The Lost Planet by Rachel Searles book review

The book starts with a bang.  The reader is thrust into the world in the same manner as the protagonist.  He has amnesia which means that he learns along with the reader of the world around him, so no one is left out.  Everything has to be explained which means that like all good high science fiction; it all has a purpose.  There is a sense of discovery and I would openly say that this is a coming of age mystery thrown into a futuristic setting.  The reader has to see through Chase’s eyes, but still be empathetic enough to understand other people at least on a basic level as he would. 

The author is very good at not excluding anyone.  She is detailed without bogging everything down and making the reading denser than it has to be.  The pace of the story is astoundingly achieved.  There is suspense, mystery, adventure, and a strong sense of seeking and finding that is never lost.  It is left open for more, yet the ending is realistic in its complexity.  It does have a clear ending that implicates that what transpired in the book is only the beginning.

review of Andrew Lane’s Rebel Fire/ Red Leech

Sherlock spends a third of the book, the middle of it, trying to get back his kidnapped friend Matty with the help of Mr. Crowe and his daughter Virginia.  The reader learns more about Mr. Crowe as Sherlock does himself.  It turns out that Sherlock’s tutor was a man of importance who worked alongside the Pinkerton’s in America in order to take in war criminals.  The war criminals of the time would have been men of the Confederate Army.

Sherlock unmasks another plot to cause havoc to Britain.  He stops it in a manner that even the “bad guys” would not even have to lose any men.  The baddie of this book, Duke, does not understand or appreciate the sentiment.

This book is advisable to read because it has Sherlock Holmes coming into his own.  He kills and comes to terms with what that means for the first time.  He puts others before himself and yet, never stops being who he is while discovering what that is simultaneously. 

Review of Lane’s Death Cloud

A young Sherlock Holmes must stay with his Uncle Sherrinford and Aunt Anna instead of going home.  He is assigned a tutor by Mycroft and befriends a young homeless boy in Farnham.  His tutor is a big American who is a stickler about information and making every experience into a lesson.  Mr. Crowe, his tutor, is obviously the influence on Sherlock that makes him into a person capable of solving mysteries by the most mundane details.  He even shows Sherlock how to evade attention and question without anyone being the wiser.  He makes the young man into the consulting detective that we all know.

The mystery of Death Cloud is not something that even as a reader is presented in a frivolous way.  There is nothing more frustrating and condescending than an author that lets the reader know what is happening behind a mystery and yet, the protagonists are left in the dark.

The solution is not only plausible and eloquent; it allows for Sherlock to develop a lifelong fascination of his.  His obsession with bees is born within this book and a hint of the future drug addict is even hinted at, in the end of the book.

This book is good to read because it allows the readers of Sherlock Holmes to theorize about how he became the man he was in a valid format.

fellowship of the ring book review

Fellowship of the Ring book review

This is a book of mythic proportions about what earth was and what people were before the rise of one kind, mankind.  Mankind is represented as one race and there is no racism, but a founded bigotry.  Nothing is so just because people feel it should be.

Men have a royalty that has died out and their strength is waning due to greed.  Dwarves are even being overcome by greed (mostly seen in the Hobbit).  Elves are ethereal and wise, but do not hold the answers to all and they answer only to themselves.  Hobbits do not have a royalty and they are the only ones without it.  They do have a form of currency and class, but there is not a greed because there is not a leader of great wealth.  They simply do as they wish.  They do not allow their own kind to hunger.  They are the base and simple people that we should all aspire to be.  They are what mankind started out as.  They are man in his original and uncorrupted state.  They are not lazy, but they do find much pleasure in living and do not seek to rush through.  They value every day.

65, “The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many.” Gandalf to Frodo.

82, “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. . . you step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”  Bilbo to Frodo.

303, “This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the Great.  Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it?  Or, if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has struck?”  Elrond to Frodo.

I, Robot review

I, Robot book review

Asimov goes deeply into what makes ethics so important to us as human beings.  He uses basic psychology and applies to almost military tactics to make his point.  This starts, in the story, with two main characters trying to manipulate the laws.  These laws of Robotics are also, in fact, laws that govern us as people and indeed make those who follow them into the best and most respectable of people.  To even attempt to alter one of these laws, as they did, is to alter the entire psychology behind it.  Before his alteration, the machines were simply there to follow.  After the alteration, the machines are there to save humanity from themselves.  By trying to get a few more dollars in their pockets, they had actually ensured that the future of humanity would be forever governed by those that know better.

 The machine is viewed as having the psychology of a child (“an idiot savant,” 147)and yet, the functioning and logic behind the machine is true and leaves the machine treating humanity as the children.  Those that have been created turn on those that have created them and insist that they, humanity, are not the Master.  A human simply takes the parts of a machine and puts it together while the Maker gives it life and a soul. This is what the new model of robot would tell you and which makes them no longer robots because to be a robot is to be a slave.

p. 21, “Mr. Struthers signaled wildly to the overseers to stop the tractor, but the overseers were only human and it took time to act.”

Law one: A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Law two: A robot  must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law.

Law three: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Altered Law one: No robot may harm a human being.

Sanderson’s the Rithmatist book review

The Rithmatist is a high fantasy that is set in the 20^th Century with the idea of wild chalkings as baddies.  These chalkings are of mysterious origin and the only way to fight them is to have those that are chosen to create their own chalklings to fight back.  These are the Rithmatists and they are the soldiers.  They are held to a higher standard and given a stipend, but the unchosen question whether they are actually needed.  Like any good high fantasy, this is reflective of real life.  The Rithmatists are seen as on par with nobility even though they are not born to it.  It is similar to when the nobility were first being made as such.  They were the chosen ones to be held above others and yet to be taken for granted once the system started to fail them all.

The main character, Joel, is a fascinating young man.  He is not one of the chosen, but he takes what they do very seriously and is absolutely fascinated by it.  The Rithmatist students are very much a separated and pompous group, but a lot more is expected of them.  Joel is a genius in his own right and just trying to find out more about the history of the Rithmatists, so that he can become a sort of scholar on them.  The plot starts to unfold from there.  In his search for knowledge, he is instrumental in an ongoing investigation of missing Rithmatist students.  Joel started as someone simply seeking knowledge and ends as someone actually using his knowledge for good.  Suddenly, this book becomes something monumental and not to be contained within one book, but that of a series.  

Hobbit review

Book review of J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit

What kind of a point was Tolkein making when he invented Hobbits?  Was he exploring the base nature of what makes a human uncorrupted by pressure and royalty or was he just advocating a nice lazy lifestyle?  He was doing what no one else was at the time and what they still do not dare to do with his characters.  A regular author would have made Thorin Oakenshield the leading character or even Gandalf.  This would have been done because they are heroes in their own rights.  They start out and end as heroes and as the same people.  To take a character through a journey that didn’t just provide a great character ark, but to actually bring out characteristics that had been hidden even to the one in question was unprecedented. 

It is intriguing to see such a great array of characters.  Thorin with his greed and haughtiness.  Gandalf with his ways of seeing through people while still being utterly suspicious.  Bilbo with his inability to see the important and great within himself.

The hobbits are a fascinating race because of what they represent.  They are simply short people that have not been overtaken by greed and are still at one with the ground beneath them.  They do not look beyond their own lands, but instead stay at home and curl up with a nice plate of food while reading by the light of a full hearth.  These are simply folk.  They are the uncorruptable because it is not in their nature to be corrupt.  This begs the question of whether Tolkein was arguing that people/men are only corrupt because we feel we must and it is, in fact, not in our nature.

Bilbo is so wonderful a character because he is the epitome of the potential that everyone wants to see in themselves and those around them.  He has the constant dreams on the journey that come true because his intentions are far more pure than the dwarves. (Even though, Bombur does dream of a feast.  This is a simple and base need and so the dream happens.)  Bilbo also finds it within himself to pity the creature Gollum when he considers how his life would have turned out if the same things had happened to him.  His capacity for understanding another’s world view and having empathy for them is what makes his character remarkable and a true hero.