Yes, I did just post one. Yes, I really should be sleeping, otherwise Ill miss shakespare lecture tuesday for the......6th week running. Oh well....

Im reviewing one of my favourite series and for all of you that judge thusly, its manga. Run away now.

Namely, the manga series Rebirth. Actually, its Manwha, being korean, but still good.

Plenty of those amusing manga moments with facefaults and out-of-proportion mouth extensions.

Basically, the story starts of with a bunch of morons (professors of paranormality...yeah, they die, we can skip them) the daughter of one of them, and the exorcist hired to help them. It starts in a place in Europe which is nothing like eastern high carpathian dracula land. Really.

Monsters attack. Humans die horribly. One monster slain by exorcist (who is laughably weak) blah blah blah, vampire emerges from monsters remains. here is Deshwitat! Call him Desh.

after a few wellplaced manlove moments, Deshwitat saves the two girls. To do this, he has to suck the blood of the father of the aforementioned daughter, turning him into a soon-to-bezombie vampire. To avoid this, he burns him and turns him into The Dust Of Death. Yes, its corny, and so very TP, but it sounds better in Korean, I hope.

So, to explain - Deshwitat and his love, Lilith (bible abuse abounds btw) were killed by his once friend, Kalutika, who has recently become a god.

He now wishes to destroy the world. Hey, why not. Theres a big arc in volumes 5-12 which goes back in time to explain all the subtleties.....Enjoy the bits where it seems one of the male characters is wearing drag queen makeup. Also a great joke using the word "Dandy".

This is a fun, violently dark story with a lot of action, sexy costumes and interesting, if a tad predictable, plot twists. Ill now list its bad points.

Occasionally, bits just dont make sense. Secondly, at times its oversimplified or repetitive (Think alex's goldfish comment earlier)
Thirdly...character wise, its a mess. Some of them are great as cliches. some are great as against type. And some...generic. Probably the worst is the one I swore was a chick for 2 books....that was bad.

On the positives - theres a few great descriptions of love in it. And no, not all violent...ok, yeah, mostly. Some are possessive, some are protective, some are just plain strange (the old lady is a bit creepy!). It is, technically, a love story (so far, may change) and a mix of religions show up. Theres some really interesting costumes in it (which the author mocks in the extras) and I actually like the female characters.

So no one thinks Im misogynistic, I will explain this.

A: I doubt any of you can match me in my anime and manga nerdiness. If one of you has endeavoured to do so, then I aplogi- well, youll agree with me.
B: Manga females, unless its shoujo or such, are often crap. Fillers. Useful, amusing, but as people? No. Not always, but often.

So, I usually hate them. Or at least, the creators for them. Here, I liked them. Millenear is a vampire writers dream! Or nightmare, depending. In fact, now that i write this, its eerily creepizoiding how similar they are to us...

Overall, its readable, enjoyable, and emotionally amusing. Nothing heavy, but fun. If anyone in Chch wants to, ask me for all the english volumes released.

The Dreamers' Quartet - David & Leigh Eddings

The Dreamers Quartet: The Elder Gods, The Treasured One, Crystal Gorge, The Younger Gods

David & Leigh Eddings

David Eddings is undoubtedly one of the father-figures of fantasy fiction. He is commonly credited with inventing what is now known as “generic fantasy fiction.” As such his older works can seem a little stale and predictable if you have read vast quantities, but as the creator of it, he should still be applauded.

I wasn’t sure what this quartet would be like when I picked it up. Being Eddings I was well aware that it could be more of the same old same old. Yet from works such as The Redemption of Althalus I know it could be fantastically different.

I’ll get it out of the way now: I didn’t entirely like this series. It was relatively different to Eddings’ previous work, and had some interesting ideas flowing round in it, but it just didn’t sit right with me. I’ll get back to this point later.

Brief synopsis of the whole thing: On a planet somewhere out there in a universe is a continent called the Land of Dhrall. It is split into 5 parts, 4 of which are the domains of different sibling gods and goddesses. Each god watches over their land (North, South, East or West) for a few eons, and then goes to sleep. When they are sleeping, their counterparts awaken and take charge for the next few eons. Each phase the order of hierarchy among the gods changes to keep things fair.

In the centre of this continent is a wasteland. It is ruled by something called the Vlagh. It is effectively a giant insect queen that tampers with genetics. Each time the insect nation come up against a problem the Vlagh goes into a cocoon and figures out what natural tools her next brood should be born with, and then lays a clutch accordingly. Unfortunately she is not bound by natural limitations to evolution so her children can be part mammalian, part insectoid, and so on. Anyway, like all good insects, basically their aim is to find more food, and grow the family. So their eyes have turned out of the Wasteland, beyond the encircling mountains, to the other parts of Dhrall. While the insects still only live for about 6 weeks at most, the Vlagh seems to be eternal, and directs her brood through an insect overmind setup.

Human life has not been going for all that long on Dhrall (still in the stone age more or less, some being tribal-hunting lands, some being farming communities) and the Gods become concerned about their wellbeing if the Vlagh is going to start attacking them. Thus they go overseas to find other more developed civilisations (who know about bronze, and iron etc) and recruit them all to fight in Dhrall. The Gods themselves are bound not to kill any creature, or perform activities that will knowingly bring about death – to Humans, animals, or the Vlagh’s brood – which is why they needed other people to fight for them.

Over the 4 books, 4 pivotal battles are fought against the Vlagh, with lots of extra stuff happening around them. The plot in general is rather cool, with clever conventions and twists to keep it interesting. There is a little too much dues ex machina but that’s only to be expected when you have 4+ gods involved in the world.

The characters are very Eddings typical characters. They are painted with very broad strokes. One race all seem pretty much the same except for a few characters with extra colour running through their personality. The next race can be completely different to the first, but all the same within their community. All these conflicting personalities are thrown together to overcome the big issues. It’s something that works well for Eddings.

It makes for a fair quartet. Not bad reading, and once you start you will want to know the end. But I’m just hazarding that you may want to spare yourself some pain and not bother entirely. It’s up to you.

I will say this before I start moaning. The first book was really good. Truly it was fantastic. It hooked me enough to want to read the rest of the series no matter how bad as I wanted to know the conclusion. Books 2-4 were sloppy, and not as tight or well prepared.

Now on to my gripes: My biggest one is that the storyline repeats itself. I’m not just meaning that the same things happen in each situation, I am literally meaning that you keep getting the same plot happening in exactly the same time.

Why? Somewhere between writing the first and second books the Eddings’ decided that character development could be furthered much better if we got to see the past (and present!) that moulded them. As such the reader is subjected to frequent detours and repetitious material for both main characters and minors. They’re not simply: Hold up! When this dude was young his life was like this…

They go further than that and you end up reading about the same battles, the same meetings, and the same journeys multiple times.

Now I accept this was an attempt to show that different people see situations differently depending on their upbringing and process of evolution, but it’s BORING. It could have been done well, but in my opinion it wasn’t. Hearing the same guy describe the plot of the previous books from 3-4 different points of view is not cool! It’s not needed. Hell I just read the previous books! Please don’t treat me like a moron with a 5 second attention span and the short term memory of a goldfish! Reading about the deep past is useful, reading internal responses to the current situations is also interesting, but having them simply relate the same narrative of events with only a couple of personal thoughts about it is not good.

Frankly it ruined what could have been a really good series. Sorry.

The transitions between 3^rd and 1^st person narrative is also choppy and unpleasant at times. There was no 1^st person in book 1. It came in in book 2, and that was about when I started to think “uh-oh.”

Maybe it’s just me. Perhaps I wasn’t in the right frame of mind for the books, or not the targeted audience. Maybe you should read them to see what they’re like first-hand, as my response is evidently shrouded in distaste and bias. They are good writers, but this effort failed in structure, in plot and conventions it was right up there.

I will say this: The ending was not what I expected. I personally felt cheated, angry and let down to some degree, but also satisfied that it wasn't predictable to the end. A spectrum of feelings has been awoken in me while reading this book and perhaps that makes it epic. I love and hate it, find it interesting and boring, innovative and generic, bland and full of twists, fulfilling and emptying.

The final thing I would like to say is this: may the spirit of Leigh Eddings rest in peace in whichever world she escaped to. She provided countless contributions to almost all of David’s works, whether her name is on the front or not. It will be interesting indeed to see what David comes up with in the future, without the direct influence of his equally talented wife. Although being 76 himself he may just be ready to hang up the pen.

Dragon's Fire - Anne and Todd McCaffrey

I actually did a review for the Todd-only Pern novel a while back (Dragon’s Blood). I can’t figure out whether this one is before or after – I think before, as in this one they haven’t started their exploration of the Southern Continent.

Anyway, the brilliant thing about the Dragons of Pern series is that you can pick up any one of the books and pretty much throw yourself straight into the story. I mean there’s not much to remember for the books’ premise: Sci-fi/ Fantasy world with dragons that was colonised by our descendants escaping Earth. Sister planet orbits too close every once in a while and drops the evil life-form called thread. Dragons burn thread, everybody happy…

Dragon’s Fire involves the search for firestone – the fuel dragons need to create flames with is running out and with the next pass about 30 years away something needs to be done. Thus some heroes are discovered and the disaster accordingly dealt with in a way that keeps the reader involved, interested, and excited right to the last page. In fact the stories stay so fresh up to the end that you almost don’t see it coming, and in some ways feel a bit short-changed in not having the usual wind down.

It’s nothing special when compared to other Pern novels, but in the greater scheme of things the McCaffrey’s write brilliant fiction: The scenery is always colourful, and the culture continues around and through the plot. The characters are crafted very deftly in such a way that their character is quickly identifiable and memorable yet they still appear to have depth – it’s just that we don’t really see it (or need to).

I enjoyed it; however, there were a few things that irked me somewhat. The main characters seem a bit dumb when it comes to communication (horrid pun given that one of the guys is a mute…). There were a number of points when I was left thinking “but but why didn’t you say something??” or “how can anyone be that stupid?!” etc. Some of these reasons I may have just missed, and a few are explained later, but it seemed to me the main characters were behaving a bit too irrationally to achieve verisimilitude. This might have been at least partially due to having two writers involved and while they know intimately the world that has been created, they do have slightly different writing styles and merging each of their own bits with the other didn’t quite mesh nicely in places.

All in all it’s a good book with good twists and changes in plot, but just a tad frustrating. Read it if you like Pern and the McCaffrey’s, don’t if you don’t :P

The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld - Terry Pratchett

““Do you know, a fortune-teller once told me I’d die in my bed, surrounded by grieving great-grandchildren,” said Mooty. “What do you think of that eh?”
I THINK SHE WAS WRONG.” (Guards! Guards!)

Sweetened condensed milk. It makes a wonderful ingredient in cooking, or you can drizzle on top of stuff, take a passing finger lick out of the tin, or sit down with a spoon and have a really good time gorging yourself.

This book is sweetened condensed milk. Containing the essence of what makes Discworld fantastically funny and clever; this compilation of the best quotes from the series serves many purposes. It can inspire you to read books you haven’t got round to, it can make you want to read the whole lot again, or it can just refresh plot lines in your mind, all the while providing wise words and amusing gags.

““It’s going to look pretty good, then, isn’t it,” said War testily, “the One Horseman and Three Pedestrians of the Apocralypse.”” (Sourcery)

Some will argue it’s not the greatest compilation – everyone has their own favourite characters, plots and jokes. Nor can this book contain every little gem or clever escapade – some of Pratchett’s better work lasts for pages. Seriously, if you wanted every good bit of the Discworld you may as well bind all the novels together. But this book, as I said – it’s the essence of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld: There’s a perfect balance of DEATH, Rincewind, U.U, Vimes, and other characters and casual comments.

“Meat pies! Hot sausages! Inna bun! So fresh the pig hasn’t noticed they’re gone!” (Moving Pictures)

I loved it, read it from start to end and immediately wanted to pick up some of the books that I haven’t touched in too long. As I said – sweetened condensed milk. You don’t have to read it all at once, you can just flick open, find a random quote and smile.

“Words are the litmus paper of the mind. If you find yourself in the power of someone who will use the word “commence” in cold blood, go somewhere else very quickly. But if they say “Enter,” don’t stop to pack.” (Small Gods)

Earth, Air, Fire, and Custard - Tom Holt

Tom Holt is to literature what Monty Python were to television. Hilarious, odd, and at times so completely random that you don’t have a clue what’s going on.

This is the 3^rd book of the “Paul Carpenter” novels – based in a world featuring the magic company “J. W. Wells” out of Gilbert & Sullivan’s work The Sorcerer.

You don’t need to have read the earlier books – I don’t think I have; however, doing so may help general storyline cohesion. But you’re all smart people and able to put threads together fairly quickly. Well, as fast as you can with a writer who not only keeps you in the dark for most of the book, but makes sure that the light-bulb has blown, that there’s just enough draft to blow out any candles that you try to light along the way, and puts a blindfold on you for good measure too…

Anyway, Paul had his soul sold to this magic firm (who are mostly goblins) when he was a child and since has worked for as a lowly clerk doing paper shuffling tasks, while learning the odd bit of magic. In previous adventures he saved the world from the evil humanoid creatures, and had a perfect relationship ruined when all traces of love for him were removed from his fiancée Sophie’s mind. He has died a few times, visited the Bank of Death and withdrawn himself out of there in different ways.

It’s hard to say what the true plot of this story is… Holt has the book filled with so many red herrings moving so quickly it’s like it’s not only raining fish, but also firing them at you out of a cannon, and if the protagonist doesn’t have a clue what’s going on, you can rest assured you won’t either. Suffice to say it comes down to a power struggle between God and a mad magical scientist, and believe you me – I didn’t know that until almost the end… What goes on around it all can be charming, alarming, confusing and falsely enlightening, and you grasp at straws as much as Paul does to make sense of it all.

The characters are well written – from the confused, self-degredating hero, and the sulky romantic interest, to the imposing partners of the firms, and also the bit characters, they all fit tightly into the picture.

The plot is… I think I may have already mentioned this, but it’s complicated. If you like a book to make sense the whole way through this is NOT your type of book. “Like Robert Jordan times three” to quote Paul as he tries to explain it to someone. Chapters can fly past in a whirl of words and colours and not really make sense. If you like Pratchett or Robert Rankin I’d say that you will love Tom Holt – but if random is not your thing stay away.

I laughed and laughed and laughed while reading this book – I hope you do too.

Robin Hobb: The Soldier Son Trilogy

Shaman's Crossing
Forest Mage
Renegade's Magic

The Soldier Son trilogy is not linked to any of Robin Hobb's previous books.

Essyllt: I was really impressed by the uniqueness and poignancy of the setting, which was post-colonial fantasy, and appears to be loosely based on early America, but with three cultures. The main character, Nevare, is from Gernia, a 'civilised' nation similar to British America. The plainsfolk, who have been conquered by Gernia, have a similar culture to the Native Americans. The third people, the Specks, are an isolated forest-dwelling people, who feature more in the second and third books.

I was able to read the books for the plot alone, because it is definitely not bad, but when I stopped to think about it, I fell in love with the theme. There is something beautiful about Hobb's ideas, and the way in which they can be applied to so many interactions between cultures or even individual people.

The Iconoclast: The politics of the Kingdom of Gernia and the way in which it deals with non-Gernian cultures were one of the important aspects of this series, and is relevant to New Zealand and other ex-colonies. In Shaman's Crossing, we see the book through Nevare's eyes as a Germian citizen, complete with his ethnocentric views. It isn't until the third book that, still through Nevare, develop a better understanding of the 'Speck' culture. One impressive feature of Hobb's writing is that we, originally, are as horribly racist as Nevare, without even realising it, and change as radically as he does (thanks to a plot device which I won't detail). The trilogy gives an excellent understanding of the dicotomous nature of ethnic - indeed, any - conflict, leaving the reader divided.

Although the trilogy is named 'The Soldier Son', after Nevare's role as the second son of the family, this was more of a plot device - this theme was mostly overwhelmed by the conflict between the Gernians and 'Specks'. The Plainsfolk are sidelined to some degree, with the occasional plot based role - I'm not sure whether this was intentional or unavoidable, but it leaves us to wonder what will happen to the intercultural relations of Gernia after the end of the trilogy.

The characterisation was rather flat, with none of the characters aside from Nevare developing much further than necessary to power the events. Even Nevare isn't a deep character, but in some ways this emphasises his development. We agree that the characters, and to an extent the setting and plot, are too familiar; however, this shows the true brilliance of Hobb's writing, as the cliches simply don't matter, and aren't particularly noticeable without closer inspection. Tamora Pierce could never pull this off, but Hobb does so with flair. The first person narration is so strong that we truly develop an empathy for Nevare and are unavoidably caught up in his feelings.

I (Tehnuka) found the magic difficult to deal with, managing to get too tangled up in trying to understand what was happening and not being able to do so until the last book. My advice is to not worry too much about this and keep reading - it becomes clear later. Compared to Hobb's previous trilogies, this one has definite strengths in the themes, and in how incredibly well the writing style conveys the main character's emotions. While I'm not sure that I got out of it what Robin Hobb intended for her readers, I was impressed by the level of consideration given to the themes, particularly those of ethnic relations (which don't tend to feature in fantasy) - of novels in this genre, dealing with such themes, these are probably the best I've ever read.

In conclusion:
Essyllt: These books are good. Read them.
The Iconoclast: These books are bloody awesome! I can't eat properly anymore.