Tormod series by Kat Black review

Book review of the Tormod series by Kat Black

These historical fantasy books are refreshing.  They are reflective of the dialect and accents of the characters.  Each character has a distinct personality with  no one person being perfect.  Religion is presented as more than faith, but as a weapon also.  The reliance on other characters to lead the main character causes him to be crippled, but it also spurs him on to great lengths. 

The idea of the knights being associated with the church does remind those of us that know our history about the Crusades.  This thought does provoke an interest in how these “knights” would allow themselves to believe that just because the Pope of the time would deem it so, they were allowed to kill and actually doing God’s work.  This series seems to skip over that fact, but it does deal with the fact that these men took the church more seriously than logic at time.  There were characters who obviously did not think for themselves and so, they turned into what we think of as drones or they turned bad.  The thinking men were the ones that were going against the power hungry and looking out for those that were, in fact, deserving of their power.

savage fortress book review

Book review of The Savage Fortress by Sarwat Chadda

The main character keeps saying that he isn’t a hero and yet he learns what it is to be a hero.  He learns that to be the hero isn’t to save the day, but to have the courage to keep fighting and to conquer fear.  He puts his sister and family above all else to the point of not using his brain to think things through.  

His whole worlds is constantly being turned over and made worse and yet he continues on with hope.  Would he have reacted differently with foreknowledge?  Since this is about reincarnation, does that mean it is about karma?  Does his young life have a meaning or is he simply doomed to the same destiny of being a warrior?

 Review of A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle while mentioning A Study in Pink by Stephen Moffat

This story is the one that introduced the public to Doyle’s most infamous characters, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson.  The story would be familiar to a modern TV viewer if said person were to frequent the BBC series.  BBC’s Sherlock took an interesting approach to a classic.  The outcome to “who done it” was the same, but reached in a very different manner in the show versus the book.  Both of the results are equally brilliant, but the book does a special kind of logic to it that the show changes.  In the recent show, the writers are trying to give Watson a chance to shine.  If he finds out something about a case, it is in looking into the people’s lives while Sherlock would rather think about the logic behind the situation.  The Sherlock in the books is a bit older and more experienced when it comes to thinking of people as part of the whole opposed to something to just be read for anything interesting or even mundane and then thrown about.  The show brings the viewer into Sherlock’s world and makes him into a different breed of eccentric opposed to the books.

Spoiler: the cabbie’s the killer in both stories.  He even has the victim take one pill and he take the other with one being deadly and the other not having an effect.  He is also an older man that has had everything of importance taken from him and is waiting to die from an aneurism.  

It is amazing how these fundamental things can be kept the same and yet, how Sherlock figures it out in the show is far more accessible to a viewer as opposed to the books.  In the book, Sherlock has the answer and just presents the killer to Lestrade and Gregson in a matter of fact manner.  His intellect is far more astounding and indisputable.

Ender's Game

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

The cover is one that evokes the interest of those invested in the world of Science Fiction.  The spatial warfare evident really catches the attention.  The title is not obvious, but it is something that fits what happens within the story to a slight degree.  It is what is important and what is insignificant all at the same time. 

The whole premise is of the adults making the children into soldiers.  The little geniuses who could and would be the future of the human race or be the end of it.  Everything depended on the end game of the war with the alien Buggers.  The games within the different military schools were to prepare the children, but the games were rigged.  Only the really intelligent children were able to figure out that the games were not important and unfair, at first.  It started to become more evident when Ender was quickly being progressed through the ranks.  The games being run by the school were the unfair and insignificant ones.  The ones that really mattered were the battles when Ender was aware of what was happening.  It made what was happening into something so much more and to match the importance of the end game of the war with the Buggers.

The game that Ender plays is that of psychological warfare.  This was his great power that made him the perfect commander for the army.  He was capable of an extreme empathy which meant that he was able to see the world as they did and “walk in their shoes”.  Because he was capable of this, he was able to anticipate the moves of the enemy before they could even make it.  He trained his army to function not in formation, but in squadrons.  Each squad specialized in a certain task and the character of Bean was the one with the truly special squad.  Bean trained his men to be truly flexible to every situation.  They are the fastest and can not only work as a cohesive squadron that followed his mind, but individuals with their own thoughts of how to defeat the enemy.

Ender’s whole life became that of defeating the enemy.  The adults were all about separating Ender from the rest of the children when he was always separate.  Even in the group of genius children, he had to be made separate so that he could be their commander.  This was their goal for him; to be the commander, but not the true friend.  They could trust each other with their lives, but they could not trust him with their thoughts.  This was because of his being separate and higher than them, in position and in mind.  He loved and hated those that he commanded.  He loved them for what each of them gave him not just in the games and under his orders.  He also loved them for what they gave him individually.  He hated them because he was separate and they could not see that it was the adults that made it that way.  He just wanted to be one of them and he was denied that because he was expected to be more.  He was wrong.

 Bean was aware of what the adults were doing and he was the one with the real power.  Ender had to think that it was all up to him and that there was not a backup, but Bean was the backup.  He was the one that even Ender would compare himself to and yet, not be able to realize that he was surpassed by this incredibly young and small child.  Ender saw his group as something devastating when he was given his small army for the games.  This Dragon Army was, in fact, not random inexperienced launches.  They were children that Bean picked out for their potential.  This group was ideal for Ender because they were quick learners who did not have any bad habits to break.  They could learn and grow together in this regard and all come to easily accept Ender as their commander.

The ending was set years later.  Ender believed that he had done something that could never be forgiven.  He would do what needed to be done in order to right this wrong.  His whole life became about atoning for what he had done even though when he did it, he believed that it was only a game.  

A child’s game for those that were not children in many respects.  The only aspect of their childhood they were allowed to keep were their games.  The problem with this was that the games were the real tests for the children to see what types of soldiers they would be.  The desk games was made to test their psychology and the battle games were made to test their capacity for battle strategy.  These games were what allowed these child soldiers to keep their sense of adventure and entertainment while actually serving to test them on a deep psychological level.  A child’s true testing was by their responses to these games and how they played them and not in how they approached their schoolwork.  The games became their lives because it was their source of power, but it was a controlled power.  The adults had full run of it and could change the rules.  The adults could do as they liked while the children would only blame each other. There was not a way to please everyone.  Those that played solely for the game were not liked at all, but feared by others.  They had lost their sense of self within the power play of the games.  Ender was allowed to have the most power because he knew that he could do it, but he did not want it.  He knew those that were driven by power were, in fact, fools that he would have to work around for the rest of his life.

Review of Clive Barker's The Thief of Always: A Fable

The title is something that catches the eye from the spine of the book whilst sitting on the shelf.   The cover then would cause a person to become immediately interested or not interested with the book within.  Barker’s command of the illustrations is astounding with a gorgeous balance of childish sight, but through a skewed, dare I say, demented, lens.  The subtitle then makes the person who would want to read this realize that the story is to be regarded as a dark story such as the style of the Brothers Grimm which most Americans grow up knowing.
The book follows the story of a boy who is bored with his life and is seeking a sense of excitement.  His life is stagnant whilst he is full of energy.  A strange man then appears at his home to appeal to his traveling with the man to a Holiday House.  When the boy does eventually go, it is realized that the house is called this for a reason.  The seasons shift with each day.  All four seasons within one day, so that every day has a Halloween and a Christmas.  Halloween is the main celebration at the house which is perfectly understandable with the sensibilities of what makes a fable what it is.  The taste of the dark side can be found within Halloween when it is only in childish fun and not to be taken seriously.  That is our current idea of what makes Halloween.  This alludes to the idea of what All Hallows Eve is supposed to be in the first place.  It isn’t about the candy and dressing up as someone or something else.  It is about the rise of the supernatural beings amongst the humans and the dressing up serving as a protection to the mere mortals.  The room of masks and Harvey’s moment of almost bestiality made the idea of what the holiday is supposed to be about come to life and make the reader realize what kinds of things were valued at the strange Holiday House.
The Holiday House is run by Mr. Hood.  He is a figure that is spoken of reverently, but not seen until late into the book.  He is a character of mystery much the same as the house is.  This association of his characteristics mixing with the house was a good touch when it is revealed that Mr. Hood is, in fact, the Holiday House.  He is a great magical being who steals time.  He lures children to his house and promises them fun forever.  Each day goes through all of the seasons because each day at the Holiday House in actually a year outside of the house.  He is the Thief of Always because he is a being that steals time and promises for always and does not let go of what he believes is his.  He is referred to as a Vampire King within the story by Harvey because that is the only way that Harvey can understand the concept of what Mr. Hood is.  This makes the reader look back to the incident during Halloween where Harvey had a moment of feeling bloodlust and almost gave into the vampiric want within himself.  The only way to comprehend what Mr. Hood was and what he wanted was to make Harvey remember how it felt to want in the darkest manner.
The image of the broken Holiday House around the end of the book reflected the state of Mr. Hood.  His promises of always were broken along with his body.  The want within him was only to reveal how empty he was and how he would do anything to fill himself with the want of others.  He could not want for himself when he could not live for himself, so one of the many morals within this story would seem to be that stealing always from others would only take away from what time you do have with you.

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This blog will be used for my own personal character and book analysis.  I will focus primarily on books, but movies and other such mediums will be included.