Archive for the ‘ Reviews ’ Category

Roma sub rosa

Author: myrmillo

Nov 2

Back after not writing anything for who knows how long. yay! go me.

This time, we are in Rome, the last days of the Republic, when figures larger than life such as Sulla, Crassus, Caesar, Catilina and Mark Anthony hop around the not-quite-safe streets of the city with the 7 hills.

The books deal with the adventures of Gordianus the Finder, a well traveled Roman that is now living in Rome with his spirited good looking Egyptian slave/concubine. He happens to be the only private investigator in Rome, most likely because on one hand this profession of prying into peoples’ businesses is not very acceptable to society, but also because it’s also downright dangerous. Gordianus also seems to be a rare beast in those days, namely completely apolitical, without any great interest in any of the happenings in the forum.

As far as the books, they are not the greatest murder mysteries by any means. If you want that, go for the Cadfael series by Ellis Peters, or Agatha Christie. Where these books shine is in the depth of the historical research, combined with the rich, detailed way Rome is portrayed. Take them as historical novels, and you’ll be much happier.  The pacing can get slow from time to time, but if you like the period and want to read more about it, these books can help. Oh, and the best part: no slave-turned-gladiator-turned-hero of the people/emperor/BS.  The books actually make sense.

Read the rest of this entry

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Deathstalker – it’s space opera time

Author: myrmillo

Sep 3

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here, and I’ve read a ton of books, so i’ll be more brief talking about them. However, a few words first about Simon Green and the stuff he wrote. I’ve read most of his books, and I like every one of them, enough to reccomend them.

You have the Hawk and Fisher series, dark, gritty whodunnit mysteries in a medieval fantasy-ish world, part of the bigger Forest Kingdom series, that are fantasy with a twist. Then there is the Nightside, stories about John Taylor, a private investigator in a hidden area of London where magic, technology, old and new gods, time travellers, angels, demons and basically everything else that is nasty congregates. The Secret History series are a take on James Bond meeting fantasy, acting as a sort of framework for his other series, since you encounter characters from the Deathstalker universe, the Nightside, and the Forest Kingdom.

And then there’s the Deathstalker series, a universe where a decadent human star empire is being ruled by a paranoid empress (aptly named the Iron Bitch), and comes under threat both from the outside by various alien civilizations, and from the inside by a rebellion combining espers, clones and other malcontents.

The series is bloody, over the top, very well written, and a parody of the 1950′s Sci-fi. Basically anything goes, nothing is too improbable, and blood flows everywhere. It’s space opera at it’s best, and it spans thousands of pages. Read the rest of this entry

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Empire rising

Author: myrmillo

Aug 3

Empire Rising
Sam Barone; William Morrow 2007

Follow-up to Dawn of Empire,  this book is worth reading if you liked the previous one, since it just gives you more of the same.

It’s back to the city of Orak, now renamed Akkad, where people are settling in after the events of the last book. Eskkar, the barbarian turned king, is about to become a father, but is getting restless with life in the big city. Thus, he decides to go around the countryside and pacify the nearby villages, thereby bringing back trade to Akkad, and making life all better. Meanwhile, his wife is left in charge, helped by the council of noble houses. However, all is not well, as an Egyptian renegade warrior with his band joins up with an old nemesis from the first book, and tries to infiltrate the city posing as a gem merchant.

And this is about half the book. Because it is that slow. If you thought in the first one that wall building is boring, well, waiting around for the Egyptian to make his move is worse. There are action scenes, when Eskkar fights with bandits raiding the nearby vilalges, and other stuff going on, but for some reason the first half of the book just seemed to be dragging on and on…it’s all just plain and generic, and it feels as if something is missing. The end of the book picks up, though the final assault on Akkad feels like a special ops mission…nighttime infiltration from the water in separate teams that go for the strategic objectives…riiight. And there’s a lot more that feels slightly off. Once again i feel the story would have been better served if placed somewhere else, like a different planet, or Howard’s Hyborian age.

The characters are also just as bland. There is no surprise, no subtlety. Everything, every thought, every motivation, every idea is out in the open from the first. And they are cookie- cutter made. You have the big barbarian (admitedly getting a bit old), the smart wife, the evil enemy (insert maniacal laughter please), the evil slimy person from the past that joins up with the new baddie, and the honorable bad dude that gets a shot at redemption and takes it. It’s all painfully obvious from the first.

The main characters are still the same, though having gained all insights in the previous book, they just stagnate. Eskkar finds himself a mistress thoug, and his wife Trella is mostly cool about it, instead of ripping his eyes out. Otherwise, she acts as the CEO of a corporation dealing with slightly troublesome manager. Then, when talking about the first code of laws in human history, it’s all treated as a brainstorm meeting where Trella tells the nobles “Check out this idea i’ve had overnight, that will revolutionize everything you know…”…and the introduced concepts…fixed prices and so on…6000 years ago? nevermind that they never had any coins back then.

If you’ve read the previous book and liked it, then go ahead with this one too. Otherwise, just pass. I’ve struggled with it for some reason, but after reading a few pages of the 3rd in the series, i’ll pass on this author for a long time. It’s back to space opera :D .

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Dawn of Empire

Author: myrmillo

Jul 26

Sam Barone; Morrow 2006

After reading a ton of Warhammer 40k books, both good ( Gaunt’s Ghosts) and bad (Blood Angels whatever), i needed a change. A drastic change. And since I’d recently read the reviews for Sam Barone’s Dawn of Empire and it fit the bill of no elves, no chaos cultists, no magic and no purging any heretics, I figured i would give it a go. And it wasn’t that bad after all.

The book takes place in ancient Mesopotamia, when people were beginning to grow their food instead of hunting/gathering. It tells the tale of Eskkar, a barbarian chased away by his own people who ends up a guardsman in Orak, a community of agricultural oriented people on the banks of the Euphrates that are on their way of building the first real walled city in the history of mankind. Read the rest of this entry

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Impact review

Author: myrmillo

Jul 10

Impact
Douglas J. Preston; Forge 2010

I’ve started reading books by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child a few years back, after buying Brimstone in an airport bookstore, in preparation for a 12 hour trip. And I discovered that  the book was what i wanted: the perfect airplane/vacation book. Or in other words, fluff, easy reading, something to keep you occupied while you are travelling, relaxing during a vacation, don’t feel like reading anything more meaningful or just need to take a break from sci-fi / fantasy. Over the years I’ve read the other books by those two authors, and also some of the stuff they’ve published separately.

Impact is by one of the pair of authors, Douglas Preston, but you really don’t feel the other one missing, except maybe for the lack of supernatural/mystical elements. Without spoiling it too much, this one’s got aliens…of sorts..instead of voodoo or whatnot. The plot is OKish, nothing spectacular, with a few twists and turns that you might not necessarily anticipate. At least I didn’t. The places the action takes place in are…meh…not that diverse…Cambodgia for a bit, some New England fishing village, and a couple of Washington DC offices…nothing spectacular. The action scenes are also decent…some fights on boats, during a big storm, some fights not on boats, guns, knives, and my favourite, a hammer as a murder weapon…

The characters are sort of cliche, and prone to doing things that make no bloody sense at all. You have Wyman Ford, ex-CIA dude that now does freelance work for various government agencies, and that appeared in previous Preston books. He’s supposed to be a tough guy and so on, but ends up being more of a whiny do gooder that is devastated by the sight of exploited peasants and chooses to risk life, limb and mission to save them, then sends packages with confidential data to major newspapers because it’s a global issue that affects the whole world, and everyone has to know…yeah right…i’d buy that from a hippie…or someone else…but an ex-CIA undercover agent thinking like that? hmmm

Then you have Abbey, the 20ish year old african-american girl adopted by a New England lobster fisherman, who went to Princeton but then dropped out and who apparently learnt more in all her time there then it seems possible…there was at the beginning a hint of her not fitting in because of being in an all white community..but that gets barely mentioned afterwards.

There’s also Abbey’s pot smoking rather slow friend…i’m not sure why she’s in the book but eh..whatever…there’s the psychopathic killer with a violent past that could have been a more interesting character but that also doesn’t get developed at all…and more characters that are as one dimensional. So perfect for a vacation/airplane book that you will read, enjoy for the moment (and it is enjoyable), and then promptly forget until seeing the author’s name again on his newest paperback.

In the end,  this is a book for reading on a warm beach, being abused by the sun, with a cold drink next to you and without a care in the world. It won’t make any impression on you whatsoever, it will just float through your life like a duck…with barely a quack.

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Space wolf review

Author: myrmillo

Jul 7

Space Wolf
William King; Games Workshop 2007

Since posting this, I’ve managed to read the first three books of this series by William King, so instead of writing about just the first book, I’ll do the first three. They make up the first Space Wolf omnibus anyway, so consider it a review for that.

The books tell the story of the first years of Ragnar Blackmane as a Space Wolf Space Marine, from being selected as an applicant to becoming a full Space Marine, and beyond. Compared to the previous books about space marines that i’ve read, the Blood Angels series, these were like a breath of fresh air. They are not the best books I’ve read by any means, but for mass market paperbacks based on a preset world, they aren’t bad at all.

For those not familiar with the background, the Space Wolf space marines are based on vikings and wolves. They are genetically modified soldiers that gain wolf-like qualities, such as enhanced smell, hearing, and function in small pack-like units. I’d write more, but you can read it all here.

The characters get a bit of development, are not whiny, and furthermore have some sort of internal dialogue where they actually question things. Ragnar might be a space marine, but he’s not the mindless killing machine that other authors tend to portray the space marines as. He even has flaws..he’s claustrophobic.Overall, this character doesn’t bother at all. The other characters can be a bit one sided though. You have Sven the friendly brave but stupid guy, the tough but wise and with a golden heart sergeant and so on. Still, this does not remove from the readability of the book.

What is annoying is what the author calls “banter” between characters. I’m all for that, but…come on…how many times can you make jokes about how stupid Sven is, or about how he is always hungry. Once…twice…but at some point it’s time to invent something new. And it just makes the characters sound more like school boys on an outing than like tough dudes able to kill anyone with one finger…Oh…and the fart jokes…those confused me for a bit…was this an attempt at humor…I hope not…thankfully those just happened once.

Another strong point of the novels is the variety of the locations and the enemies they face. Sure, due to lore constraints, the Thousand Sons chaos marines have to be there, but nothing becomes repetitive. For example, the first book takes place on an island, in a fortress, inside old abandoned ruins, and a chaos temple, the second involves an ork infested jungle, a space hulk and an eldar pyramid, the fourth books happens on Terra. There are inquisitors, chaos marines, orks, eldar, a jolly plague demon talking with a decidedly British accent and so on, you get the point.

The plots are also ok-ish..nothing really extraordinary, but not bad either. Overall, the books make for an enjoyable read. I didn’t even have to force myself to go through them, like it happened with the Blood Angels novels (yeah..those really marked me…too bad they had nice covers). I’d recommend these books to anyone looking to get into the WH40k world (which I’ve enjoyed a lot lately…damn you, Dawn of War video games!!!), or those who are already familiar with the setting, and are looking for more books to read.

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yello

Author: myrmillo

Jun 24

Red Fury (Blood Angels)
James Swallow; Games Workshop 2008

Hmm..how should i put it? this book is not that good. It’s actually kind of bad. the cover is good though :)

The  book is set in the Warhammer 40k gothic/space opera univers, that i’ve been enjoying quite a bit lately. It’s the third in a series of 4, by the same author, detailing the adventures of…yeah..some Blood Angel that i’ve already forgot the name of, and that is entirely not memorable…I’ve tried reading these books..i’ve really tried…i’ve known of the blood angels ever since playing space hulk: vengeance of the blood angels in 96 or 97, whenI had no idea what warhammer was… i’ve sluggishly moved through the first one then the second, hoping it would somehow get better, despite the lack of…basically anything that good…

I know that the space marines are gung-ho, death or the emperor type of dudes, but still..no character development whatsoever? the evil dude is bland. compared to the negative characters of the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies, he is a one sided piece of paper with no depth whatsoever. To complete the picture, the main character is just as bland. He supposedly went through some moral conversion during his initiation, described in, oh, about 2 pages. oh, and he’s somewhat whiny

The plot…umm..uninspired, pretty big holes, and i swear the author has no concept of numbers. Space marines are supermen and so on, but so are chaos marines, right? Then how can 10, 20, 50 dudes take over hundreds? or the entire planet?  This dude subjectively awards victory on battlefields to whomever he decides.

The first two books complete the first arc. And here i was, hoping number three would be better.then i read about 30 pages, and..no change :( ..so after reading a few reviews on amazon, i found myself thoroughly agreeing with them, and i decided that my time would be better spent reading something new. yay :) stay away from this series of books unless you really have a thing for blood angels.

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