Books & Reading		@
1	Reread Tamora Pierce series	4 / 4	@
9	Read 3 (new) mystery novels	2 / 3
17	Read 15 books - part i	15 / 15	@
18	Read 15 books - part ii	5 / 15

Book:  Tamora Pierce  -  The Immortals (Quartet)  -  Wild Magic, Wolf-Speaker, Emperor Mage & The Realms of the Gods

This quartet is the second in the Tortall Universe. Daine, unlike Alanna, comes from peasant stock. Instead of swords and being a squaire it's bows and being empathetically in tune with animals. This quartest is the heaviest in the world with the Gods Amoung Us theme. I generally like it uniqually from the other for its outsider character who only becomes insanely powerful later. It's pleasant that Daine doesn't train to be a soilder but ends up helping save the country anyway. It is a Y.A. book and is mostly amusing rather than qualitative. Wiki.



Book:  Tamora Pierce  -  Trickster (Duology)  -  Trickster's Choice & Trickster's Queen

These two books were the last ones put out in the Tortall Universe and now the author writes in other universes. The writing style and quality are a lot different in this set. I'm not going to say it's amazing comapred to where my standard for literature is, but it keeps a better pace and feels more in depth. Ally is the only character to really be a rebel of all the female heros. The previous three were all somewhat striaght lace and responsible for various reasons. Ally learns that through her work as a spy, bodygaurd, revolutionary and eventually as a spy master. In the Kel books you could almost feel and see the checklist for teen issues to include. In Ally's, Tamora backs off and it blends in a bit more. But the rebellion (blue hair and all) closely resembles the halmarks of modern age rebellion. You're parents don't understand you and you float about being a bum. Ally has great teenager character development. I'm not sure if any of you know what I mean by that. Wiki.



Book:  Tee Morris  -  Billibub Baddings and the Case of the Singing Sword
What if a classic D&D Lord of the Rings everyday fantasy cliche Dwarf was accidentally sent through a portal into 1920s America? In this novel he'd become a private detective and get involed in a lot of trouble. Instead of reading this novel I listened to a free podcast the author did for it. The author did an amazing job turning his own novel into an audio book. Guest voices, background music and well timed sound effects were a plus. The plot was mediocore and typical of the roaring 20s idealized mystery novel set. One severe criticism I have is how women are portrayed. I know it's the 1920s and I know that it's fiction, but it still scaratched at my concious. Not only were women treated as hyper sexualized objects that only start trouble with their unbridled sexuality or their evil indictive natures, they're the bad guys! In the end the evil horrible character isn't Al Copone, the murderous mobster, it's a woman who was sick of being treated like crap. Don't get me started on how her death and sexual relationship to the main character were moralized. I was severely dissapointed with the author. I'm hoping he wrote this during his midlife crisis so all his books aren't this offensive. Lesson of novel: uppity women should be fucked hard and killed. Despite a high calliber audio performance, I definitly do not recomend. Amazon.