Once Upon a Bookshelf

The second book in the Gentlemen Bastard Sequence, Red Seas Under Red Skies starts up a few years after the end of The Lies of Locke Lamora. Locke and Jean are now located in Tal Verrar, working on another one of their schemes to rob the rich of all their money, but two years into their scheme things start going wrong.

A group of the people they pissed off in the last book have discovered where Locke and Jean are located, and have alerted the Archon, head of the city’s navy, who they are and what they are capable of. The Archon decides to put this knowledge to use, and with the use of a poison that only his alchemist knows the cure for, enlists them to create a war between the pirates and all other ships on the seas. Unfortunately, neither Jean nor Locke actually have any experience working on a ship.

“I’m getting a bit annoyed,” said Locke, “with those who praise our previous escapades as an excuse for forcing us into even riskier ones. Look, if you want us to run a job, give us one within out field of experience. Isn’t it broad enough for you? All we’re saying is that we don’t know the first bloody thing about wind, weather, ships, pirates, the Sea of Brass, the Ghostswind Isles, sails, ropes, er. . . weather, ships. . .”

“Our sole experience with ships,” said Jean, “consists of getting on, getting seasick, and getting off.”

It seems like there is no way things can get better until Locke and Jean end up as part of the crew of a pirate ship. (And that’s exactly where the book gets good.)

Okay, here’s the thing with this book. I enjoyed the first book in the series so much better than the first half of this book. The second half of this book, however, I thought was so much more exciting than the first book in the series. So on a whole, it’s hard to say what I thought about it overall.

The first half of the book felt like there was way too much going on. By the end of the book everything does get all tied up, but by then I didn’t remember everything that had been going on at the start, and had to go back and reread the first couple of chapters. It was something I should’ve paid a lot more attention to, but half way through, the book started getting good so I didn’t really bother remembering what was going on in the first half - at which point I didn’t really care about all that “I’m going to pretend to be working for you trying to screw over your enemy, while telling your enemy that I’m really working for him trying screw you over, when in reality I’m working for myself trying to screw everyone over!” was done and over with for the most part.

That said, there were parts that had me outright laughing. And aside from a couple of passages, this book was a lot less graphic than the first one was. Still not sure whether I will read the rest of the books in this series when they get written and released.

This is my second book for the Seafaring Challenge (and probably my last one for the challenge).

I tend to steer clear of books based on TV shows or movies, because, really - are they anything more than glorified fanfic? And if I wanted to read fanfic on any subject, there is generally at least one LJ community devoted to it, as well as fanfiction.net and various other sites around the web. But dude … it’s Doctor Who. And I have a soft spot for this show. Really. So I’ve been debating reading some Doctor Who books for a while now.

When Beka mentioned the audio book with David Tennant narrating… well, I knew this would be perfect for a first attempt into books in the Whoverse. Not normally something I would want to listen to - I’ve tried audio books numerous times but find that my attention always wanders and I’ve no idea what’s going on about five minutes after I start listening. But the fact that David Tennant is narrating? Well, it was another reason why I thought I ought to give it a try. (Because that man is brilliant.)

The book starts with the Doctor, Rose, Jackie and Mickey on a trip to the museum, where they discover a stone statue of Rose as the goddess Fortuna. The Doctor and Rose head off to ancient Rome in order to find this artist who is going to sculpt Rose. Typical to Doctor Who, however, there are crazy things afoot! Crazy things in the form of people disappearing after modeling for a certain sculptor - the same one that Rose is going to be modelling for.

Many fun things happen, including our dear Doctor gladiating! (Is that a word?) Why yes, the sonic screwdriver can stop all sorts of animals from killing and eating you. Handy thing, it is.

The story was cheesy. So cheesy. I expected that. But it was also a lot of fun. David Tennant is so talented, and it made listening to the book worth it. I would definitely listen to the other books that he narrates, though after listening to those I don’t really think I’ll read or listen to any others.

Jack’s life gets turned upside down when his best friend, Artie, is brutally murdered. What Jack learns afterwards is that this is only one in a string of brutal murders, committed by the Prowlers, which the police are covering up. When Artie’s ghost appears to Jack, Jack is determined to stop the Prowlers from killing anyone else, but it’s hard to hunt things that are hunting you.

I will admit that before starting this book I had my doubts. I wasn’t sure that I would like it. But now I have to say, this is one of the best fantasy novels I have read in a while. It’s gripped me in a way I’ve been looking a long time for a fantasy book to - something that hasn’t really happened in years, excluding Twilight, Harry Potter and a couple other that I don’t consider to be the same sort of fantasy. (They are almost more cotton candy ish, while Prowlers feels more like a meat and potatoes book. Yes, I may be hungry whilst writing this, hence the comparisons to food.) I’ve been looking for this kind of fantasy book for a long time. I had a very hard time putting this book down right from the first sentence, all the way through until the last sentence. It was action-packed from the start, and there’s never a dull moment.

The Prowlers themselves were . . . intriguing to say the least.

“They’re not werewolves, bro. I told you that. They’re Prowlers. These things have been around since the beginning of time. They can look human, but they were never human beings. They started out as animals, and that’s what they’ll always be.”

And vicious animals at that. But I have to admit that I totally enjoyed the parts of the book about the Prowlers more than the parts revolving around Jack & co. While the Prowlers in this book are not werewolves, they may have been what inspired the werewolf myth. And, again excluding Harry Potter, this may be the first time I’ve enjoyed something werewolfish in a book.

I am very excited to read the rest of the books in the series, as well as discovering more of Golden’s work.

Ah, the search for Dracula. Definitely not the first of those sorts of stories, but with a bit of a different twist.

The story is told through a series of stores and letters told/written by Paul to his daughter, explaining to her the story behind a book she found in her father’s library - a book that is completely blank except for an image of a dragon in the center. The stories tell of how Rossi, Paul’s advisor at university, disappears, and the ensuing search Paul goes on to find him, all the while being persued by vampires who want him to stop the search. Paul is accompanied by Helen, Rossi’s daughter, and the story is as much a tale of Dracula as it is of the love story between Paul and Helen (quite beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time).

I have mixed feelings about this book. Really mixed feelings.

I have always had a very impressionable mind. A very active imagination. I cannot watch scary movies because I won’t be able to sleep afterwards for days. Books, however, normally don’t bother me to the extent where I lose sleep. I don’t think a book has given me nightmares in a long time. And then along came The Historian, and I couldn’t sleep most nights for fear that vampires would appear in my apartment. Needless to say, it took me a very long time to read this book as I couldn’t read it past dark.

On the other hand, it was dripping with atmosphere. The writing was fabulous; things fell into place a little bit too easily for me, but it helped the story move along a little bit faster. It was, quite possibly, the perfect book for this challenge. A lot of the vampire books I’ve been reading lately are very much the sort of book where vampires aren’t as bad as they should be - they make vampires more romantic and sensual. This one certainly didn’t romanticize the monsters, and that certainly impressed me.

I also really enjoyed how it brought those blank books (with the exception of the image of the dragon in the center) into the story. I love why all these people were given the books, and who gave the books to them, but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t read The Historian yet.

I guess I am officially finished the RIP challenge, but there are still a couple of other books that I want to read before the end of the challenge, so I’m just going to keep on plugging away and hopefully get rid of a few more books that I’ve been meaning to read for a long time.

At the age of seventeen, Tristran Thorn makes a very silly promise to a very silly girl - he promises to enter Faerie in order to retrieve a fallen star for her. And so, Tristran sets off on a journey that few would dare go on.

Tristran, however, is not the only person looking for the fallen star. Three brothers are in search as well - the one who finds the star will become the next Lord of Stormhold. There is also an evil witch who plans on using the star’s heart in order to regain her youth.

This is the second of Gaiman’s books that I’ve read, and so far the more I read of his stuff, the more I can understand why everyone loves his books so much. While this was a very quick read, it was a wonderful story to immerse myself in for a little while. It had everything a good fairy tale has - atmosphere, magic, and (of course) a love story.

I can catch small glimpses of other stories in this one - perhaps where Gaiman was influenced by other authors. The first person Tristran met in Faerie, for example, was so must like Puddleglum in mannerisms that it felt like I was just getting reacquainted with an old friend.

I had read this so I would know the story before I went to see the movie - now I’m unsure whether I want to see the move in the near future. I want time to sit and think on the Stardust universe before seeing a movie interpretation of it. I think I’ll have to wait until DVD for this one.