Shadow Magic.net

Title: Time of the Twins
Authors: Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

Thoughts: I was prodded to read this book by a friend and I’m glad that she did. Yeah, the book was kinda ridiculous at points, such as when Caramon has his drunken escapades, but it does get better after that. And there’s some parts that I found rather um, sexy, but I’m weird so maybe most people won’t get it. It mostly has to deal with Raistlin’s and Crysania’s interactions.

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Title: Forests of the Heart
Author: Charles de Lint

Thoughts: This is the first novel that I’ve read of de Lint’s instead of just reading a collection of his interconnected short stories. It was pretty interesting how he started with just the single stories of several people and intertwined them so that at the end they all meet and help to end the problem that occurs. I found the intertwining of various cultures also fascinating because it kinda showed that people from all over had similar concepts, just different ways of calling it. Also it showed how people and events can be a catalyst for change.

Also, as I was reading the book, I kept on thinking that the weather outside was just as cold and bitter as it was in the book because it’s near the end of winter here, but it was rather convincing. Also, I like the fact that it takes place in a world that’s not so different from our own.

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Title: The Princess Bride
Author: William Goldman

Thoughts: Cunningly hidden as an abridged version of an original book, this quite humorous book is a really good read. I like how there’s inserts into the story by the “abridger” and how it adds to the humor of the story. However, since I’ve watched the movie before reading the book (which is usually not the case with me), a lot of the voices that I ‘heard’ while reading was basically the voice of the actor that played that character and so my view of the book was highly influenced by the movie.

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Title: 100 Ghastly Ghost Stories
Author: Various Authors

Thoughts: This is one of those Barnes and Nobles 100 “insert type of story” books. The stories include ones by well-known authors and…actually, I’m just not really sure what to say about it all. There seems to be several stories dealing with trains and those seemed to have stuck in my mind the most. Reading this reminded me a lot of the books of scary stories that I used to read before bed when I was a little kid. I had such trouble sleeping after I read them. Of course, these stories are written for a higher level, but I still had that trouble sleeping.

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Title: Blue Bloods
Author: Melissa de la Cruz

Thoughts: Okay, so this is one of those teen vampire books. Meaning that it can either be really bad or really good. This one is actually kinda in-between actually. At first it wasn’t a very good book what with it’s rather vapid pop teenagery stuff that seems to be just written to appeal to that age set. It wasn’t until more than halfway through the book that I really started to have any liking for it. Mostly because below the surface of the book, there really is some interesting concepts in there such as where the vampires in this book universe come from and it brings in angels and such. It made me want to read the next one, but I think this time I’ll be getting it from the library rather than buying the book. If the next one is good, then maybe I’ll think about buying it.

So worth it if you stuck with it, but get it from the library.

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Title: The Gunslinger
Author: Stephen King

Thoughts: This book is the first book in Stephen King’s Dark Tower series and well…it’s short and it feels kinda bland in a way? A lot of the story focuses on Roland’s desert travels, but I did enjoy the parts that actually looked back upon his childhood because it was a nice change from the other parts. I suppose the novel is just supposed to lead you into the next one, but it just…it wasn’t boring, it just wasn’t enough I guess. I do have plans to read the next book and I hope that it will lead the story into something more interesting. The book, obviously, also felt unfinished, but that’s probably on purpose.

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Title: All Quiet on the Western Front
Author: Erich Maria Remarque

Thoughts: This book is on my list of favorite books. Mostly because it’s an anti-war novel that deals with the First World War and I am…very against war and I just have fondness of literature related to the First World War, including poetry. This was my third reading of the book, and it’s still good. It starts in the middle of the war and has various flashbacks throughout the novel that involves what happened earlier on in the novel, usually involving the people they’ve already lost from their class. This book really does emphasize the whole concept of the “Lost Generation” because many men of that generation did die in the war or ended up greviously wounded either in body or mind.

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Title: Kushiel’s Dart
Author: Jacqueline Carey

Thoughts: At first I was intimidated by this book because of it’s length and because of the complex politics and the sheer amount of characters. However, I ended up loving the book precisely because of the world building and how rich and complex things were in the story. I think I also had a slight crush on Alcuin. Anyways, I really enjoyed the book and while yes, it has a lot of the way in sex scenes in the book, it’s interesting politically, especially later on when all the pieces of the story start to come together. I did find myself constantly rechecking the character list at the beginning of the novel to keep track of it in my mind, but that’s not going to keep me from reading the next book in the series as I’ve just bought it yesterday.

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Title: Frankenstein
Author: Mary Shelley

Thoughts: I’m really glad that I finally got around to reading this (though it’s taken me a while to do the write-up in this journal!) because it showed the real story behind all of the Frankenstein movies and such. In the book, Frankenstein’s “monster” is not a dumb, slow creature at all. After all, any being that can teach itself to read over a winter is certainly intelligent. One could certainly feel sympathy for the creature who was abandoned by it’s creator and was shown no mercy by others. It was actually very engaging to read and one of those novels that kept you reading it. I suppose that’s why it’s considered a classic and has lasted to this day.

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