Category: Reviews

Master parent category for all my reviews: books, movies, television shows, restaurants, products.

Book Review: Lighthouse Duology by Berg (4 stars)

I read both of these books (the Lightouse Duology) back-to-back during the Spring of 2010. They came highly recommended from a respected author-friend, who also suggested I read them together as if they were published as one book. I heartily agree with that suggestion.

Flesh and Spirit by Carol Berg

4 of 5 stars

Read in February 2010

Superb storytelling, twisting plots, puzzles and mysteries, and an apocalyptic convergence made for an excellent and enjoyable read. If it weren’t for the press of other book club selections, I would immediately proceed to the second half of this duology, Breath and Bone.

Even though the story is told in the first person, by Valen, it flowed well. I struggled to connect with Valen, a fugitive from his family, constantly on the run and hiding for twelve long years. Magic is strictly registered and contracted among pureblood families and any offspring willful enough to escape the privilege are hunted down relentlessly.

Escaping a battle gone badly, set upon by his own comrade and left to die in a ditch, Valen wakes up in a monastery’s infirmary and claims two weeks sanctuary. Thinking he can hide out among the tonsured brothers, he resolves to join their ranks, vowing falsely to obey their Rule for the rest of his days.

Yet all is not prayer, singing, reading, scribing or toiling among these gentle quiet monks. Valen soon finds more than just the porridge is thickening in the unseasonable cold.

Highly recommended for lovers of fantasy, adventure and apocalyptic fiction.

Breath and Bone by Carol Berg

4.5 out of 5 stars

Read in February 2010

Two worlds, symbiotically connected, only touching each other on the periphery of the senses, plagued by a scourge destroying the human realm which in turn shrinks and blinds the Danae realm. Can a cure be found? Can the world be healed?

But what sacrifice justifies the means? Does Osriel hold the answer in his pact with the ‘devil’? Does Silas’ goal to purge the world of all classes, races and knowledge, to reboot the world in her egalitarian vision offer the best hope? Or Valen, standing astride both worlds, perceiving the health just beyond his grasp, if only he can overcome his past and the obstacles and enemies in his present.

Beautiful world building, stunning prose, intriguing magic system (in both worlds), satisfyingly twisty plot and exceptionally well drawn, deep characters round out this remarkable conclusion to the Lighthouse series.

I highly recommend both Flesh and Spirit and this novel to all fantasy readers. I suggest they be read together, as one large volume.

Book Review: Catching Fire by Collins (4 Stars)

CatchingFirecoverCatching Fire by Suzanne Collins

4 out of 5 stars

Read in October 2011

I read this in record time and surprised myself by liking it better than the first book, the Hunger Games. Katniss’ relationship with her family, friends and handlers evoked more emotions, believability and depth. The Victory Tour provided a glimpse of the wider world, showing me tantalizing bits of the various Districts and the ruins of civilization destroyed during the Dark Days seventy-years before.

I still find it hard to believe that fascism could survive so long. The unbearable inhumane conditions of the District ‘citizens’, the calculated cruelty of the Hunger Games, augmented in this novel by the Quarter Quell, a sadistic 25-year anniversary twist to the regular annual reaping of the rebel Districts’ youth. The cost in lives, and the sacrifices made, reflect a horror I hope we never forget from our own not-too-distant past.

 

Book Review: The Hunger Games by Collins (3.5 Stars)

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

3.5 out of 5 stars

Read in July 2009

I loved this book and yet at times I hated it. Several times it made me cry, nearly sobbing out loud. It never made me laugh and pricked me to anger often.

Katniss lives in District Twelve, an area devoted to coal mining in what was the Appalachian Mountains of North America. Her father died working in the mines and her mother suffered severe debilitating depression after his death. That left Katniss, at age twelve, to provide for her mother and her young sister, Prim. She sneaks out of the confines of District Twelve, underneath a tall electrified fence, to hunt and gather in the nearby woods, keeping them from starving – barely.

Continue reading “Book Review: The Hunger Games by Collins (3.5 Stars)”

Swan Song Encore

For the second night in a row, I spent fifteen or twenty minutes outside, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness before participating in the Great World Wide Star Count.  I relaxed on my upper patio, hiding behind my pile of firewood, which blocks the bright lights from the doctors’ office to my west.  Apollo joined me both nights, enjoying the cool autumn breeze and quiet evening.

I zoomed in on the Northern Cross, also known as the constellation Cygnus, as the target of my naked eye observations both nights.  I printed the observing guide Friday before leaving work.  Despite being surrounded by city streetlights, prison security lighting and a nearly full moon, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I could see down to magnitude five, but not quite to magnitude six, again according to the Northern Hemisphere Observing Guide.

Friday night I even setup the tripod and Canon camera to snap a three second exposure of the constellation Cynus:

Cygnus (just after 9 pm Central Fri 14 Oct 2011)
Cygnus (just after 9 pm Central Fri 14 Oct 2011)

Tonight, rather than setting up the camera, I brought out the binoculars to see if I could discern the blue and yellow stars that make up Albireo in the head of the Swan.  Having to look almost directly overhead and holding the binoculars away from my eyes did not result in a steady enough magnification to confirm.  Perhaps tomorrow night I’ll haul the telescope up out of the basement and get a better, steadier look at that gem.

I need to find another place at least one kilometer away from my house to do a second observation to report back to the website referenced above.  If only Lansing didn’t lock up all of it’s parks promptly at sunset, I might have an opportunity to observe from the new park out west on 4-H Road.

So how many stars can you see of the Swan?  Step outside tomorrow night, give your eyes fifteen minutes to adjust and look directly overhead.

Keep looking up!

A Year in the Life of My Blog

Last year, a few days after my birthday, I scrapped my MySpace blog, mostly due to interface changes, and ventured here to WordPress with a backup blog at Blogger.  My original intention was to journal my astronomical adventures here and do some inspirational topics on the backup site.  While I didn’t blog daily, I did manage to craft over two hundred blog entries here (this being my 225th).

Cygnas (the Swan)
Cygnus (the Swan)

In honor of my original intention to explore the heavens, I wanted to encourage everyone (and motivate myself) to participate in this year’s Great World Wide Star Count.  Don’t be shy!  Anyone can participate and it doesn’t require any equipment beyond your eyes.  This project is an annual survey of the night sky, held this year between October 14th and 28th (7-9 pm optimal viewing window) to record how many stars you can see in the constellation Cygnus (the Swan) in the northern hemisphere (follow the link above if you reside Down Under).  This helps map the spread of light pollution.  I plan to get out my telescope (for the first time this fall) and view the beautiful blue/yellow double-star Albireo. I can’t tell from the survey’s website if they are affiliate with the IDA (the International Dark-Sky Association), but I’m doing my bit (via this blog) to raise awareness about the value of dark skies and their preservation and restoration.

And now, a brief retrospective of some of my favorite blog entries (indicated with asterisks) from the past year and a few popular (according to the stats) highlights:

Sevens and Seventy-Sevens

I rarely turn the radio on in my car.  I will when I’m driving the van, because forty-five minutes is a long time to maintain a conversation.  But when I step out of the van and start up my car for the two mile drive home, there just doesn’t seem any point to turning on the radio.  The fall weather this week begged me to open all four windows, though, and crank the volume.  So I did.  I caught the tail end of a Scorpions song on 101 the Fox (don’t ask me which one … it was probably “Rock You Like a Hurricane” … but I’m not entirely sure).  The next song immediately grabbed my attention, as I hadn’t listened to it for years.

The Grand Illusion (Styx 1977)
The Grand Illusion (Styx 1977)

First, let’s take a giant leap backwards to the late 70s, specifically July, 7, 1977, the release date for the seventh album of a band I couldn’t get enough of in my early adolescence . . . Styx.  Back then, I barely knew what rock ‘n’ roll was.  Heck, I hadn’t even officially made it to the ‘teen’ years yet at that point.  But over the coming months, you couldn’t turn on a radio without hearing “Come Sail Away” or “Angry Young Man” or “Miss America” or, as I heard last night “The Grand Illusion.”

I’ve played piano since I was five (more than forty years), so I naturally gravitated to Dennis DeYoung‘s compositions (my all-time favorite being “Castle Walls” from this album, but my favorite to perform is “Pieces of Eight” from the eighth album released the following year).  And, yes, I could play at least the opening to “Come Sail Away” from memory when I was in high school, along with the Entertainer, which was still popular thanks to that movie with Newman and Redford starring in it.

So even though I arrived home mid-way through the Grand Illusion, I sat in the garage, with the windows rolled down and the stereo blaring until I reached the bubble-bursting end-of-song stanza below:

America spells competition, join us in our blind ambition
Get yourself a brand new motor car
Someday soon we’ll stop to ponder what on Earth’s this spell we’re under
We made the grade and still we wonder who the hell we are

Back in the late 70s, before the recession (and heat wave) of the early 80s, and the dot-com bubble pop that followed later (was it the 90s or the 00s?) and now the ‘Great Recession,’ I can really feel the pain of these words.  Does America still spell ‘C-O-M-P-E-T-I-T-I-O-N’? or have we outsourced it all?  Are we blind to ambition or just blind?  I have yet to purchase a ‘brand new motor car’ and probably never will.  I’ve been pondering for decades what spell we’ve deluded ourselves with because I still don’t think I’ve made the grade and I think Roxy has more of an idea who she is than America does right now.

So I’ll close with a quote from my aforementioned favorite song from the Grand Illusion album, something I previously  consider a mantra, but have long since moved on to something more positive, encouraging and inspiring (check out Phil. 4:8 for my ‘life verse’):

Life is never what it seems
And every man must meet his destiny

To Scream or Keep Silent, That Is the Dying Question

Scream by Edvard Munch
Scream by Edvard Munch

September went into a tailspin about a week ago.  I can’t remember the last time I actually received personal good news from family or friends.  Death or dying and depression crowd around me, jostling for position and attention, blotting out my surroundings: beautiful sunrises and sunsets, crystal clear night skies bursting with twinkling stars, perfect weather any southern California native would drool over.

I woke up this morning after having tossed and turned and lost the skirmish with my sheet and pillows.  Apollo couldn’t wait to jump up and greet me with a wagging tail and unconditional canine adoration.  Roxy slept on, sprawled on the floor, oblivious to anything but her dreams of breakfast.  I rubbed the crusty, dried sleep from my eyes, slipped on my reading glasses and woke up my Nook to see what had happened in the wider world while I pretended to sleep.

I soon read the sad, tragic news of the death of Sara Douglass (aka Sara Warneke).  I discovered this astounding Aussie female fantasy writer a half dozen years ago and loved everything she wrote, especially Threshold, the first novel I found written by her.   As I perused the various postings on Twitter and Facebook about her passing, I found her blog post from March 2010 she entitled “The Silence of the Dying.”  I took a few minutes to read the entire post, after which I couldn’t help but shiver, especially after the seemingly prophetic nature of the most recent Doctor Who episode “Closing Time” wherein the Doctor seems to fall apart (emotionally) as he approaches the day of his death (flashback to the start of this season and the “Impossible Astronaut“).  He even utters some dialog containing the words ‘silence’ and ‘dying.’

After reading Sara’s thoughts on how modern society sticks it’s head in the sand with respect to death (and the dying), I pondered my own situation.  Part of my September tailspin centers on a sharp worsening in my health.  Par for the medical course, I’m running the gauntlet of various tests, procedures and eventually a biopsy (scheduled for mid-October), all of which amounts to endless waiting for results and the accompanying anxiety.  Just as Sara describes in her blog post, I prefer to keep silent, as I don’t want to appear ‘weak’ by complaining.  Of course, at this stage of the ‘game’ I’m not in much pain or discomfort (not compared to what Sara or other cancer victims endure).  And I must put up a good front for my husband, one of the chronically ill routinely maligned or ignored by modern day society.  He needs me to be ‘strong’ and I will remain so as cheerfully as I can.

Normally, I look forward to the beginning of October and the advent of autumn with peace and joy in my heart.  Of course, the fact that my birthday occurs the day after the first of October wouldn’t have anything to do with that would it?  But this year, no birthday cake with sputtering scores of candles will great me.  Instead, my husband and I will travel south, to his home town, to console and support his life-long friend and his wife in the sudden and unexpected loss of her mother, so soon after his mother’s death.  Oh, and their dog died last week in the midst of all this family tragedy.

I am full of unanswered questions and troublesome, uncomfortable thoughts today, ones that I wish I had the courage to shout out on a street corner to the self-absorbed oblivious passersby.  Rather than deprive a homeless person of their accustomed spot, I will jump up on my bloggity soap box instead.

From a Christian worldview, I can understand some of the silence surrounding death and dying.  Jesus conquered the grave, therefore, it follows, that we can sweep this whole messy business of dying under the proverbial rug.  (Yes, I’m being sarcastic).  Yet, even Jesus wept (and raised Lazarus from the grave).  Jesus also suffered, but not silently, and died, nearly alone, on a cross we nailed him to, at a crossroads dung heap outside Jerusalem.  Two thousand years later, we’ve sanitized and compartmentalized dying, hiding it from ourselves so we can ignore the writing on our own walls.

I ask that you stop for a moment and spend time, yes, that very precious commodity you can never, ever get back, with a friend or family member who is dying.  Don’t send flowers, or stuffed animals or Hallmark cards.  Give them comfort.  Don’t expect them to put you at ease about their situation.  Embrace the truth.  For you know, it’s not ‘if’ we’re going to die, it’s when.  We’re all dying.  And I, for one, will not go silently into the night.

An Evening at the Family Tech Support Opera

The names have been changed to protect the innocent, except in the case of my daughter, who has an understanding and equally sarcastic nature comparable to my own. And I’m just as guilty as those family members I poke fun at below in seeking their expertise with respect to technology of a different flavor.  The generation that preceded me has years of hands-on experience applicable to the infrastructure we depend on everyday (electricity, plumbing, mechanical know-how, etc.), while I’ve spent years storing up knowledge of a less concrete kind (aka information technology).   Frequently, I reinforce to all family members when they come calling that “I don’t do hardware” so as long as we keep things soft, I’m all ears and ready to help.

One night this past week, after a dinner, my husband and I decided to watch The American, a movie starring George Clooney, something we’d recorded to DVR several weeks ago and just hadn’t gotten around to watching.  Thirty minutes into the movie (with more dead bodies than dialog), I received a text message alerting me to an e-mail from a family member (while we can both claim to be of the Baby Boomer generation, he was in the vanguard, while I squeaked in the rearguard), who had just purchased a Nook Color, detailing some of his frustrations with the accessories.  I grabbed my own Nook Color and logged into my Yahoo mail account to retrieve the entire message (too slow via my dumb phone).   Since I had recommended the Nook Color, and the anti-glare scratch protector accessory in question, I felt chagrined by his difficulty in wasting two of the expensive covers in two attempts to align and adhere to the Nook Color’s screen (without bubbles or dust or grit getting between the protecting plastic and the glass screen).

Since the movie bored me to tears, I grabbed my phone and headed upstairs to my library (formerly my daughter’s ‘green’ bedroom).  I called my frustrated family member and caught him mowing his lawn.  I volunteered to send him my spare anti-glare screen protector (I applied mine correctly the first time which is a miracle … see ‘I don’t do hardware’ above), but he declined.  We spoke briefly about his buying experience and lack of wifi at his home.  He returned to his mowing and I called B&N customer service to learn more about how (and if) ebooks purchased from B&N Online could be synced to the Nook Color in the absence of wifi, using only the mini-USB cable and his wired home computer.

Rather than return to the movie, I finished reading Leviathan Wakes, the scifi space opera selection for September at the GoodReads SciFi & Fantasy Book Club.  I called the family member back, ready for a long call on how to download ebooks and transfer them to the Nook Color from your computer.  He had already attempted to use Adobe Digital Editions (ADE), which is required for checking out ebooks from most libraries (see this excellent “how to” article created by the Kansas City Public Library for more information).   ADE correctly recognized his Nook Color, but no matter what we did, we couldn’t drag an ebook to his device.  I gave up on that and promised more research (which I did the next day, turning off wifi on my Nook Color and successfully dragging newly downloaded ebooks to it from ADE).

Next I helped him download public domain ebooks from Project Gutenberg and Feedbooks, going step-by-step (and ‘blind’ in my case, doing it all from my memory) from where the file was downloaded on his computer, to finding the correct folder on the Nook Color’s virtual drive (the J: drive in his case), even renaming some of the epub files to make them easier to find on the Nook and wrapping up the process with the ‘safely remove hardware’ feature of Windows Vista (another ‘amazing’ feat of tech support, since I’ve rarely ever used Windows Vista and relied on the theory that Microsoft programmers were inherently lazy and didn’t change the dialog boxes much between Windows XP and Windows Vista).  Shockingly (well, not to me anyway), he had never used the Safely Remove Hardware feature before.

In the midst of this long phone call requiring intense concentration on my part, I heard my phone blip at me several times.  I assumed I received some text messages or other e-mail alerts.  Imagine my surprise when my husband opens the door to my library holding his phone out to me telling me it’s our daughter.  Wondering why she couldn’t just talk to her dad while I was otherwise occupied with my own phone, and worried something horrific had occurred (stupid, I know, but I’m a mother), I put the other family member on temporary hold and took my husband’s phone to my other ear.  The first words out of my daughter’s mouth were:  “The text in this table keeps bleeding past the table boundaries …” Can you see my eyes rolling up into the top of my head?

Once my brain rebooted from the overload, I told my daughter I’d call her back in about thirty minutes and also told her to e-mail me the document she couldn’t format correctly.  Returning to my other phone call, I reviewed the process two more times with him, watching (well really listening to his astronaut-esque recitation of what he was doing in the absence of a video feed) perform the download/transfer process successfully twice.  I gave him a couple of tips for re-arranging and removing items on the Nook Color home screen and called it a night.

I returned back downstairs, to wake up my laptop so I could fire-up Word in anticipation of rescuing my daughter’s document.  I checked my Yahoo e-mail account but had not received anything from her.  I called her and she thought she had sent me the e-mail with the document attached, but had forgotten to click the send button.  My eyes rolled up into the top of my head again and came back down when I finally received the e-mail.  With her still on the phone talking to me (I put it on speaker phone so her dad and I could both listen and talk to her while I typed), I deleted a couple of misused drop caps and inserted some hard paragraph marks in the overloaded table cell, saved the file and returned it to Rachelle.  She’d already left her computer but returned and didn’t like where I’d put the hard paragraph marks so I let her in on the secret (which works whether you use MS Word or OpenOffice like she does):  To insert a hard paragraph mark, hold down the Shift key and then press the Enter key.   Terry and I said goodnight to Rachelle and I went to bed to dream of something other than ones and zeroes, bits, bytes or anything remotely related to information technology.

For those looking for free or cheap ebooks to purchase and download to your Nook, here’s a handy list of my favorite frequently used sites:

Amy Pond Outshines the Doctor

Perhaps being turned into a giant wooden doll while trapped in a dollhouse stored in a scared boy’s cabinet left Amy with some unresolved anger issues.  Last week’s forgettable episode, Night Terrors, disappointed on many levels (weak story and acting on the part of the bit players).  Creepy Doctor Who episode I hope to forget sooner rather than later.  Thankfully, last night’s episode, The Girl Who Waited, provided excellent science fiction (including  a time travel paradox unresolvable by either the Doctor or the TARDIS) and phenomenal acting from both Karen Gillan (as Amy Pond) and Arthur Darvill (as Rory Williams).  While this episode doesn’t contribute much to the overall story arc for this season (the Doctor’s death), the character growth glimpsed in both Amys and Rory will knock your socks off.

A great stand-alone episode of Doctor Who I highly recommend for your viewing pleasure.

Book Review: To Ride Hell’s Chasm by Janny Wurts (5 stars)

I returned from Dragon*Con yesterday, after having a great visit with Janny, and realized I had not published my review of her excellent stand-alone fantasy novel To Ride Hell’s Chasm, which I read nearly two years ago (and the story and characters are still vividly engraved on my mind).   I highly recommend this novel.

To Ride Hell’s Chasm by Janny Wurts

5 out of 5 stars

Read in October 2009

I finished this two hours ago (on 10/18/2009) and my emotions still wring me with spasms. The breakneck ride to the end felt like the crest of a tsunami or a primal volcanic eruption. I absolutely could not tear my eyes away from the page, nor turn them fast enough to keep up as the story unfolded.

For the first half of the novel, I struggled a bit to connect with the characters, but Mykkael and Anja’s crucible experience came into visceral focus, never letting go their grip on my heart until the last song was sung.

I must force myself to keep this brief, because anything I discern or divulge will spoil the ride of your life down Hell’s Chasm.

I highly recommend this outstanding stand-alone fantasy novel by Janny Wurts.

Beyond Reality October 2009 Fantasy Selection (click here to peruse the discussion thread and feel free to post questions or comments).