Bran Hambric-- The Farfield Curse

I apologize in advance. This review was a long time coming. I would make this post for multiple books, but I believe Kaleb Nation's debut novel is worth its own post. Bran Hambric-- The Farfield Curse has garnered positive reviews from the likes of D.J. MacHale (PENDRAGON) and Kaza Kingsley (Erec Rex).

On the third night of the third month in 2003, fourteen-year-old Kaleb Nation suddenly imagined a boy and a banker on a roof, waiting for a burglar to come. From that original idea was born the story of Bran Hambric, a novel that would take most of Kaleb’s teenage years to write.

In a bustling metropolis where magic is outlawed, a six-year-old child is found inside a locked bank vault. A scrap of paper reveals his name: Bran Hambric. The child remembers nothing of his life before the vault. Only magic could have done this. But why would any mage risk breaking the law to place a child in a bank vault?

Eight years later the City of Dunce has forgotten about Bran. Even his foster parents don't seem to know he exists. But there are those who have been watching, biding their time, waiting to strike, people who know where Bran came from and why he was sent away. And they will do anything to get Bran back, dead or alive…

Welcome to a world unlike any other where the adventure of a lifetime is just beginning.

In the wake of Harry Potter, we are among a slew of writers being published who are perfectly happy to let their creativity run wild. There are gnomes, magicians, an evil being possessed by an unlikely person, a secret room in the back of a bookstore, and a city where magic is outlawed. Kaleb Nation has promised readers a fun adventure in an interesting world, and he delivers wonderfully. And this book just feels like the tip of the iceberg. There are forthcoming sequels, and I'm hoping for an even deeper look into the bizarre Dunceland. One minor complaint: I'd appreciate a little less screen time from the undesirable family Bran lives with. Their characters get a bit grating after a while.

My rating: 9/10. I am confident Kaleb Nation has a great career ahead of him.

Coming Soon: Leven Thumps and the Ruins of Alder, Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles (full serial review), and as I promised, the start of a new set of reviews.

A Rock'n Award!

I just received this award from Melissa over at My World. It's a great blog, and I'm honored to receive this. Thanks, Melissa!

Blogs I'm giving it to:

The Dashner Dude

The Wertzone

Speculative Horizons

Coming Soon: Bran Hambric-- The Farfield Curse and the start of a new set of reviews.

A Door in the Woods and Skulduggery Pleasant

A Door in the Woods: Fresh off having read The 13th Reality-- The Hunt for Dark Infinity, I realized James Dashner has a four book series (finished) that I hadn't read. It was called the Jimmy Fincher Saga, and within its thin binding, it promised to tell a big story. There's no way I would even consider leaving a Dashner book on the shelves now, so I bought it upon sight. While this might not have been the case if it still had its first cover, I walked out of the store with a beautiful book tucked under my arm.

Woods tells the story of a young man from Georgia named-- you guessed it, you're so smart-- Jimmy Fincher. He goes into the woods near his house to climb a tree, but in the tree, he sees something that will change his life forever. I'm not going to spoil the surprise of that the thing is, but I will say it's very impressive and dangerous, and it hints of something really huge. Jimmy finds himself whisked on a nonstop adventure around the country and beyond as he tries to put together the puzzle he is now in. But who can he trust? And what is the secret of the old wooden door in the middle of the woods near his home that no one can open? The answer: I can't tell you that, but it's world-changing.

Dashner, as always, has a great sense of humor that combines with huge discoveries to make a gripping book. You really root for Jimmy as he almost stumbles through his adventure. But this book tells the amount of story that's in one of his 13th Reality books in only half the space. There's no stopping this tale, but there's no room to breathe, either. The relentless pace of the book, while it kept me reading until I was done, was a little overwhelming at times. Yes, that's right, I found a 175-page book a little overwhelming. That's kinda sad, I know. That said, I had a fun time reading about Mr. Fincher, and I hope to join him soon in Book 2: A Gift of Ice.

My rating: 8.5/10

The Skulduggery Pleasant Series: In all the time I've had this blog, I haven't mentioned the Skulduggery Pleasant books. Which is really a shame, because I've enjoyed every minute I've spent reading them. They haven't quite caught on in the US like they have in the UK, but they're one of my answers to the question of what to read after Harry Potter.

Scepter of the Ancients: When 12-year-old Stephanie's eccentric Uncle Gordon dies, a mysterious man bundled in an overcoat, scarf, sunglasses, and a hat shows up at both the funeral and the reading of the will. This man, as it turns out, is Skulduggery Pleasant, a walking, talking skeleton who rescues Stephanie when she is attacked while alone in the house that she has just inherited. It seems that a particularly evil person named Serpine is trying to obtain a scepter that will allow him to rule the world. Stephanie is swept into a world of magic, secrets, power, and intrigue as she and Skulduggery try to keep one step ahead of Serpine and various other nefarious folk. Deadly hand-to-hand combat, nasty villains, magical derring-do, and traitorous allies will keep readers turning the pages, but it is the dynamic duo of Stephanie and Skulduggery who provide the real magic. The girl eagerly jumps into this new, dangerous, action-packed life, but she isn't sure that she has the guts or the power to pull it off.

My rating: 9/10

Playing with Fire: 13-year-old Valkyrie Cain and her mentor, the living skeleton detective, are faced with the return of the evil Baron Vengeous, who has been freed from prison. Vengeous is trying to reanimate the Grotesquery, a monster made up of pieces of a variety of evil creatures. If his scheme is successful, the Faceless Ones, "the terrible dark gods, exiled from this world," will return. Faced with treachery within the ranks of good magicians, Valkyrie and Skulduggery must rely on their own Elemental magical powers and a few trusted allies to confront Vengeous's magic and helpers, such as the vampire Dusk and Billy-Ray Sanguine, who has the ability to tunnel underground. One magical action sequence follows another as Valkyrie must find the courage to face what seem to be insurmountable foes.

My rating: 8.5/10

The Faceless Ones: If you've read the other Skulduggery books by Derek Landy (and you really should have read them by now), you've seen it all before: Some bad guy wants to bring about the end of the world, and Skulduggery and Valkyrie fight valiantly to stop it from happening. A few people get hurt, sure, but everything's all right in the end. Well, not this time.

My rating: 9.5/10

Some things I like about the series: Skulduggery and Valkyrie have a great back-and-forth, and all of the dialogue in these books is snappy and energized. The action scenes are handled well, and, as the third book's synopsis suggests, the characters don't live in a perfect, harmless world like a certain boy wizard I know seemed to in the early books of his series. It's a great ride that it's impossible not to love. I read them all in a day each. You probably will, too. I can't wait for Book 4.

Coming Soon: Bran Hambric-- The Farfield Curse.

Green and Catching Fire

Green: Ted Dekker has been leading me on a confusing journey for the past two years. It began (or did it end?) with a man walking outside a Denver coffee shop and discovering he is being shot at. Fourteen books-- some of them seemingly unrelated-- later, it ends (or does it begin?) with Green. Book Zero of the Circle Series, and more importantly, the Books of History Chronicles.

There will probably be some spoilers, but I can't really avoid them here. If you're not wanting the rest of the Books of History Chronicles to have anything revealed to you, then skip down to the paragraph after next.

Thomas Hunter (or is it Thomas of Hunter?) has lived ten years in the future Earth with his wife, Chelise, and his children. For ten years the Circle has evaded the diseased Horde, and for ten years its numbers have been growing. But Elyon has not appeared since the events of White, and the Circle begins to doubt his teachings. Thomas' son, Samuel, has decided the time has come for the peaceful Circle to take up the legacy of the Forest Guard again. At the same time, one of Teeleh's dark priests, Ba'al, who serves the Shataiki queen Marsuuv, is seeking objects of power that the Horde leader Qurong has hidden. It becomes apparent that the only way for Thomas to save his home is by returning to his first home-- the here and now. There, he hopes to find something left there that will stop the death of everyone he loves. But an all-too-familiar evil is waiting...

Dekker has it all, and he delivers a killer finale. He pulls out the stops, is not afraid to kill major characters, and shocking revelations abound. It's a truly pulse-pounding ride to the finish line, and I can finally say the Circle is complete. A job well done.

My rating: 10/10

Catching Fire (Book 2 of the Hunger Games): Katniss has spent the past year living with her family, Peeta, and Haymitch in the Victors' Village after having survived the Hunger Games. But all is not well. She learns upon a visit from President Snow, the man who rules over all of Panem, that her job is not done. She has unintentionally become the face of a countrywide rebellious spirit that threatens to explode at any moment. Her life, Peeta's life, Gale's life, and her family's life are at stake if she doesn't do everything as the President says. But Panem may crumble on its own, and Katniss and everyone she cares about must uncover the mysteries the Capitol is trying to cover up. If they make one false move, they will all die. And then, President Snow reveals a plan to ensure that no one is safe...

This was an amazing book from Suzanne Collins, perhaps her best book to date. It is an amazing tour-de-force of action, suspense, romance, terror, and hope in desperate times that is guranteed to both keep the reader up late at night reading it and keep them thinking about it long afterwards. I cannot praise Collins enough for this series, but don't worry, I'll try again when Book 3 comes out. She has a knack for truly making you care about the people who populate her books, and she does with a modest word count what some people spend a thousand pages trying to create: emotion from the reader. Wow.

My rating: 10/10

Coming Soon: A Door in the Woods.

"The 13th Reality-- The Hunt for Dark Infinity" review

I don't have much time to blog right now! I've finished this book a while back (along with some others), but I haven't had a chance to review it yet. So here goes.

By the way, there are some minor spoilers ahead for those who haven't read Book 1.

It's been a quiet summer for Atticus Higginbottom (Tick), Paul, and Sofia, but the latest message from Master George changes everything. The Realities are in danger... and from something more terrible than Mistress Jane and the mutated Chi'karda of the Thirteenth Reality. People from all Realities are unexplainably going insane. Worse, some Realities are fragmenting, disintegrating into nothingness. Master George has learned that Mr. Chu from the Fourth Reality is working on a mysterious new weapon called Dark Infinity. But no one has any idea how to stop the weapon or even if it can be stopped. To make matters worse, Tick and his friends have been kidnapped, forced to wink from Reality to Reality, solving impossible riddles in order to survive the deadly traps surrounding them. Mistress Jane and Tick find themselves in a race to reach the weapon first but who will destroy it-- and who will become its master?

I'm going to keep this as short as possible, but I'll say this: The 13th Reality-- The Hunt for Dark Infinity is one of the best sequels I've read recently, right up there with the newest Erec Rex book. The plot keeps you on your toes, and this was something I'll have to admit I was worried about. With all of the possibilities The Journal of Curious Letters opened, it was impossible to see where Dashner would go next. The answer: up. Up in quality even from Book 1 (which I loved). Up in scope. Up in tension. Up in character development-- but don't get scared off by that. The first book was dependant on clues and riddles, which culminated in the reveal of no less than twelve variations of our world to explore. But a lot of what kept the pages turning in the past had been that air of mystery which was now more or less gone. How was Dashner to top his previous installment, keeping things fresh?

The answer: there are still more riddles, and the Realities themselves are sort of like puzzles for Tick and Co. to solve. Tension is really great here, and the new characters who are introduced are a lot of fun.

And James Dashner was daring to try something a lot of fantasy books overlook and which impressed me to no end. He developed the villains. He did a good job of it, too. Mistress Jane is no longer just an eccentric evildoer. Now she's a fleshed-out character, who does everything she does for what she thinks is... well, I won't spoil those details for you. And I won't tell you about the really horrible things that happen to Tick, especially when he... In the immortal words of the late Robert Jordan, Read And Find Out.

If you're still holding out on this series because it's in hardcover, I urge you to reconsider. It's more than worth the price, for I think these are the sort of books you might find yoursef wanting to give to your children to read. And they do look quite pretty on your bookshelf, as all Shadow Mountain publications do. I can't wait for Book 3-- The Blade of Shattered Hope. Is it just me, or do these titles get darker and darker as they go?

My rating (a really rare one for the second book in a series): 10/10

Coming Soon: Green and... drumroll, please... Catching Fire.

Founding Brothers and G. I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Here's another two-fer!

Founding Brothers: This is one of my more unusual reads, as it is, in fact, non-fiction. While not up my usual alley, I like a little history (if well-written) once in a while. And this one seemed like the perfect read for me. It gives a look at six famous events in the time of the Founding Fathers of the USA: Hamilton and Burr's fateful-- and fatal-- duel, the debate over where to place the capital, the slavery issues in that period, Washington's almost-prophetic farewell address, Adams' presidency and his collaboration with his wife, and Jefferson and Adams' friendship that has been in the history books for centuries.

Ellis takes a good approach to the subject, giving readers exploded scenes that offer insight into how these historical figures were more like brothers than we might think. Which you probably could have guessed from the title, but that just means it's a good title. And Ellis' writing is very good-- his chapter on the duel is a delight to read, one of the best history passages I've ever read. But the book's greatness is marred somewhat by two flaws, which Ellis should have thought through. First of all, the chapter entitled "The Dinner" is a bit of a snooze, and it seems as if Ellis himself got bored while writing it. The other chapters are much better, though. Second, the book's organizational structure... well... isn't. There is no rhyme or reason as to why the chapters are arranged in the way they are. The first three chapters get progressively farther back in time, while the latter half of the book is more of a consistent narrative. It makes very little sense. Overall, though, if you want to review a bit of history and America's early period interests you, then Founding Brothers is an excellent choice.

My rating: 9/10

G. I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: I'm going to make this short and sweet. If you've played with the action figures all your life, see this movie. If you didn't, but you liked The Mummy, you'll still want to see this movie. If you fit both of these categories... well, you've probably seen it already. I had a great time, personally. Joe has Mummy's sense of great fun, loving the genre of film it's in, and giving viewers a rollicking good time. But if The Mummy wasn't your thing, you'll probably find this film wanting, as the tone and style are similar. But I'm game for a sequel.

My rating (if you're like me): 8.5/10

Coming Soon: The 13th Reality: The Hunt for Dark Infinity.

I'm a Zombie Chicken!

Many thanks to Krista, over at Life or Something Like it... (a great new blog, by the way) for this prestigious award!

Okay, so here's the gist of it:

The blogger who receives this award believes in the Tao of the zombie chicken - excellence, grace and persistence in all situations, even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. These amazing bloggers regularly produce content so remarkable that their readers would brave a raving pack of zombie chickens just to be able to read their inspiring words. As a recipient of this world-renowned award, you now have the task of passing it on to at least 5 other worthy bloggers. Do not risk the wrath of the zombie chickens by choosing unwisely or not choosing at all.

I am truly honored to be considered worthy of facing the Zombie Chickens.

My 5 worthy blogs:

1. Wayne Thomas Batson's Enter the Door Within

2. James Long's Speculative Horizons

3. Adam Whitehead's The Wertzone

4. Graeme Flory's Fantasy Book Review

5. Patrick Rothfuss' Blog

Coming Soon: Founding Brothers (still)