Review: Off Base

Off Base by Annabeth Albert
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I was hoping for some hot romance story with this one, but it turned out neither particularly hot nor all that romantic. So, about "hot": the sex scenes are too few and far apart and are mostly left to imagination. Nothing special is described, I couldn't even imagine the heroes all that well beyond one being huge and muscled and the other one - not so much. As for the romance, the whole thing took less than a semester and Pike got very tired of Zack being closeted like in two months. Yeah, I can totally see that, two months can really try someone's patience. Anyway, I can't imagine real people acting anywhere like this, but for more abstract romance this book is a little too domestic. The turn I especially didn't like was the rethinking of attitudes in the hospital. That's a very old move I'm tired of. Do authors really need to "almost kill" their heroes to make them change? Is it the only way?

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Review: The Dragon in the Sock Drawer

The Dragon in the Sock Drawer by Kate Klimo
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this book aloud to my 6 year old, and he was very excited. It's his first fiction book without illustrations, and I'm glad we found something that wasn't over his head and made him laugh quite a lot. We finished it in three sittings and are going to continue reading the series.

I only wish that "age appropriate" characters wouldn't be that silly and unrealistic. A stranger stands in you hall, calls your kids thieves, and demands to search your house. What do you do? Right, call the police. What that uncle Joe does? Helps the stranger search the house! I'm not sure a person like that wouldn't survive in the real world.

The other thing that I didn't like was the emphasis on being boring as a positive thing. I certainly hope my son in a few years wouldn't choose an "American school and American food" with imaginary adventures over traveling and real adventures. I don't remember thinking like that when I was ten! That kind of thinking is for very young, who are around three and still naturally conservative, and for older people, with kids of their own.

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Review: What the Jackdaw Saw

What the Jackdaw Saw by Julia Donaldson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Even though I recognize the importance (it's written and dedicated to deaf children and their families), I don't think it's particularly well written or illustrated. As much as I admire the tandem of Julia Donaldson and Alex Scheffler, works of Julia Donaldson and Nick Sharratt are not nearly as good. There is something especially wrong with all of the birds, including the hero, the jackdaw. They are all hybrids with flounders! This misfortune is somehow only for birds, other animals are ok (as ok as the drawing style allows).

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Review: The Grace of Kings

The Grace of Kings by Ken Liu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The genre of this book is defined as silkpunk, sort of like steampunk but differently looking. More words. The author himself defines silkpunk as science fiction or fantasy esthetically inspired by classical East Asian antiquity. There is a lot of silk there, yes (even though they invent some steam machinery along the way), and fiction/fantasy. The missing part is science. I have a lot of problems with the author's explanations of how things work in his world. Apparently, our puny physics laws don't work there. Or he didn't bother to do some self-education. Not explaining at all sometimes works better than trying to explain something you don't understand.

Unfortunately, it's not my only problem with the book. It's so long! It seems it was supposed to be an epic novel. I saw somewhere that any novel longer than 600+ (not sure about the exact number) is epic. However, there is another definition of epic and it says it's something out of the ordinary, momentous, and heroic. The Hobbit is epic not because it's long (it's not). But the fame of the Game of Thrones was too tempting, so this book is unnecessary long, only the characters rather drift with the flow, instead of plotting and intriguing.

The reading itself was often confusing, because the point of view keeps shifting without warnings. A paragraph can start through the eyes of one character and end through the eyes of another. There were even cases when it happened inside one sentence! I don't mind shifting points of view, they allow for a more complete picture, but can they be separated somewhat? Please? That's what that big key on the right of the key board is for.

Despite having a lot of pages, the author still somewhat rushed the ending. Timing and scale don't check out the whole book, but it became more and more obvious toward the end. What kind of spies see a five thousand strong army only a couple hours before its arrival? Or don't notice airships right until the moment they are overhead? Sizes of armies and other down-to-earth particulars make no sense at all, just like "scientific" details.

Did I enjoy he book? Somewhat. Will I read on? No.

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