The Deckled Edge http://booklikes.com/photo/crop/50/50/upload/avatar/9/5/azure_95b361415267b78b9deb4772001016e2.jpg beniowa http://beniowa.booklikes.com 2017-09-26T15:39:14+01:00 http://beniowa.booklikes.com/rss review: Twelve by Jasper Kent 2014-03-11T21:37:00+00:00 2014-03-11T21:37:00+00:00 http://beniowa.booklikes.com/post/820833/twelve-by-jasper-kent beniowa http://beniowa.booklikes.com One cool thing about the book is that the vampires are pretty realistic. They have advantages over humans, but they have weaknesses to even the balance. Another thing is that the vampires don’t actively seek to increase their numbers. Instead, they rely on those that approach them and share a willingness to give up their humanity. Hence, vampirism is as much a state of mind as a disease or even existence as a separate species.

Twelve certainly sounds like an interesting book and it’s the main reason I bought it. Unfortunately, I had a few problems with it. My main complaint is that the book did not feel like a historical novel. Other than political details, there is nothing that made me feel like I was in 19th Century Russia fighting Napoleon. Frankly, the tale could be have been set during Caesar’s conquest of Gaul or the Boxer Rebellion in China for all the importance of the setting. Truly, the book is not about the Napoleonic Wars at all but rather about the main character's battle against the vampires and I think the story suffers for it. To put it another way: if the setting is secondary, why have a vampire story in this time period at all?

Part of the problem with this may be Kent’s prose style. The novel is written in first person narrative yet I had quite a bit of difficulty believing in Aleksei’s motivations and actions. For instance, as an officer, Aleksei has a wife and son in St. Petersburg. He also has a mistress in Moscow, yet his love for her is never convincing. Neither did I believe his “instinctive” hatred for the vampires when all his knowledge of them is from fairy tales told by his grandmother. Aleksei even goes so far as to turn against his fellow comrades. Characterization on the whole was better for the supporting cast then it ever was for the voice of the narrative. The last third of the book, exclusively about Aleksei against the vampires, was nearly a slog to read.

Twelve has a very interesting premise. Unfortunately, I felt the author didn’t quite pull it off. Perhaps I was expecting too much from a book with a historical setting, or maybe I was not in the right frame of mind when I read it. In any case, the book might still appeal to other readers of vampire or horror fiction.

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review: The Martian by Andy Weir 2014-03-11T21:24:00+00:00 2014-03-11T21:24:00+00:00 http://beniowa.booklikes.com/post/820495/the-martian-by-andy-weir beniowa http://beniowa.booklikes.com This is a survival story, albeit one set on Mars when astronaut Mark Watney is accidentally abandoned by his crew after a dust storm.  It's a lot like a feel-good disaster movie with a lot of life-threatening setbacks, plucky can-do spirit and ingenuity, and drama as the main character struggles to survive in the harsh Martian landscape and the whole world tries to rescue him.  It could have been extremely cheesy, but it works and I found it very engrossing.  It helps that the book is about space exploration, a subject very close to my heart.  I also have to give the author a lot of credit for the science.  He really put a lot of thought into how someone might survive on Mars.

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review: The Secret of Abdu el Yezdi 2014-02-25T22:57:00+00:00 2014-02-25T22:57:00+00:00 http://beniowa.booklikes.com/post/803539/the-secret-of-abdu-el-yezdi beniowa http://beniowa.booklikes.com I'm giving this three stars because it was just as well written as the first three books and fans will probably enjoy it.  For my part, I read this mainly to find out if it explained the somewhat confusing cliffhanger of the third book, Expedition to the Mountains of the Moon.  And it does for the most part.  However, while I suspect the author is intending this book to be part of a larger story arc, it feels too much like a re-boot for me to want to start over.  I won't be continuing the series.

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review 2014-02-25T22:49:00+00:00 2014-02-25T22:49:00+00:00 http://beniowa.booklikes.com/post/803530/post beniowa http://beniowa.booklikes.com It wasn't quite perfect and I think it could have cut 30-40 pages and not lost much, but it was haunting and beautifully written. It's like McCarthy's The Road in that despite being very good, I doubt I'd ever read it again because it's simply too depressing.

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review 2013-10-05T00:00:00+01:00 2013-10-05T00:00:00+01:00 http://beniowa.booklikes.com/post/634028/post beniowa http://beniowa.booklikes.com
The planetary romance aspect is decent and interesting, even if the world feels a tad underdeveloped. It was my favorite part of the book. However, because of the other sub-plots, there wasn't as much as I would liked and by the end that side of the book was overshadowed by the politics and mystery.

The politics itself was fine, but there were some lingering plot-holes and background that never got explained. I wasn't expecting the mystery sub-plot at all. Individually, the sub-plots are fine, but altogether they don't really fit quite right. This book is also clearly the start of a series, yet there is no indication of that anywhere until you finish it. I strongly feel that the marketing completely failed to convey an accurate sense of the book.

Finally, there's also the fact that every single character was dull and annoying. I'll give this book three stars because I know there are people who will enjoy it, but ultimately it's forgettable. ]]>
review 2013-09-30T00:00:00+01:00 2013-09-30T00:00:00+01:00 http://beniowa.booklikes.com/post/634030/post beniowa http://beniowa.booklikes.com review 2013-08-26T00:00:00+01:00 2013-08-26T00:00:00+01:00 http://beniowa.booklikes.com/post/634029/post beniowa http://beniowa.booklikes.com
One of the things that intrigued me the most was that the book started in the aftermath of a coup. Normally, this device with be in the middle or end of the plot so this quite refreshing. There's plenty of plots and counter-plots along with a couple of interesting mysteries that hint at what's really going on. The mysteries go hand-in-hand with the world-building, which is revealed slowly, never overwhelming the reader.

The part where this book fails is that by the end, the plot falls back on the standard big battles with lots of magic of many fantasy novels. By the end I was flipping the pages to find out what happened to stage for the next book.

I'm giving this book four stars for a strong first two-thirds, though it's probably closer to three and a half. ]]>
review 2013-08-18T00:00:00+01:00 2013-08-18T00:00:00+01:00 http://beniowa.booklikes.com/post/634032/post beniowa http://beniowa.booklikes.com review 2013-08-13T00:00:00+01:00 2013-08-13T00:00:00+01:00 http://beniowa.booklikes.com/post/634033/post beniowa http://beniowa.booklikes.com review 2013-07-30T00:00:00+01:00 2013-07-30T00:00:00+01:00 http://beniowa.booklikes.com/post/634031/post beniowa http://beniowa.booklikes.com review 2013-07-20T00:00:00+01:00 2013-07-20T00:00:00+01:00 http://beniowa.booklikes.com/post/634036/post beniowa http://beniowa.booklikes.com review 2013-07-15T00:00:00+01:00 2013-07-15T00:00:00+01:00 http://beniowa.booklikes.com/post/634035/post beniowa http://beniowa.booklikes.com review 2013-07-03T00:00:00+01:00 2013-07-03T00:00:00+01:00 http://beniowa.booklikes.com/post/634038/post beniowa http://beniowa.booklikes.com review 2013-06-20T00:00:00+01:00 2013-06-20T00:00:00+01:00 http://beniowa.booklikes.com/post/634039/post beniowa http://beniowa.booklikes.com review 2013-05-29T00:00:00+01:00 2013-05-29T00:00:00+01:00 http://beniowa.booklikes.com/post/634040/post beniowa http://beniowa.booklikes.com
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