I know, I tell myself all the time, "why don't you just write about the books you read right after you read them, then you won't procrastinate and end up rushing through this every three months?" Or in this case, a whole year. Plus, as you might've noticed, I haven't been writing as much as before so that definitely pushed these further and further out. But here's to getting started again, by catching up with last year's reading list.
John Dies at the End by David Wong
"The finished creature seemed to be assembled from spare parts. It had a tail like a scorpion curling up off its back. It walked on seven- yes, seven - legs, each ending in one of those small, pink infantile hands. It had a head that was sort of an inverted heart shape, a bank of mismatched eyes in an arc over a hooked, black beak, like a parrot's. On its head, no kidding, it had a tuft of neatly groomed blond hair that I swear on my mother's grave was a wig, held on with a rubber band chinstrap."
"And so, feeling like men trying to work a jigsaw puzzle blindfolded and using only our butt cheeks to grip the pieces, we left."
David Wong and John (both fake names) are high school friends from Undisclosed (to protect themselves) that specialize in cases of the paranormal thanks to a drug that increases their awareness, allowing them to see and interact with the supernatural as well as a couple of other heightened sense abilities. The main chunk of the story is Wong telling his story to a reporter that specializes in the weird and paranormal. It's a story about their first encounter with the Soy Sauce drug at a high school party, to fighting off demons at a Las Vegas seminar, to starting a business fighting the supernatural with a boombox and a baseball bat, all the way to stopping an alien invasion from an alternate dimension with a twist ending and plenty of dick jokes thrown in. Honestly, the best way I can describe the story is it's kind of like if you and your buddies from high school were sent to save the world.
Have you watched this TV show on SyFy called Happy!? This book is
basically like that - it's insane the things that happen and every
chapter will leave you with a lot of "what the fuck did I just read"
moments, encouraging you onward just to find how much further Wong can
push the creative envelope. I read another of Wong's book awhile back, Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits, and this one is just as ... imaginative. It's funny and exciting and moments where I just had to go back and reread the last sentence because my brain just couldn't comprehend what I'd just read.
The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks
I assume it would be easier to talk about all three at the same time (plus it'll save time).
The Way of the Shadows (Book One):
"At first everything was curses and beatings. Azoth couldn't do anything right. But curses were just air, and beatings were just momentary pain. Blint would never maim Azoth, and if he chose to kill him, there was nothing Azoth could do to stop him anyway.
It was the closest thing to safety he'd ever known."
"Just by looking at a man's face, he could judge instantly: parry left, hesitate, lunge, clear. A man died and fell far enough away that he didn't impede Kylar's movements. Next, sweep right, roll in, bear fist to nose. Spin, hamstring, throat. Parry, riposte. Stab."
Azoth, a street urchin just trying to survive, dreams of power to protect himself and his friends - to no longer be afraid. It is this dream that drives him to risk his life following Durzo Blint, the city's greatest wetboy, and request to be his apprentice. Under Blint's tutelage, Azoth will learn the ways of a wetboy: to blend with his environment, the tools of his trade, and, most importantly, to kill. But there is more going on within the kingdom and it may be up to the assassin to stop an invasion.
Shadow's Edge (Book Two):
"Kylar is Shadow in Twilight, a growing colossus with one foot planted in the day and another in the night, but a shadow is an ephemeral beast and twilight must either darken into night or lighten into day."
Kylar Stern leaves to a neighboring city now that the Godking's forces have taken over the city, and the Godking himself has arrived. Seeking to create a life of peace for himself, he abandons the way of the shadows. That life is interrupted when he finds out his best friend and rightful king of Cenaria is alive, hiding in the prisons below the city. Knowing that Logan is alive and could unite the varying resistance factions against the Godking, Kylar must decide if he can abandon his new way of peace to take up the sword again.
Beyond the Shadows (Book Three):
"Kylar had longed to be more than a guild rat. He'd longed to be more than a wetboy. Now, he was more than a man. The rules didn't apply to him."
"In the tumult of clashing arms, grunts, curses, clashing sword on sword or sword on shield, the thump of cudgels hitting flesh, the muted crack of breaking limbs or shattered skulls, the whistle of air escaping from a throat instead of a mouth, the familiar stench of blood and bile and death-loosened bowels and the sweat of exertion and the sweat of fear, Kylar was suddenly serene."
Kylar Stern has returned to the Way of the Shadows to save his kingdom, but lost his new life of peace. With the Godking dead, Cenaria's army plans to march North to rescue their queen from a newly established Godking who is planning an invasion of his own with creatures from myth. As two armies march against each other, Kylar will need to assassinate his most formidable target yet - a goddess. Additionally, other characters that we've gotten to know over the other two books will come to the ends of their journeys.
This series is probably the reason I didn't get around to putting up these reviews every three months like I was doing (plus, you know, the not-writing). If you've ever talked to me about books, or if I've ever tried to force a book on to you, I've mentioned The Magicians trilogy as the books to read. The Night Angel trilogy though is my favorite series and the one I've read and re-read the most. It has everything: Action, Adventure, Mystery, Romance, Camaraderie, Magic, Ancient Lore, Triumph of good over evil, a Large Cast of characters with their own individual plot lines. Plus, it isn't bogged down by pointless songs, or unpronounceable spells, or wordy descriptions that tend to plague other High Fantasy novels. It's easy to read but if you move to fast, you can miss all the subtle things that don't immediately jump out at you. Though that's part of the fun of re-reading it and picking up on them again. And because of all that, it was so, so hard to find the words of just how to quickly summarize the story without ruining it with my own shitty writing. Back in college, I had a writing assignment of analyzing a song, and the issue was that the deeper and deeper you look into something, the less enchanted you become by it and the more you start to become frustrated with it. I was really afraid that writing even a short piece about these books might do that for me.
The Enemy by Lee Child
"'What are you going to do with this strength?' she asked me.
I didn't answer. I never did.
'You're going to do the right thing,' she said."
"No, the twentieth century's signature sound is the squeal and clatter of tank tracks on a paved street. That sound was heard in Warsaw, and Rotterdam, and Stalingrad, and Berlin. Then it was heard again in Budapest and Prague, and Seoul and Saigon. It's a brutal sound. It's the sound of fear. It speaks of a massive overwhelming advantage in power. And it speaks of remote, impersonal indifference."
This story goes back to Jack Reacher's time in the military police when he was still with the army, not the drifter character we are introduced to in the first book and movie. Reacher is ringing in the new year recently posted to a base in North Carolina when he receives a call that a general is dead in a motel where he shouldn't be. After a quick search, the general's briefcase is discovered missing along with unknown classified information about a meeting he was supposed to be attending. A few hours later, it is reported that the general's wife has been murdered. Reacher is now on a case to find the missing files, but the deeper he digs, the more the enemy turns out to be the last person he expected. and one that he just might not be able to handle.
Yes, another Jack Reacher novel. At the time I bought this book, I really thought it wasn't going to make this quarter's list, but I practically sprinted through it. Not kidding, I think it took me a week to get through it. Child's writing is great, the pacing is perfect. I've read and posted enough of these books by now that it isn't worth going into detail about how this book reads and stuff like that. An interesting side plot to this story involves an event in Reacher's personal life: coming to terms with his mother's death. This seems to help humanize Reacher, putting his character into the context of being a son and brother and not just the drifter we've grown to know from previous books.
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