Review: The Paradox Trilogy by Rachel Bach

Series:  Paradox by Rachel Bach

1. Fortune's Pawn
2. Honor's Knight
3. Heaven's Queen

Hey guys.  Ever have that one relationship that transcends your understanding of love?  The one that makes you realize that everyone you've met in the past was just a test run for this real thing?  That relationship that, once it ends, makes you realize you'll never find anything like it again - and are therefore slightly hollow for the rest of your life?

Yeah, me neither.

I have, however, read the Paradox trilogy by Rachel Bach, and that's almost as good.

This is the series of books that made me realize that I could, in fact, be interested in Science Fiction.  Before this series, I had only read a couple of the classics (most notably Dune), and while I enjoyed them, I wasn't inspired to love the genre as a whole.  This is the series of books that changed it all.

Why?  I don't have any definitive answer, but I suspect I have a few reasons.  

1. Deviana Morris herself

I love reading books with strong female characters.  They don't have to be sword- or gun-wielding, but being more than a damsel-in-distress is pretty great.  And Devi is the type of woman who names her guns (and her super-powered space armor).  She goes for what she wants without any apology - without being a complete asshole about it.  She's not afraid to pick a fight if that's what's necessary, and she knows that what's right isn't always easy - but worth fighting for all the same.  She has a healthy approach to sex and relationships...even if those relationships can cause problems in the future.  While she appreciates a fine masculine physique, she doesn't become a puddle of googly eyes and insipidity the second her man-love walks into the room - and gets incredibly pissed if he screws her over. You know, like a real person.  I want to hug her, but I suspect that she might punch me if I tried.

2, Adventures in SPAAAAAACE

Oh, man.  There is so much going on here.  Alien races.  Mysterious deaths.  "Invisible" monsters.  A secret society.  Twisted "magic".  Saving the universe. "Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles!"  (Okay, that last bit is a quote from The Princess Bride but you know what I mean.)  There are a few calm moments throughout the series, but for the most part this is a driving narrative that Deviana drives through to the end.  Each book expands on something introduced in the previous volume, giving the setting depth and dimension, making it feel like a real place.

3. Mystery/Quest

Fortune's Pawn starts out with our dauntless heroine taking a job that is deceptively dangerous.  While everyone knows that the ship - and whatever its mission is - leaves a trail of dead bodies behind it, it's not clear why.  By the time the real reason for the wake of corpses is revealed, the stakes have been raised so high it's hard not to inhale the next chapter...and the next...and the next, right up until the series is over and you're left feeling spent and satiated.

This isn't to say that the series doesn't have problems:  Devi gets into and out of scrapes faster than any twelve normal people and rarely has anything to show for it other than a few bruises.  Also, the entire ending of the series gets wrapped up a little to neatly for my taste - including a cameo by a Super Important Person that borders on deus ex machina.  It's a bit more of a fairy tale ending rather than a super space epic war-for-all-life type of ending, but I suspect that most people don't mind a happy ending.

To sum up:
Read this series.  Read it right now.

Book Review: Crown of Midnight

Crown of Midnight by Sarah J Maas
Book 2 of Throne of Glass

After a year of hard labor in the Salt Mines of Endovier, eighteen-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien has won the king's contest to become the new royal assassin. Yet Celaena is far from loyal to the crown – a secret she hides from even her most intimate confidantes.

Keeping up the deadly charade—while pretending to do the king's bidding—will test her in frightening new ways, especially when she's given a task that could jeopardize everything she's come to care for. And there are far more dangerous forces gathering on the horizon -- forces that threaten to destroy her entire world, and will surely force Celaena to make a choice.

Where do the assassin’s loyalties lie, and who is she most willing to fight for?

Review:
Oh my goodness, you guys.  
Seriously.

I read this book last weekend and had to look for the right gifs to do it justice.
This is the Celaena book we've wanted:  she's put in moral dilemmas, she has squee-worthy romance moments, she finds and loses friends, she gets all dressed up and she also straight-up murders the crap out of people.  There are reveals.  There are Serious Moments.  There is humor.
Basically:

 It's just....it's so much.  My poor little heart, cold and reptilian though it might be, was struggling to handle all the input it was getting.  (Randomness of the day:  when I tried to type "input" my finger muscles typed "pinup" instead.  Make of that what you will.)

So now Celaena is the King's Champion, which is great because it means she didn't die in a tournament for the honor.  Score.  The downside is that she is under contract for four years.  And it's not like the king is friggin' Arthur or something.  So her gig pretty much involves slaughtering people that are basically decent because she has the skills to do it.  She doesn't want to, but King Jerkwater has threatened to murder everyone she loves if she doesn't toe the line.

Mistress Kick-butt's reaction to the king's "plans"

Well, Our Lady Death-in-a-Dress decides she's not buying garbage that King Douchecanoe is peddling and is doing her best to weasel all sneakily out of killing sort-of innocent people. So we get Cunning Celaena and Secret Rebel Celaena.  One mission goes somewhat awry and she becomes Knife Fighter Celaena.  Then something spoilery-so-shall-not-be-revealed happens and she becomes Super-Murder Hyper-Slaughter Celaena.  (I liked that part.)  

Readers get to see more of her tender side when she finally - FINALLY - gets the guy that's been admiring her for longer than he cares to admit.  She's gooey on the inside.  Aww.
But even with her marshmallow center, her outer shell isn't made of candy.  It's made of titanium, and Not-Taking-Any-Bullsh*t Celaena draws a line in the sand and breaks her own heart to stay on the correct side of it.  When our heroine is at the lowest of the low, even I needed a hug. 

She can be decorative.  She can be petty.  But she also uses her brain more often than not.  She has a line even she will not cross.  She even has secrets that she hasn't revealed to the reader (which shouldn't have been a surprise, but still was because I was doing the reading equivalent of the "Phoebe Run" through this book).

To sum up:  We get to see our legendary assassin actually get bathed in blood.  We get to see her fall in love and dress all pretty.  We get to see her show her moral mettle - and suffer for her sacrifices.  AND we get a frickin' cliffhanger that makes me want to grab the next book.  Which is, of course, nowhere near being published.  

Read this book.  Read it right now.* 

5 stars!  

*"now" means "after finishing the first book"

A "shining" review

In preparation, or rather anticipation for the upcoming novel by Stephen King called Doctor Sleep (September 24, 2013) I decided it was finally time to read The Shining.  I have grown up knowing who Stephen King is. He was a guy who wrote scary, horror stories that turned into scary, horror movies on T.V. or the big screen that I was not allowed to watch, yet.  I watched the Stanley Kubrick version of The Shining in college and was scared out of my mind while my boyfriend was sitting next to me in awe of Kubrick’s filmmaking abilities.  Over the years I have picked up a few of King’s works like The Stand and part of The Dark Tower series but I never picked up some of his scarier books.

Earlier this year I heard murmurings that Stephen King was writing a sequel to The Shining and was immediately intrigued. What makes an author go back to story after thirty-five years? Especially, an author who tends to only write stand-alone novels? Since I drive a lot for work, I decided to listen to The Shining and I was not disappointed. First of all, the story was written very well. We do not only get the perspective of one character, but all four of the main characters. I really liked this change in perspective because each character had a story to tell and all of their voices were necessary to complete the picture.  

We see young Danny Torrence who is trying to understand the thoughts he hears from others, most notably his parents and make sense of the world, which is hard for any five year old. We hear Wendy’s inner thoughts about her controlling mother, her fears about her son and her jealously over her husband and son’s close relationship. Jack Torrence, the man who eventually gets consumed by the hotel, is one of the most tragic characters I have read. We learn about growing up in a household with an abusive father, his struggle with alcoholism and every other event that led him to take this caretaker job. You are angry at him but also sympathetic. We even get the inner thoughts of Dick Halloran, the Overlook’s Chef, who “sees” Danny right away and explains “the shine” to him.  All of the feelings of these characters are explained in such a realistic way that these are not just characters in a book they are people you know or perhaps thoughts you have had yourself.

I listened to this story on audiobook instead of reading it and Campbell Scott did a superb job. He did not make a lot of changes in his voice when speaking when changing characters but when the hotel starts to get a hold of Jack you can hear it.  The good thing about listening to the story is that you do not miss a detail. The book is a little over-descriptive at times and some of the inner monologues become a little repetitive but overall the flow of the story worked well and transferred to audio format successfully.

I decided to watch the movie again as I was reading the book and the contrasts were startling. My boyfriend from college turned into my husband and he was still amazed at the cinematography. We both loved how the camera just followed little Danny and his tricycle (power-wheels!) around and around the hotel. I was of course, still scared out of my mind and angry at the many changed Kubrick made. There is no slow change that comes over Jack, he looks crazed from the beginning. At the beginning of the novel the family of three seems to have fun. They go to town a few times and during the first snow they sled together. There are random strange incidents that happen to give a sense of foreboding and you get the feeling that each family member is wary of their surroundings and has a bad feeling about the place but with nowhere else to go they are stuck, until literally they are stuck under feet of snow. In the movie,  Jack Nicholson did a great job and that look in one of the early scenes he gives his wife and child outside playing in the snow will haunt my nightmares for a long time. But he seems condescending and snide with his wife and child from the start and it is no surprise that he goes crazy and tries to kill them after a few months with them.  There could be a book written on the differences so I won’t go further but the change in the character of Jack was one of the biggest disappointments for me.

I cannot wait to read Doctor Sleep. If I can wait long enough and if Campbell Scott will read it to me I might wait for the audiobook. For such a terrifying book, I think I will need listen to it in the daytime, with the light shining down on me.

Rating 5/5 stars