Sunday 29 October 2017

J. V. Jones - A Sword From Red Ice


This series is not something I’ve approached very well. I started reading it some eight years ago when I reviewed A Cavern of Black Ice in 2009. The books are so intimidating in size that I kept putting them off and putting them off but my holiday finally gave me to push I needed to read the third book in the series. Thankfully Jones is kind enough to provide a handy synopsis at the beginning to allow people like me to remind myself of what happened so far.

A Sword from Red Ice comes in at 677 pages and the words are tiny. Despite being called A Sword from Red Ice the sword doesn’t actually appear until the last 20 pages of the book. The same thing happened in the other two so the titles of the books seem to be destinations of the journey of Raif.

Another note on the length is that I actually think it’s too long. There is a lot of stuff that happens to some of the characters than don’t add anything to the story. That said the series isn’t over yet but I would have forgotten some of the smaller things by the time I come to read the next one.

It is still a very enjoyable story with lots of intriguing characters. In fact there are so many characters that Jones forgot how many there were when writing the blurb. The blurb mentions three characters and their stories but the book itself is told from seven different perspectives, told a chapter at a time. I’m not sure why there is the need to tell the story from so many different angles when the three on the back are highlighted as the important ones.

Which brings me on to the biggest fuck ass in the book. Raina. She is such a twat that reading her chapters caused me to have a headache. If it wasn’t whining about what was going on, it was saying she was going to do something about it...and then not.

It’s also a very messily written book. I lost count of the amount of spelling and grammar issues throughout but there are so many chapters and words that it’s probably not that bad in terms of percentage.

Outside of this, there were a few things other than Raina that made me stop and take note, the first being Mal Naysayer and his Deux-Ex Machina ability to show up just as the right time to save Ash’s life. Another one is where Raif’s friend Addie develops an attitude problem for literally no reason, unless Raif didn’t give him a reach around in one of the deleted scenes, and Angus Lok’s 100% unnecessary involvement at the start and end of the book.

Another thing that made me laugh is Raif’s ability to survive his monstrous injuries throughout the entirety of the story. This was the same in the second book too. I mean, this guy is basically physically maimed at the end of the last story and somehow manages to continuously survive against all odds.

Despite the book’s length and what I’ve said above, I did get a lot of enjoyment out of the story and will be finishing the series... though I actually need to buy the next one first and probably arrange another holiday so I will actually invest the time in doing so.

A Sword from Red Ice by J.V. Jones was published by Tor in 2007. RRP £8.99 (Paperback)

Thursday 5 October 2017

Simon Toyne - The Tower


The Tower is the climax of the three-book series that started with Sanctus. Looking back at my review of the first book in the series, it started poorly where the first couple of pages were really hard to get into. The Key was a really good book and The Tower is also very well written but there were a few story choices that made me go ‘oh...’ in a letdown sort of way.
I was immediately worried early on when we are introduced to a new character – FBI Agent Shepherd. It was a little frustrating at first as I was enjoying the characters that had already been built so this new one was just getting in the way. My frustration was short lived however, as Toyne manages to make Shepherd likeable and interesting in a few short chapters.
Another interesting style choice was to write the book from two time periods with parts of the story being told in the past as it catches up to the present. All the story chapters from the past are written in italics which makes it easy to identify what is happening and when.
For all the well written, well paced and well structured writing, there are a few things that I didn’t like but this obviously goes with writing a trilogy where the first two books are set up to answer to a big mystery so when so much effort has been put in, it always feels like an anti-climax when you get to the end.
The following paragraphs contain major spoilers for the ending of the book so if do want to read the trilogy (and if you haven’t already read the first two books, why are you reading this?) stop reading now.
There were two things that I found irritating by the choices made at the end of the book, the first one surrounding the character of Detective Arkadian. We’ve spent the best page of 498 pages, plus the length of the other two books, getting to know the lovable oaf yet our fellow characters don’t seem to feel the same way. When he dies saving the life of others, no one seems to give two shits. Half the reason for my annoyance is because I thought for a lot of the characters that it was massively out of character to not be upset but then again, maybe I got it wrong and he was actually a massive knob?
The other thing that got to me was to do with the big reveal. Apparently the doomsday clock is counting down to the point when the universe reaches maximum expansion and then starts contracting back in on itself so essentially the half way point of existence. And that’s great. But why the fuck does a baby need to be born to commemorate the event? There are similarities with the birth of Jesus and other references in the trilogy point to it being connected to the story of Adam and Eve and the return to the garden of Eden... but none of this is explained and it’s a very flimsy connection to the expansion of the universe. It just didn’t make sense as a whole piece to me so I didn’t get as much enjoyment out of the end as I wanted to.
Despite that, it’s a very good book that’s hard to put down and I hammered through most of it in a few days.
The Tower by Simon Toyne was published by HarperCollinsPublishers in 2013. RRP £7.99 (Paperback)

Simon Toyne - The Key


I’ll start with a fairly obvious confession. I have not been giving this blog the time I should have – case in point I actually finished reading this, and several reviews to follow, back in July and August last year. This means I’m relying heavily on my notes to paint the picture of this book and the next one.

The Key is the follow up to The Sanctum, a book that turned out to be really enjoyable despite appearing to shit all over itself in the first few pages. The Key does not make the same mistakes. It’s a thoroughly engaging read from start to finish as are most second books in a three-part series. But more on that later.

The one thing I can’t quite get my head around is the fact that everything is so well logically constructed to make sense in our own world with the exception of the sacrament itself. That’s all I’ll say about that – after all, it’s a book I am recommending!

So with the praise out of the way, I’m only left with more nit-picking through the 437 page offering. I’ll start with the biggest one – mathematical ages of characters. Kathryn is Gabriel’s mother but if I’ve done the maths correctly, this would mean that she was 16 when she gave birth to him. The book makes this really easy to work out as both their ages are depicted on page 49. I suppose it’s feasible but it just doesn’t add up with the character traits – and it’s one of those things that casual observers would comment on – ‘oh, you must have been young when you had him,’ or ‘you look far too young to have a 32 year old son.’ No one says anything though – again, nothing really wrong with it, I just thought it was an odd choice.

Another thing I found surprising was the Vactican City’s approach to Information Security. On page 14 one character’s narrative states that he only has one attempt at entering a password without locking himself out of his entire computer. I get that it’s super-sensitive information but everyone fucks up typing every now and then. I would have thought that sense would have prevailed here and he would have had at least two attempts at entering the password.

The last one worth mentioning is on page 6 where Ghost is interrogating someone called the fat man. The fat man seems to totally forget that he has programmed his Sat-Nav with his home address seconds after being defiant in the face of having his family threatened. I’m all for characterisation but I just don’t get how anyone could be that stupid.

These are three very small observations that are more my personal preference that actual problems. The Key is a solid, enjoyable story with strong characters. Enough said.

The Key by Simon Toyne was published by HarperCollinsPublishers in 2012. RRP £7.99 (Paperback)