Alex C. Telander's Blog, page 33
April 9, 2015
���Stranger��� by Sherwood Smith and Rachel Manija Brown (Viking Books for Young Readers, 2014)
Welcome to the quaint little town of Las Anclas, located on the edge of nowhere. It���s a frontier town with high surrounding walls and guards constantly watching from above. Interestingly, those guards are all ages from teenagers to adults, and they all look like they know how to handle those weapons they���re carrying.
In this harsh world, places like Las Anclas are necessary refuges. You���re either a normal human or a mutant who is ���Changed,��� giving you special powers and abilities. There are those who will respect you for being different and others who will despise you, even inside those safe town walls, so watch your back.
Ross Juarez has just escaped death from a bounty hunger and the lethally dangerous crystalline trees and has made it to Las Anclas, seeking refuge. There he will make friends, but also enemies. He is also in possession of a special ancient book written in a language he can���t read.
Stranger is one of the few post-apocalyptic young adult books to earn its place next to Hunger Games. The diversity of the cast make this made-up world a completely believable one. The science fiction elements leave you shivering with fright, but also wanting to understand more. By the end of the book, you���ll be looking for the sequel; fortunately there is one.
Originally written on March 19, 2015 ��Alex C. Telander.
To purchase a copy of Stranger from Bookshop Santa Cruz, and help support BookBanter, click HERE.
April 7, 2015
Book Report: A Taste of George R.R. Martin, Checking into The Overlook, Gritty Fantasy & More!
Winds of Winter Excerpt��
George R. R. Martin has released an excerpt from his forthcoming Song of Ice and Fire book.
If You Like The Walking Dead��
Now that The Walking Dead is done for another season, you’ll be yearning for some new zombie-related material.
Reading Habits
A recent detailed survey from Book Riot on people’s reading habits.
April 4, 2015
���The Living Years: The First Genesis Memoir��� by Mike Rutherford (Thomas Dunne Books, 2015)
Perhaps the most exciting thing about The Living Years, other than the kickass cover, is the subtitle: ���the first Genesis memoir,��� which hopefully is more than an advertising ploy, but a foreshadowing of future biographies to come. The book is only 250 odd pages long, which is kind of an ideal length for a music biography, as Rutherford doesn���t spend too long waffling on about old stories that just loose the reader.
The Living Years is a biography of the founding member and eventual lead guitarist of Genesis, Mike Rutherford, but it is also his introspection into his father���s life and career, which he didn���t really know about until his father passed away. Hence, the title ��� if you know the Mike + the Mechanics song ��� is perfectly fitting.
Rutherford begins with his birth and upbringing and then his meeting friendships with some teen musicians at Charterhouse. He then takes the reader in a complete overview career of Genesis, touching on each album, and paying attention to each band member leaving and what effect it had on both the band and himself. Throughout the book he includes short paragraphs from his father���s journal looking at where Rutherford���s and his father���s life and career crossed over in a way.
The Living Years is a great read. Rutherford has an enjoyable easy-going voice that immediately engrosses you. The chapters are nice and short and the story moves along at a good clip, not giving the reader a chance to get bored. But Mike also has plenty of stories and anecdotes to tell and doesn���t hold back when it comes to commentary on ���drugs and rock���n���roll.����� Rutherford has no reservations, telling it as it is, in this fascinating look at one of the biggest rock acts in the history of music.
Originally written on March 23, 2015 ��Alex C. Telander.
To purchase a copy of Get in Trouble from Bookshop Santa Cruz, and help support BookBanter, click HERE.
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April 2, 2015
���Unbound��� by Jim C. Hines (DAW, 2015)
In the third installment of the Magic Ex Libris series, it get real. After things were essentially left in shambles at the end of Codex Born, with the Porters in disarray and Guttenberg severely unhappy with our unlikely hero, Isaac Vainio has now been stripped of his magical powers, setting up for what should be a pretty lame story, and yet Unbound turns out to be the most thrilling book of the series so far.
Vainio already feels bad about having the girl he was looking to protect kidnapped, and now it is revealed that Jeneta Aboderin has been inhabited by Meridiana, a would-be queen who has been banished for a millennium. With the power of her ereader, Meridiana seems unstoppable with her magic. Thankfully, Vainio gets help from an old friend in the sorcerer Juan Ponce de Leon.
Much like Jim Butcher���s Harry Dresden series, Magic Ex Libris is a sort of reading crack that you just can���t get enough of. Hines never holds back in what his characters do, but also in what happens to them. He remains true to the story, as well as doing some really crazy stuff, like launching Vainio into space to get some blood for a vampire. A third book in a series can be tricky as it has to build from the second book but not go too far to be just ridiculous. Unbound straddles this tricky ground well and keeps the reader interested throughout with new characters, an expansion of the world and turning the whole concept of the Porters and the magic system on its head. As with all great series, readers will be left wanting more.
Originally written on February 11, 2015 ��Alex C. Telander.
To purchase a copy of Unbound from Bookshop Santa Cruz, and help support BookBanter, click HERE.
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March 31, 2015
Book News: Take This Book and Shove It, Books We Read Too Soon, Do You Need a Reading Intervention & More!
Why I Quit Goodreads
A disturbing article on a Goodreads author and reviewer and how far the author went to defend her work.
Books We Read Too Soon��
A look at some books you were made to read at a younger age that you may appreciate more now.
Interesting People Book Clubs��
A look at some interesting people who should really host their own book clubs.
March 28, 2015
���Symbiont��� by Mira Grant (Orbit, 2014)
The good news is that while Parasite and Symbiont were meant to be a duology, the Parasitology series has now been expanded into a trilogy; the bad news is that things are not getting any easier for Sal.
The SymboGen implants are now getting out of control, as the tapeworms move up the body and eat themselves into the host���s brain, turning the person into a ���sleepwalker��� who will lash out and start attacking at any moment. It���s snowballing out of control and the world is starting to fall apart.
Sal is going to have to work with her team to find out how these tapeworms are being triggered and what they can do to try and . . . save the world. It���s going to require a journey to her old home where this all began, SymboGen headquarters where, even though the world is falling apart around them, is somehow running business as usual.
Symbiont definitely feels like a ���bridging��� book between Parasite and what will be the concluding volume, but Grant keeps the reader interested with some introspective questioning, as well as pulling at the reader���s heartstrings, as Sal is a chimera ��� a tapeworm within a human ��� and yet is also our hero who were are hoping will somehow save the day.
Originally written on February�� 11, 2015 ��Alex C. Telander.
To purchase a copy of Symbiont from Bookshop Santa Cruz, and help support BookBanter, click HERE.
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March 26, 2015
���The Slow Regard of Silent Things��� by Patrick Rothfuss (DAW, 2014)
If the author on the cover doesn���t grab you, then the wonderfully evocative title should. For fans of Rothfuss who are waiting for the third volume of The Kingkiller Chronicles, you may be a little surprised with The Slow Regard of Silent Things. For one, it is a short novella weighing in at 176 pages; for another, it���s not your usual story with a beginning, middle and an end, but more of a peeking into an incredible character���s life and world.
Readers of Rothfuss are already familiar with the special and unique character, Auri, and in this slim volume they get to see her in daily life, in her familiar abode deep below the university and the world we have come to know. Auri is very particular about the place she lives, naming each of the areas and rooms in her own special way. She knows that she will have a special guest coming to see her in a few days and wants everything to be as perfect as possible for Kvothe.
This is the story of Auri preparing herself and her home for a visitor, of how she finds him a special gift, of how she gets everything ready, and how everything needs to be just perfect. It is also the story of this truly unique person and how she functions in everyday life, how she sees the world and acts and reacts in it.
Rothfuss does a splendid job of creating a definitive voice for Auri and the reader really gets to understand her with this point of view, whether it���s about getting her bed ready, traveling to new and scary places, or how she goes about making a new candle. To some it might seem like a dull read, but told in this captivating voice, it is a wonderful story that whisks you away to this special world.
In the afterword Rothfuss admits to feeling very nervous about releasing this story; how it was something that came to him and was very personal about a character who is clearly very special, and how he had little intention of ever publishing it, but was convinced by his editor and agent and friends. It is a story he really wanted to write, and unsurprisingly it turns out be something wonderful and shows a different side to this epic fantasy writer.
Originally written on January 10, 2015 ��Alex C. Telander.
To purchase a copy of The Slow Regard of Silent Things from Bookshop Santa Cruz, and help support BookBanter, click HERE.
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March 25, 2015
BOOK NEWS: Amazon Sends in the Drones, Cozy Bookstores, Reddit’s 105 Top Fantasy Books & More!
Game of Cats
What if the cast of Game of Thrones were really cats!
Harry Potter Spinoffs��
With the main series done, here are some unlikely Harry Potter spinoffs you may not know about.
The Drones are Coming
Amazon gets the okay from the FAA to start testing their drone delivery system.
March 21, 2015
���Desert God��� by Wilbur Smith (William Morrow, 2014)
Taita the eunuch slave returns and is now a man of nobility and seen as a brilliant god by many in the fourth novel involving his character, after he took the stage and gained many fans in his debut, River God. In Desert God, Taita begins the work of removing the terrible Hyksos who have controlled so much of Egypt for so long, bringing the country closer to becoming independent and Egyptian once again.
As adviser to the pharaoh, Taita knows what must be done and begins the long journey first to Mesopotamia and the wondrous hanging gardens of Babylon to forge friendships in this distant land, then it is on to the great island of Crete where he will escort the pharaoh���s sisters to form an alliance and forge a mighty army and navy to take out the Hyksos once and for all. But fate has something great and dooming in store for him.
Fans of Wilbur Smith will be delighted with Desert God, while those trying him for the first time will do just fine, as little back story is needed. This book shows that Smith should really just stick to writing about his favorite character who grows older and wiser with each tale.
Originally written on November 14, 2014 ��Alex C. Telander.
To purchase a copy of Desert God from Bookshop Santa Cruz, and help support BookBanter, click HERE.
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March 19, 2015
���Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage��� by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel (Knopf, 2014)
If you���re a Murakami fan, holding his latest book is always a cause for excitement, and whether you���re a fan or not, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage is a work of art in design from Knopf to be admired by any reader and art lover for its design, color and execution. And the good news is the story from Murakami stands up greatly to this beautifully created book.
After the long-windedness and lengthiness of Murakami���s previous 1Q84, Colorless Tsukuru is short and to the point, featuring some great characters and the sort of story fans have come to love from Murakami. It is the story of five young high school friends who become as close as siblings and do everything together; after graduating four of them stay in town, while Tsukuru Tazaki goes away for college. And then something happens which breaks the group apart and all their lives are changed forever. Tazaki is told to leave the group and never return. He does not know what he has done and the four friends refuse to tell him.
Tazaki lives his life through his twenties and early thirties as a designer of railway stations, a passion he has harbored since he was a child. Upon meeting an interesting girl that he begins to care greatly for, she tells him he should visit each of these former friends and find out why they abandoned him so suddenly and for what reason. His pilgrimage will take him back home to familiar sights and sounds, as well as to Europe where everything is different. Along the way he will learn a lot, but because this is a Murakami book, Tazaki will not always know why. Nevertheless, like all good Murakami, Colorless Tsukuru sucks you in and doesn���t let you go until the last word is read.
Originally written on September 19, 2014 ��Alex C. Telander.
To purchase a copy of Colorless Tsukuru and His Years of Pilgrimage from Bookshop Santa Cruz, and help support BookBanter, click HERE.
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