Reading Challenge

OK. Maybe I am taking on too much. But I will be joining the Dystopian Reading Challenge being hosted by Blog of Erised. This is not a 4 - Day challenge like the Debut -A- Thon but will last the whole year (what is left of it anyway.

I will aim to finish at least 6 books in the dystopian genre ( Level 1 - Recruit). I have not come up with a list as of yet, but there is still time to do so.

Book Reviews

Sorry I've been away for so long. My days at the office suddenly became quite hectic, so I've not had the time to even open the blog. But fear not!! I have been able to read quite a few books. I have recently finished reading - The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey, The Surgeon & The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen, Amnesia Moon by Johnathan Lethem, The Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu and The Mad Scientist's Daughter by Cassandra Rose Clark.

I had already started on a review of The 5th Wave but had not been able to post it up on the blog. I will do so now and also write what I think of the other books (though the review might not be as elaborate as the one for The 5th Wave)

The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

The book had me in its sights the minute I saw that the description said it was a little like Ender's Game. I am also a sucker for a good post-apocalyptic, dystopian novel. This was a good book. I am looking forward to the sequel in the series. This is why I read trilogies and quadrilogies or any series for that matter, when they are already done or almost done. Then I do not have that agonizing wait ahead of me waiting for the end of the book and closure. Or at least I hope for closure, sometimes the quality of the story in the books slips, by the time the end is near. But one can always hope right? And that is basically the theme of every post-apocalyptic book for me - Hope.

Movies have conditioned us to think that when aliens finally make first contact, then it will either be to befriend us or to destroy us for our planets resources or to enslave us. This book falls in the "they've come to annihilate us" category. We also think (probably because of our egos and Star Trek) that the aliens will resemble us, in some basic way. Like them being bipeds and having a humanoid form. This book counters those beliefs by making the aliens that attack earth into beings of pure consciousness.

The strategy used by the Others, as Cassie calls them, is, I have to say genius. First they put the people on edge by showing themselves and not doing anything for almost 10 days. Then they knock out everything electronic using an EMP blast. This was the 1st wave. The 2nd wave was literally a wave in the forms of tsunamis and the 3rd wave was a plague that leads to the death of nearly 7 billion people. The 4th wave are the silencers. The Others in the guise of humans. So that humans couldn't trust anyone.

This book had good characters. Most of the book was in Cassie's POV. I like that she was not a born Bad-Ass. Before the arrival she was a normal teenager with a crush on a classmate (Ben Parish). She was pushed to the edge when she lost her mother to the plague, seeing her father killed and her little brother taken from her.

In the beginning of the book we find her just surviving. Her only goal - to stay alive to see the next day. She has learnt not to trust anyone. And because of this, when she meets another person after a long while, she does not trust him, even when he is in need. This pushes her over the edge and finding Sammy becomes her lifeline.

Then she meets Evan Walker. Who rescues her when she is freezing to death after being shot in the leg. he nurses her back to life and maybe that is why she does not immediately mistrust him. It is this very human need in her that makes her want to trust him that I love best. This has been written very well. Even when she finds out that he is one of the Others she still wants to trust him. This is what the Others saw as a weakness. But is also humanity's greatest strength along with the ability to love.  

Moving on to the topic of the Others I love that they did not make them up to be some kind of reptilian like life form. Instead they are pure consciousness. Also the conflict between their own ranks where one faction pushes for total annihilation of the human race the other pushes for coexistence. Also the Others, while on Earth conquering the human race, have to be in human form. They have absorbed their human counterparts. Not completely replaced them. It is this dichotomy that Evan Walker embodies. While the majority of the Others find humans repulsive or not deserving of earth, then there is Eva Walker. He feels a sense of liberation in his human body. He seems more in tune with his human side. This is what makes it so difficult for him. He has his loyalty towards his own kind and also the love the feels towards a girl   whose race him and his kind are determined to kill. I lie that the author didn't make him go cold turkey towards killing just because he fell  in love with Cassie. He just spared her and kept on fulfilling his mission of being a Silencer. I appreciate that the author does not take us readers to be dumb and did not bring about a drastic change in either personalities, be it Cassie or Evan. It was his love for her and also his wish to be rid of the duality within him that he does what he does at Camp Haven. 

Camp Haven being compared to Battle School from Ender's Saga might be a bit of a stretch. It is similar yes. But Battle School  was far more dangerous in my opinion. There all the adults were against you (at least that is what the kids felt). Here  at Camp Haven the kids kinda felt secure with their handlers/guardians. 

All in all this was a good read. I guess I went off on a wide tangent with this review. It has become more of a rant. Well maybe you can think of it as a rant about The 5th Wave instead of a review per se. Now that its been a few days since I finished the book I'd rate it a 3.8 (leaning towards 4).

The Surgeon & The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen 

Let me just start off by saying that I love the Rizzoli & Isles TV series. I really enjoy the dynamics between the 2 main leads. Having said that, it was really disappointing to me that the books did not do for me, what the TV series did. I understand that the TV series is an adaptation and not a carbon copy of the book. But I would not have enjoyed the books even if I had not seen the series on TV. The books just did not capture my continued interest. Rizzoli was such a drag. She hated herself, her family, her colleagues (or at least she did not trust them). She did not even have one friend. I'm sorry to say this but this could be because of her attitude. I mean she doesn't always have to act so tough. She acted like being a woman was the worst thing that could happen to her. She could've leveraged the fact that she was a woman quite a few times, but she didn't do that. Not all female cops have to be rigid as she is. She just went on and on about how it is so difficult to be in the police force. I mean I'm sure it is but all she does is whine about it.

The author has not leveraged the rapport/friendship that could be portrayed between Jane and Maura at all. Maybe that happens in the latter books. I'm still debating whether or not I'll read the rest of the series. I rate both the books 2/5.

Amnesia Moon by Johnathan Lethem

I was going through the posts over at the Book Smugglers when I read about The Angry Robot Publishers. I went to their site and was really psyched about the books showcased there. I read a few blurbs of the books on the site and I was very excited about them. Amnesia Moon was one of them.

I did not know what to expect from this book. The description sounded different and intriguing. I still do not know what to make of the book after having finished reading it. If a book is to be classified as good if it makes you keep coming back for more, then this is a good book. But I kept wanting to go back to the book because I could not understand what was going on in the book. It was weird. I can't say if it was a good/bad weird. I think I liked it. It was a plotline with which a lot more could have been done. A lot more could've been done with the concept of the dream sharing. If this was where the story was going this could've been made in to a novella instead of a Novel. Maybe I just didn't get the book (not just maybe, I just didn't understand a lot of the book). But in my opinion it was still a better read than the first 2 installments of the Rizzoli and Isles series. So this was a 2.5/5 for me. 

The Mad Scientist's Daughter by Cassandra Rose Clark

I really liked this book. A lot of people might say this book reminded them of The Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams. But that is not completely accurate. Here Finn, the android, is not looking to 'be' human. He is at peace with the fact that he is a machine. The similarity between this book and Bicentennial Man is that Finn falls in love with Cat & in this book she loves him back. To me this story was reminescent of a small part in teh Asimov book, I, Robot, where a little girl has a robot playmate/nanny. 

This book is not about the fighting for the rights about robots . It is a part of the story but not the core of the story. This is basically a love story in which one of the lovers happens to be an android. And through this book, Cassandra makes us think what being a human really is. I am not saying there was a revelation at the end as to what constitutes humanity. I liked it that it made me think about it, if you know what I mean. It was also made me think of what it would take to love someone for being all that they are and not just what we want to love in a person.

I enjoyed the journey that Cat took in her life. It was a beautiful journey with all the ups & downs. This is the sort of book that you love more once you are finished with it. I really loved this book. I rate it 4.2/5.

The Lives Of Tao by Wesley Chu

Let us get the obvious out of the way. The 5th Wave has a similar setting of an alien being inserted in to the human consciousness. I concede that. But in the case of The Lives of Tao, te alien and the human host co-exist. I mean how great is that? 

This book was not written like a typical Sci - Fi book. It had more of a spy thriller feel for me, that reminded me of the Bourne trilogy. 

Tao liked to call the relationship between him and his host as symbiotic but in my opinion the human did not really have much of a say. He/she had to take part in a war that has been raging for nigh on 500 years between entities that have been stranded on earth for the past 65 million years. There are of course advantages. The human host gets the benefit of all the knowledge accumulated over the lifetime of the alien being - be it Prophus or Genjix.

The writing in this book is quite fast paced. The Prophus who are said to be on te side of humans don't come out smelling of roses in this conflict. But that is the necessity of war. I am unsure of whether this book is a stand alone or a part of a series. I hope it is a series. If it isn't then the ending sucked for me. I would rate this book a 3.7/5.

Read-A-Thon

Though I've been on a book reading spree I thought I could use some direction when it comes to reading. So I am joining a Read - A - Thon being hosted by Books of Amber. I came across her blog on Goodreads and she is hosting a Debut - A - Thon. It is a 4 day Read - A - Thon that focuses on debuts. It will start at 12.00AM June 27th Thursday and end at 11.59PM on June 30th Sunday.

My list of books to tackle this Debut -A- Thon are:

1. Altered by Jennifer Rush
2. Pivot Point by Kasie West
3. Pantomime by Laura Lam

Well I'll leave the list at 3 books. It is very ambitious of me to think I can finish 3 books considering Thursday and Friday are working days. But what the hell. I can read during my commute.

Book Review : On a Pale Horse By Piers Anthony

I cannot believe I haven't read this book before. Or heard of it earlier. The other portrayal of death that I have read is from Sandman by Gaiman. The following is a blurb about the book-

"When Zane shot Death, he learned, too late, that he would have to assume his place, speeding over the world riding his pale horse, and ending the lives of others. Sooner than he would have thought possible, Zane found himself being drawn to Satan's plot. Already the Prince of Evil was forging a trap in which Zane must act to destroy Luna, the woman he loved...unless he could discover the only way out...."

It doesn't sound that exciting, but do not be deceived. This was a great read. It was unexpected. I loved the concept of death being an office that is held. Like any other job, except of course  for the impenetrable cloak, shoes that help you float on water, a gem that is a universal translator, and last but not the least, Mortis. The Death steed, that can turn in to a horse, car, plane, speedboat as the need arises. 

The world that Piers Anthony has built is a great blend of the world of science and magic. Of course the book focuses quite a bit on the magic part. It would have to, the book is from the fantasy genre and not Sci-fi. But in this world the laws of science and the laws of magic co-exist. There are supercomputers and also magical stones that heal and tell you when you might die. There are also cars and carpets that fly. In this world Satan advertises the "virtues" of going to hell. 

In this world there are 5 incarnation - Death, Time, Fate, Nature and War. Unlike Sandman where it is mostly the same person who does this function for eternity, here it is like a beaureaucratic office where different people hold either of these offices at any time. In Death's case the successor is the one who kills the previous person in the office of Death. And this is where our protagonist Zane comes in.

Zane kills Death while trying to commit suicide. And that is how he becomes death. Let me explain why Death came to personally take Zane (because as Zane puts it he is a nobody and did not understand at first why someone as important as death came to personally take him away). Death comes to take those people in whom Good and Evil are in balance, that is their soul is in balance. and it is one of his duties to sort these souls out to determine whether a soul goes to Heaven or to Hell. The one's that he cannot make a decision about are sent to Purgatory, where they become desk clerks and see to the running of Eternity. This means that Eternity is a beaureaucracy.

The definition of Good and Evil are so set in this world that even when someone deliberately tampers with the life support if their mum so that her suffering could finally end, it is considered a grave sin(This is what happened to Zane). The one's that are almost surely all Good are babies. But even babies sometimes are born with the blemish of sin on their souls if they were the result of rape or incest. It is this unfairness that Zane battles as Death. Why should the sins of the parents affect the children just because the rules set millennia ago says so? Zane has to face all this in a world where God is the only one who adheres to the rule of non-interference with the human world. 

Another dilemma faced by Zane is a little spin on sacrifice one/few to save the many. In this case he had to save one, sacrifice many and in the process save humankind. To me it was an example to tell us not to give up. It always gets tougher at the end before we succeed. 

My favorite part of the book was that Death once goes to collect the soul of a man who is an atheist. When he finally collects the soul the soul disintegrates into nothing. This is what the atheist wanted from the afterlife, to go into nothing. So in this world, the afterlife is what someones belief defines it to be. In the same way, Sin or Good are what we think they are. What might be considered a sin might not be so to someone else's perspective, or even to an entire culture. 

The hero and heroine in this book aren't perfect. Zane had a picture of a perfect woman who has never done wrong. But when he finds out that Luna was not perfect he was repulsed by her at first, just for a while, but later fell in love with her for what she was. 

I enjoyed reading this book a lot. Maybe I'm reading too much into the content of this book, but this was what I felt from this book and what I understood. This is my perspective. I give this book a 4.5/5.

Book Review : Flowers in the Attic

This book was a difficult read. Maybe I should have picked a bit more upbeat book. Even though the book was a little depressing I'm glad I read it. The book is about 4 children - Chris, Cathy and the twins Carrie and Cory - whose father has just passed away and they have to move back to their mothers parents house, with their mother. Their grandparents are very rich. So for the sake of the money that the mother would inherit from her parents she allows the children's grandmother (who is a religious fanatic and thinks that the children are the devil's spawn) to hide them away in the attic.

I've read a couple of reviews on the book where the mother has been criticized a lot along with the granny. I'm not saying the mother was not the worst kind of person. She willingly let her children be locked up in the attic without access to the outside world and basically ignored them. But she wasn't always like that. This is apparent in the way the children trusted her almost to the end.

In a part of the story there is a mention of how the grandmother herself was treated when she was little. She was not allowed to touch the Doll House given to her or a Persian Rug that was kept in a glass box. But when her daughter showed interest in these things the grandfather gave them to her as she was the favorite. This might be where the relationship between the granny and the mother could have deteriorated if it hadn't already. Being in that oppressive environment again she could have either stood up to them or buckled and found a way to survive at the expense of her children. I'm not justifying what she did. But it helps us understand where she was coming from. She learnt from a very young age that she could use her beauty to get her way. She had a choice to use it to help herself and the children but she chose to only help herself. In the beginning she had a lot of guilt. She tried to appease that guilt by getting the children a lot of gifts, trying to buy their love. This worked for a while, but not for long.

The book had a theme of history repeating itself. But it also showed what could have been done differently in these cases. Just like Cathy I was frustrated when Chris would always side with the mother. To him his mother could do no wrong. It made Cathy feel like she was the only one full of spite. Knowing this, the mother would always pander to Chris. I think she knew that Cathy would never completely trust her, that maybe, she was a little like her. But once the youngest children's health was endangered Chris stood up to his mother asking they be released. This loss of faith and trust in the one person who is never supposed to betray you was devastating to Cathy. Even though she wanted her older brother to stay the same. Realizing that their mother did not love them anymore but saw them as a burden, broke something in each of the kids.

But at the end the children overcame the evil that was their grandparents house. They did not break like their mother had. Even though throughout most of the book there are many depressing and sad moments, there were also moments of joy and hope. The children strove to keep their happiness. They made a garden of paper and chalk because they couldn't go outside. The older kids became the parents to the younger ones. They still tried to keep their morale high and always stuck together.

One of the things I liked about this book was that the daughter Cathy realized that she would never depend on any one man for her life. She saw that this was in a way the downfall of her mother. The same sentiment was also reinforced by Chris when he tells her that she shouldn't depend on him too much either, and tells her to be independent, her own woman.

It was difficult to read the book. But I couldn't put it down either. I won't say I enjoyed the book. I don't think that's how I should put it. But it gave me a lot to think about. It was a very well written book. It showcased despair and hope very well. I still need to decide if I will be taking up reading the rest of the series. I don't know if I'm up to it. Maybe a little later. I would rate this book a 4/5.

Book Review: Whisper of Death by Christopher Pike

I recently stumbled upon a great blog called The Book Smugglers. I haven't gone through the whole blog but the book reviews that I've read are great. It was in one of these blog entries (about dystopian novels) that lead me to "Whisper of Death" by Christopher Pike.

I didn't know what I was going into when I started the book. But I'm glad I did. Most dystopian or end of the world novels nowadays are mostly to do with the zombie apocalypse. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy a good Zombie book but it makes one yearn for a different kind of scenario. And boy did Pike deliver.

-----Spoilers----

This book is about Roxeanne, an 18 year old girl who gets pregnant. She and her boyfriend decide to abort the pregnancy and on the way back they realize that they are now all alone in the world except for 3 more people in their town. They find all of them have one thing in common - a girl, Betty Sue who had committed suicide a month ago- and start to die one by one. And they die horrible deaths.

The story reminded a little of Carrie by Stephen King. Not in the way that it was a copy but that a few elements were a bit similar. The supernatural phenomenon and the revenge theme was there in both the books but were handled differently. Betty Sue could affect people's lives and thoughts by writing stories about them. Carrie was telekinetic. They both wanted to take revenge on the people who they thought had wronged them. But that is where the similarity ends.

In the case of Carrie at least there was an end to the story. But in the case of WoD the story is more cyclical. As Betty Sue says, she has a million stories to tell. So she can go on torturing those that betrayed her, in innumerable ways. This book will linger with me for quite a while. And to me that is the sign of a great story. It is making me think. To us something that we do might be of the smallest of significance. But the same thing might the greatest affront to someone else. In this case Roxeanne had not really done anything to Betty Sue personally, but she was still used as a pawn in her revenge and had to go through a lot of pain. I know its weird saying this but this is how real life is. A lot of books depict a rosy picture. that no matter what a person does(especially the main protagonist) he/she is usually forgiven or at least moves on and lives a relatively happy life. But that is not the case.    And you don't have to be the bad guy to get the short end of the stick either, like Roxeanne did in WoD.

All in all I really really liked this book. I would rate this a 4 out of 5.

My Trekkie Experience

Since I was little I have seen and heard Star Trek referenced in a lot of books and movies. It has also been mentioned quite a lot in The Big Bang Theory. I understand a few of the mentions, like "Live Long and Prosper" the Vulcan greeting. I had also watched a few random shows when the show was airing on Star World a while back. I've always wanted to watch the complete series as I am a Sci-Fi junkie.

The first Star Trek I watched was Star Trek : Voyager. This show aired after Star Trek : The Next Generation had already been off air for a few years, even though they were from the same timelines. I still remember that this was aired on the Hallmark Channel in India. I absolutely LOVED the show.

The idea that a Starship that has been flung to the other side of the galaxy along with a smaller vessel full of rebels and has to work together to get back home, was great to me. I mean the potential of the story was amazing. And in my eyes Voyager lived up to it. I was unable to finish watching Voyager as the Hallmark Channel was discontinued by my cable operator. I have always wanted to obtain a copy of the series and finish it. Because by then I had come to love the characters (Captain Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, B'lenna, Tom Paris, Harry and of course Neelix and the Doctor).

Just last month a very good friend of mine, Aashith forwarded a link to me. Hulu was streaming the whole Star Trek Franchise for free for a whole week. As you may already know Hulu cannot be accessed from India. But Aashith also found me a way to circumvent the problem. So I started watching Star Trek : The Next Generation. I also started to download the series simultaneously as there was no way a week was enough time to watch it on Hulu in a week. This also prompted me to do the same with Voyager. So now I have all episodes of both The Next Generation and Voyager.

I set out to watch The Next Generation (TNG) & Voyager. There are a few similarities between the two in the sense that TNG has an Android Data who is trying to learn to be more human and Voyager has the Doctor. TNG has Guinan and Voyager, Neelix. Deanna Troi in TNG and Kes in the first few seasons of Voyager. Even though they are the same they were quite different. In case of Data, he could still not achieve the level of humanity he yearned for, couldn't feel emotion. In the Doctor's case he was perfectly happy being the Emergency Medical Hologram in the beginning. But unlike Data the Doctor could add different personalities to his Holo Program and was even able to fall in love. There are similar divergences from the basic stock of characters in the 2 series. That is what makes these series so great to watch.

There might be people (some of them my own friends) who might think this show is just about people flying in spaceships encountering aliens. These shows are so much more than that. If only people would let go of that misconceptions. Ironically this show helps us in that. The show handles a lot of hard hitting issues.

I still haven't finished watching the complete seasons of both Voyager and TNG. Once I do I plan on watching Deep Space 9 next and maybe even watch the original with Shatner in it.i can finally understand the jokes, quotes and obscure references made in many movies/books/series. And I am also evolving in to a pretty good nerd even though I say so myself. But my Trekkie fandom is a fandom of one. At least when it comes to LOTR I have a few friends who love it as much as I do, but there is no one (so far) with whom I can share my love of Star Trek with.

Now that I am watching so much Star Trek I might start making references to it in my conversations with my friends which they might not understand. This leaves me with no choice. Even though I do not like the Borg I would have to take a page from their book and assimilate my friends so that they enjoy Star trek as much as I do. All that's left to say is "Live long and Prosper"