I am behind on my book reviews, but I will do my best to catch up.
For today, I will review two sequels that I read about a month and a half ago. It's been a while, but I will do my best to recall their highlights.
The House of Hades
Rick Riordan
Book Four in the series "The Heroes of Olympus," Riordan continues to deliver quick-paced, enjoyable, yet informative stories.
This book, and those before it, follow after the events of "Percy Jackson and the Olympians", but now the series includes a wealth not only of Greek myths, but of Roman ones also and the differences between the Greek and Roman myths. Without revealing too much, I'll just say that in this book, Percy and his girlfriend Annebeth must travel through Tartarus and make it through alive, while above ground their friends seek to meet them in the place where they will exit, The House of Hades. As usual in Riordan's novels, each chapter feels like a climax unto itself and yet somehow there manages to be a major climax at the end anyway.
Overall, I feel that in the last couple books, Riordan's novels have continued to improve. Characters are beginning to undergo meaningful character arcs and the plot is really coming together. That being said, to enjoy these books, any of these books, you have to be okay with not really knowing what is going to happen in advance. The truth is, with the wealth of possible stories that Riordan can draw from, there's no chance of predicting how things will go even within a single chapter, let along between chapters. Sure, there's some foreshadowing on the larger elements of plot, but not so much on the smaller details.
It's a romp to read and this book goes deeper than some of the ones before it. I'm looking forward to the final book in the series because Riordan has shown me many times over that he knows how to write a good story.
Siege & Storm
Leigh Bardugo
Siege & Storm is about the girl Alina who is trying to run from her past and from the Darkling. She hides her power to summon light, and yet she longs to be able to use it. She can't stay away for long and soon she is thrust back into the center of the power struggle taking place in the land of Ravka, but at what cost to her and to the one she loves?
It's hard to give a summary for a sequel without giving away too many spoilers, but overall the plot is interesting and enjoyable.
This book is also a sequel, albeit by a less established author in a smaller series. The first book here was called "Shadow and Bone". The first book was good, but not great, and that's about my feelings on the follow-up. Oh, they are page turners and there's plenty of romance, but the endings just leave me feeling like I haven't finished a book. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed reading it and I'll read the final book when it comes out, but I can't recommend it until the final book is out, because who knows if the trilogy will end well or not.
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And speaking of trilogies, I've been thinking lately how nice it is to just read a book or watch a movie that isn't part of a series, but a self contained story told succinctly and beautifully. There are too many series that appear to be good only because we have no idea how they end until we buy the final book years later. I haven't read "Allegiant" by Veronica Roth yet. The reviews have sort of turned me off from reading it for a little while, though I'm sure I'll pick it up at some point in time. Around this time I'm also reminded of the "Mockingjay" by Suzanne Collins. Not a bad book, just not the most well done ending I've ever seen. And then there's "The Death Cure" by James Dashner. The first two books were good, and then the last book just killed it.
There seems to be a current trend of trilogies, as if authors, or perhaps their publishing companies just want authors to extend their stories just to make them trilogies instead of self contained books. As a result, the books themselves suffer. Sure, these current YA trilogies are exciting, but that's about it. The series rarely leave a lasting impression on me beyond the initial excitement of gobbling them up. I say rarely because there are exceptions. For instance, the first Hunger Games novel feels self contained to me. It has merit by itself even without sequels. I feel that each book in "The Chaos Walking Trilogy" has merit in itself due to each book haven't clearly different themes, narration styles, and topics. Ender's Game is technically part of a much larger series. Having read all the books in that series, I'd say that most of them have merit in themselves. 4 out of 8 of those books I could pick up without having ever read any of the other books and enjoy it just for itself. Don't get me wrong, the other books are also good, but there is something special about finishing a book and feeling like you have actually completely a full story, like there has been a change both in the characters in the book, and in you. I just finished reading an old story "The View From Saturday" today. I'll review it later, but I can't help feeling like it does in 160 pages what many trilogies of today fail to do in 1000 pages. That, to me, is very sad.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Friday, November 1, 2013
Movie Review From Reader: Ender's Game
I wouldn't do a movie review if it wasn't based off of one of my favorite books of all time, but I feel compelled to write this after coming home from the movie tonight.
I will start with something of my perspective - where I am coming from as I write this review.
I read Ender's Game first when I was 12 - the book was passing through my house and I also devoured it and its sequel quickly. I gave the book a rest until I was 15 when I decided to write a 13 page paper on the book for one of my english classes. Since then I have read it and its sequels almost yearly with some exceptions to the point where I have read the book 8 or 9 times. I can't remember. I say this so you know that I'm quite familiar with book itself and love it dearly. It speaks to me in a way no movie ever could at its very best.
I will also tell you that I know something of screenplay writing. For those of you who know me, that shouldn't come as a great surprise - I'm a writer first and foremost.
I remember learning that for screenplays, each page represents about a minute of time on the screen. The novel Ender's Game is ~360 pages, which would convert to 6 hours on screen except for the fact that the format for screenplays is not as packed as the format of a book, so each screenplay page contains less than would its book counterpart. I say this so you realize that there is no way a movie designed to have a certain time limit could ever contain everything the book does.
With that lengthy preface, I'll say simply that I liked the movie, I just with it were longer. The movie begins and ends at roughly the same spot as the book. This is an impressive feat considering not only the time skips in the book, but the number of time skips the movie also had to do. It makes some decisions that movies have to make in order to not entirely lose the audience in its quick pace, but I understood those decisions and didn't mind. Not every character, not every scene, not every location can be shown - many of these items have to be combined to maintain coherency and the movie remained cohesive. Some drops were obvious (Locke and Demosthenes) some were not, but overall the surface story is there and I enjoyed it from beginning to end.
As I outlined in my review of the book, the inner thoughts are hard to get at in a movie, but I thought the lead actor did a good job of showing certain emotions and other thoughts were brought into the movie in other ways. So it wasn't as deep as I might've liked it, but it's certainly not a shallow movie either.
Now, here's what I wanted the whole movie through: space to breathe, time to think, pauses to consider.
The novel is incredibly deep and contains a multitude of ideas. Many of the ideas present in Card's novel are in the movie, but they come at such a quick pace it's hard to remember them all by the end. One excellent quote is said and before a second has passed to let me take it in, another character is already talking again and moving the story along.
Another thing I desperately wanted was time to know the characters better. Part of what makes the novel are the individual personalities and depth of character contained in each character. But in the movie there was barely any time to get to know the characters. Ender we got to know well, but not as well as I would have liked. Most of his complicated psychology is lost to us. Bean, Alai, Petra, and Dink I wanted to see more of to understand their loyalty to Ender and their perspectives. Even characters like Bonzo and Graff and Mazer I wanted to see more of to understand their deeper thoughts and motivations.
But let's be honest, I wanted more time with the Launchie group; I wanted more time in the battle rooms; I wanted more of the final simulations; I wanted more time at the end to digest what happens and how Ender moves on. But a movie in the theaters doesn't have time.
So here's my hope - I hope they release an extended DVD version. I enjoyed the movie because it took a book that's nigh impossible to do well as a movie and did a decent job of it. No childhood dreams or imaginations of mine were crushed and no liberties were taken that I couldn't handle. Not every lover of Ender's Game will agree with me (it certainly wasn't a perfect movie), but I thought it was a movie worth watching. Now I hope they create a version that gives us more to watch and space to consider what we are watching.
P.S. I still hold to my notion that I have no idea where they're going to go next if they want to make this a franchise. Ender's Game was impossible enough to make.
P.P.S. These are not all my thoughts on the movie, just the main ones I remember now before I go to sleep. Feel free to ask me questions about it or the novel.
I will start with something of my perspective - where I am coming from as I write this review.
I read Ender's Game first when I was 12 - the book was passing through my house and I also devoured it and its sequel quickly. I gave the book a rest until I was 15 when I decided to write a 13 page paper on the book for one of my english classes. Since then I have read it and its sequels almost yearly with some exceptions to the point where I have read the book 8 or 9 times. I can't remember. I say this so you know that I'm quite familiar with book itself and love it dearly. It speaks to me in a way no movie ever could at its very best.
I will also tell you that I know something of screenplay writing. For those of you who know me, that shouldn't come as a great surprise - I'm a writer first and foremost.
I remember learning that for screenplays, each page represents about a minute of time on the screen. The novel Ender's Game is ~360 pages, which would convert to 6 hours on screen except for the fact that the format for screenplays is not as packed as the format of a book, so each screenplay page contains less than would its book counterpart. I say this so you realize that there is no way a movie designed to have a certain time limit could ever contain everything the book does.
With that lengthy preface, I'll say simply that I liked the movie, I just with it were longer. The movie begins and ends at roughly the same spot as the book. This is an impressive feat considering not only the time skips in the book, but the number of time skips the movie also had to do. It makes some decisions that movies have to make in order to not entirely lose the audience in its quick pace, but I understood those decisions and didn't mind. Not every character, not every scene, not every location can be shown - many of these items have to be combined to maintain coherency and the movie remained cohesive. Some drops were obvious (Locke and Demosthenes) some were not, but overall the surface story is there and I enjoyed it from beginning to end.
As I outlined in my review of the book, the inner thoughts are hard to get at in a movie, but I thought the lead actor did a good job of showing certain emotions and other thoughts were brought into the movie in other ways. So it wasn't as deep as I might've liked it, but it's certainly not a shallow movie either.
Now, here's what I wanted the whole movie through: space to breathe, time to think, pauses to consider.
The novel is incredibly deep and contains a multitude of ideas. Many of the ideas present in Card's novel are in the movie, but they come at such a quick pace it's hard to remember them all by the end. One excellent quote is said and before a second has passed to let me take it in, another character is already talking again and moving the story along.
Another thing I desperately wanted was time to know the characters better. Part of what makes the novel are the individual personalities and depth of character contained in each character. But in the movie there was barely any time to get to know the characters. Ender we got to know well, but not as well as I would have liked. Most of his complicated psychology is lost to us. Bean, Alai, Petra, and Dink I wanted to see more of to understand their loyalty to Ender and their perspectives. Even characters like Bonzo and Graff and Mazer I wanted to see more of to understand their deeper thoughts and motivations.
But let's be honest, I wanted more time with the Launchie group; I wanted more time in the battle rooms; I wanted more of the final simulations; I wanted more time at the end to digest what happens and how Ender moves on. But a movie in the theaters doesn't have time.
So here's my hope - I hope they release an extended DVD version. I enjoyed the movie because it took a book that's nigh impossible to do well as a movie and did a decent job of it. No childhood dreams or imaginations of mine were crushed and no liberties were taken that I couldn't handle. Not every lover of Ender's Game will agree with me (it certainly wasn't a perfect movie), but I thought it was a movie worth watching. Now I hope they create a version that gives us more to watch and space to consider what we are watching.
P.S. I still hold to my notion that I have no idea where they're going to go next if they want to make this a franchise. Ender's Game was impossible enough to make.
P.P.S. These are not all my thoughts on the movie, just the main ones I remember now before I go to sleep. Feel free to ask me questions about it or the novel.
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