Review: The Girl in the Tower

The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

And to think that all the trouble in this book could have been avoided by a simple haircut... But then there wouldn't be a book, right?

To be honest, I am very, very tired of all those stereotypes about Russia. Well, of course, it's the land of eternal winter! A 7-months winter, mentioned several times in the book, is a normal there for sure. Let's leave a couple months for both spring and autumn, which gets us one month for summer. How did they managed to grow any food at all? And knowing that the author had actually been to Russia only adds to my annoyance. She really needs some geography lessons. Besides, in all my years spent in north-western Russia (and my experience includes surviving a few polar nights in Murmansk), I have never seen a winter as brutal as in the middle of Iowa.

I'm also find myself surprisingly annoyed at liberties the author took with history. Or maybe it's more about geography again. The book takes place sometime in the middle of 14th century. Vasya is from a remote village, surrounded by wild forests, some two weeks from Moscow. Travelling by horses it puts us somewhere between Vologda (first mentioned as a city around 1147) and Veliky Novgorod (859). And that if we are traveling north or north-east, towards the wilder lands (the real Aleksandr Peresvet was likely from Byansk, which is a week's travel south). So the wild forests disappear and instead we have a nicely and for a long time populated area. Where, by the way, witches were not burned at the time. Anyway, I know quite well that each man in Russia starts his day giving some vodka to his bear, putting on his shapka-ushanka, and riding the said bear to kremlin to play his balalaika. Women do not exist outside in this universe. I wonder how English native speakers take this random sprinkling of transliterated words in the book.

On top of all this, it fails as a winter book if only because the idea of gods surviving depending on the allotted to them belief is much funnier in another winter story. Go Hogfather!

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Review: Oathbringer

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Finally, reading the third book in the series, I see the relevance to the world around me. In Oathbringer I found a lot of metaphors, opinions, and satire on the current events. I didn't see this in the first two books, either because the events they talked about are too far in the past (how long do those monsters take to write?), or because it wasn't there before. That makes the book so much more enjoyable. But to find that enjoyment I had to make my way through 1200+ pages (which is even longer then the second book, which was longer than the first one), where the second to last 10% were a long-winded description of a single battle, and the last 10% - jumping from scene to scene, from character to character, in a not entirely successful attempt to tie off some dozen different storylines. At least I'mm all set to comfortable wait for 3-5 years for the next book. If the first one felt like a 1000-page introduction, the second as a beginning of a plot, this one was kind of a development of the conflict. Is the author sure he has enough time for all ten planned books?

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Review: Oathbringer

Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Finally, reading the third book in the series, I see the relevance to the world around me. In Oathbringer I found a lot of metaphors, opinions, and satire on the current events. I didn't see this in the first two books, either because the events they talked about are too far in the past (how long do those monsters take to write?), or because it wasn't there before. That makes the book so much more enjoyable. But to find that enjoyment I had to make my way through 1200+ pages (which is even longer then the second book, which was longer than the first one), where the second to last 10% were a long-winded description of a single battle, and the last 10% - jumping from scene to scene, from character to character, in a not entirely successful attempt to tie off some dozen different storylines.

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Review: The Secret Subway

The Secret Subway by Shana Corey
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Create, think of new ideas, take action, work hard and... see all your dreams crashed. I know it's a nonfiction, those are the facts and there is nothing to be done about it. But. It's a picture book! Which means written for kids 7 and under. And what is the take home message they are supposed to get from it?

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Review: Words of Radiance

Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another volume, another 1000+ pages. This one is even longer than the first. And I still don't see the point of the story. Yes, the story is elaborate, detailed and interesting, but what am I supposed to take with me after reading it? This new version of theology he's building? Besides, this fantastic world is becoming too detailed to hold in one's mind, apparently: contradictions are appearing like rain spren in pools on the road. How, say, a Plate is powered when all spheres in the world, safe for the largest ones, had gone dun during a Weeping?
I also had a misfortune to listen to the audio book, instead of reading the text. It's read by two narrators. Kate Reading is surprisingly good. This is the first time I was listening to her and I'm impressed. Michael Kramer, on the other hand, is quite another matter. He somehow manages to read every sentence as a question, with a raising intonation. His first chapter starts like this: "Breath? A man's breath was his life?" He sounds very surprised at a lot of things: "They went into the palace?" Granted, he does get better, after merely the first 500 pages, but it did spoiled the impression.
Anyway, I'm off to read the third volume.

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Review: Ecology Crafts For Kids: 50 Great Ways To Make Friends With Planet Earth

Ecology Crafts For Kids: 50 Great Ways To Make Friends With Planet Earth by Bobbe Needham
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The idea is good, the realization is... as always. I find it ironic that most of the "eco-friendly crafts" in this book generate more waste than the materials for them otherwise would. Out of 50 or so projects, only 4 sparked sufficient interest to maybe, some day, try them: a birch bark canoe (as an interesting variation of a traditional spring toy ship), a kissy fish pinata (which a simple paper mache project, but I liked it anyway), a paper mache bird (another paper mache project... I'm fond of them, apparently), and a green bottle garden (looks cute, but I doubt I'd do it: seems like to much work to maintain). And sadly, that's it from a whole book of "eco" projects for kids.

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