to be waged, between “rebels” – Lord Asriel, rebel angels, Will and others – against the Authority, or God. As one reviewer at amazon.com put it, there’s nothing subtle about this knife. Pullman obviously has an axe to grind in regards to the tyranny of the Church, its lies and deceptions. I’m not sure where Mrs. Coulter and Co. tie in with this war and the Church, but I’m sure that’ll be clarified in the last book of the trilogy, The Amber Spyglass. I must say – I’m anxious to see how the war against God goes. I think it’s an intriguing plot idea.

I was a bit bummed to find that armored bears weren’t in The Subtle Knife at all – not even Iorek Byrnison. His name popped up a few times, when Lyra and Will were talking, but besides that, he wasn’t in the book at all. Instead of lots of bears, in The Subtle Knife, there were lots of witches, specifically Serafina Pekkala and her group. I have to admit (and perhaps this is how Pullman pictures them) – from his description of the witches, I see them looking a bit like Sarah Sanderson (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) from Hocus Pocus. Sadly, I wasn’t able to find any decent pictures of that character online to share with you.

I’ve not looked into it, but I wonder if churches have raised hell (pun intended) about the His Dark Materials trilogy, similar to how they’ve raised hell over the Harry Potter series. I’ve seen news about a lot of different churches / religious groups banning the Harry Potter series, because it might teach kids “witchcraft” or “devil worshipping” or some other idiotic thing. I wonder what kind of uproar there’s going to be when the movies for Pullman’s books come out, and the main plot line turns out to be a war on God.

That should be interesting.

This is a book that had been on my shelf for years – literally. I received it as a Christmas gift when I was 16 or 17. At the time, I shelved it because it was a “young adult” book, and I was going through a peculiar phase in which I thought I was too “mature” for such things. The irony, of course, is that I was a young adult then, and now that I finally got around to reading it, I’m an adult – at least on paper, anyway.

So, how was it? It was a good book, and while I didn’t find it as great as many people have found it, I did enjoy reading it. There were two things in particular that I loved about it: the daemons that all of the humans had, and the panserbjørne, or armored bears. The idea of having my own daemon intrigued me – what would it be like to have part of my soul, essentially, represented by a creature I could talk to? A creature that could change shapes (at least until I grew older?) What shape would my daemon ultimately take, when it could no longer change?

The armored bears were… well, here, let me let an image speak for the panserbjørne:

Do I really need to explain that that’s cool? That image, by the way, is as far as I can gather, a concept image from the movie adaptation of the book, which is coming out in December of this year. Here’s the movie site.

I found it interesting how the book is suitable for children to read, but from an adult’s perspective, a lot of it can be seen as quite violent and morbid. Bolvangar, the “Experimental Station”, reminded me an awful lot of the “medical” facilities at places like Auschwitz. At Bolvangar, children had tests ran on them relating to Dust, but some children also had their daemons “severed” from them. After this operation, some of the children started losing their minds, because the daemons were a part of them, a part of their mind and soul; others died from the shock. The morbidness of the severing is lessened because there is no blood, no physical injury, etc. – the severing is a severing of the “link” between daemon and child. However, if you look at it a bit closer, it really is a disturbing idea.

The only problem I had with the book was that the main plot, regarding Dust – what it was, how it worked, etc. – just didn’t seem very fleshed out. Bits and pieces of information about the substance was sprinkled throughout the book, but by the time I finished the book, I still felt that I didn’t know much about it. Perhaps on a later reading I’ll pick up more on it. Someone I know who has read the whole series told me that the idea of Dust is fleshed out a lot more thoroughly in the second book of the series, The Subtle Knife, which I’m reading now.

One last note: I’ve seen quite a few reviews, both at amazon.com and in the front of the book, that say that The Golden Compass is on par with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. While I liked The Golden Compass, I’m going to have to flat out disagree with that. It’s a good book, but it’s not that good. Perhaps that’s just my long-standing biases popping out, though – I started reading The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings when I was 9 or 10, and haven’t stopped since. I obviously like it a little bit.

After having to let it sit on the back burner for a short while due to final exams, I was happy to be able to finish this book up last night.

When I wrote about Speaker for the Dead, I said that I enjoyed it even more than I had enjoyed Ender’s Game. I can say the same about Xenocide and Speaker for the Dead: I thought Xenocide was even better than Speaker for the Dead. This series just keeps getting better and better. I’m a bit bummed that I’m down to having only one book left to read, Children of the Mind.

I really like how Card tries to thoroughly examine morality and ethics through the lens of science fiction. The tensions between the humans on Lusitania, pequininos, and the buggers was fascinating, and it really made me think about the issues that were at hand. Card also tackles other themes in Xenocide, such as familial issues, religion (I loved the progressions of Han Fei-tzu and his daughter, Qing-jao), and the strange (to us) customs of alien races, such as the slaughtering of pequininos to take them into the “third life.”

There was really only one section of the book that I didn’t care (isn’t there always something?), and that was near the end of it. The Inside, Outside space stuff, and “wishing” themselves to a distant planet, etc. just seemed dumb to me. The springing of the young Peter and Valentine out of essentially Ender’s mind was even sillier than the ship being “wished” back and forth through space. I suppose he gave a decent explanation of what was going on, but it still just came across as goofy.

For those interested (yep, all three of you), I’m now reading The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. This book belongs to the group of books that I’ve owned for years, but haven’t gotten around to actually reading. It’s supposed to be a real gem, and thus far (I’m about 100 pages in), I’m inclined to agree with reviews I’ve read: it’s a great book.

What’s this 52 Books in 52 Weeks thing about?

I finished this book up a few days ago. I’m hesitant to say I “enjoyed” it, because it’s obviously about a pretty depressing topic. My feelings on it, I suppose, are similar to my feelings about the movie Schindler’s List. “Enjoyable”? No, not really. But something I think most people should read, to have an idea of what went on at Auschwitz, how it happened, and (the most difficult question of all) why? Yes.

The book is based around over 100 different interviews the BBC did with former inmates, as well as former SS (Schutzstaffel) members who worked at Auschwitz or other similar death camps. The picture that ends up being painted is both revealing and bizarre. From the little I had read on the topic previously, I assumed that the vast majority of SS members used the old “I was following orders” card. While that holds true to a degree – many of them stated that they disagreed with what they were doing, but did it anyway because it was an order from above – many of them didn’t use this excuse. Many said up until their dying day (which was just in the past few years for a few of them) that what they had done was right, that they took part in the mass murder of Jews because they felt it was the right thing for Germany to do. Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz from 1940 to 1943, was one of the men who felt that there wasn’t anything wrong with what they did. One of the major reasons for this was the success of Goebbel’s huge propaganda machine; many of the SS members who thought what they were doing was right saw all Jews not simply as “subhumans”, but as enemies of Germany. They saw the Jews as the cause of German defeat in World War I, and basically every other problem Germany experienced as well. To the warped minds of many of the SS members, what they were doing was not genocide, but an act of war – they were killing their enemies. In their eyes, what they were doing was no different from what other German soldiers were doing on the front when they shot enemies. I’m not really sure what is more scary – that the propaganda worked so well when it was first used, or that many SS members clung to the idea until their deaths, years later.

Overall, the book was well made. It did suffer from a few things, however:

• Poor editing in many places. Due to the nature of the book, there are many names which (to the English-speaking eye) have complicated spellings, particularly the Polish names of the inmates. I came across many instances where the name was spelled one way initially, and then a different way later on – sometimes even on the same page. This isn’t a huge deal, but it’s not something I really like to see in a history book.Another peculiarity: the full name of the SS, the Schutzstaffel, was misspelled in the entire book. The correct spelling begins with Sch; in the book, both in the body of it as well as in the index, it is spelled as Shutzstaffel. As far as I know, there are no words in German which begin with Sh. If the “sh” sound is at the beginning of a word, it’s spelled sch. There’s really no excuse for this blunder. Considering the topic at hand and how involved the SS were in the mass murder, one would think they’d get the spelling of the organization right.

  There were also quite a few grammatical mistakes where a verb was left out – something that Word or any other decent word processor would have marked as incorrect.

• When a quote from an inmate or guard / SS member was quoted, it received a superscripted number, which pointed the reader to the back of the book for the source of the quote. Unfortunately, this is practically useless in the case of the quotes from interviews. Why? Because they all refer simply to “BBC interview.” No interview number; no name of who was being interviewed. So essentially, the “source” list is ultimately a huge list of “BBC interview” repeated over and over. Not very helpful at all.

Despite those issues, however, it’s still a good book. While it could use some editing love, the content is generally educational and well done. If you’re interested in learning about the Holocaust, I can definitely recommend this book.