Book 46: The Last Command by Timothy Zahn

Time to finish off another series.  Seems like I've been doing a lot of that lately.  This one will mark the end of my Star Wars reading for a while.  It's been fun and I'm looking forward to the ending, so here we go.

467 pages makes 67 pages per day.


REVIEW:

This was a great finale to a great series.  Finally all of the various plotlines from the first two books are resolved.  The things that were great about the first two books are here as well: characters are written well, stories are complex and interesting, battles are exciting, dialogue is well-written and meaningful.  Some of my favorite parts of this book are the Jedi battles.  In this slightly-expanded Star Wars universe there are already several Jedi or Jedi-in-training: Luke, C'boath, Leia, Mara Jade.  Between them there are at least 3 lightsabers (one of which has a cool history!).  So the final battle between the good Jedi and the bad is exciting and engaging.  This, coupled with the ending of the other plotlines made the conclusion of this series quite satisfying.

The only part of the ending that I thought was not perfect was the space battle.  It built up and built up into a huge event, but eventually ended quite abruptly, with some major events happening "off-screen". This made it a little less satisfying, but still not bad.  The good part about having a well-written ending is that you could easily stop reading here and be finished with Star Wars.  It provides a nice resolution to the film series as well as this series.  Unfortunately, for me, I'm even more interested in the other Star Wars books now and I would actually like to continue reading these.  I know that at some point they become a little silly and I would like to stop before then, but I might give the next few books a try sometime.

Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys Star Wars and, more inclusively to anyone who enjoys science fiction.  There is enough here to engage even those people who are not really into Star Wars and it can be enjoyed as much as any other Space Opera type book.

8 out of 10.

Book 45: The Walking Dead, Compendium 1, by Robert Kirkman

I've come back around to the graphic novel genre and decided to catch up a bit with the Walking Dead series.  Of course, I'm a fan of the show and I'd read a few of the comics quite a while ago but I was quickly approaching the point where the show would catch up to my reading.  I saw that this compendium was on sale on Amazon for about $30 and it contains the first 48 issues of the comic.  I quickly picked it up and am now reading through them.  It's about 1000 pages but illustrations take up quite a bit of the page.  The series is now around issue 96 so we should see another compendium any time now containing the next 48 issues.

1008 pages means 144 gory, violent pages per day.  Can't wait...


REVIEW:   Holy crap.  This book is a real rollercoaster of emotions.  Never have I been so affected by a comic.  In the beginning, you have a sense of hope and optimism as Rick explores this new world in search of his family.  Very soon, however, things start to get more and more complex and more and more dark.  But let's start with the good stuff.

The art in the book is amazing.  There are great depictions of zombies and they are so detailed that you can tell what they were before the apocalypse from the details of their clothing, etc.  The characters and settings are also equally detailed which adds a lot of realism to the book.  Some of the individual drawings, in particular, a couple of the two-page spreads are works of art.

As good as the art was, however, the story really takes the prize.  The realism of the settings is echoed with the plight of the survivors.  They are reduced to a nomadic lifestyle, struggling to find food and survive against bitter odds.  As soon as someone lets down their guard, they die.  Ultimately, the story ends up being less about zombies and more about what happens to society when the morals and laws of civilization are lost.  It's an epic story and and both the story and art heighten the experience.  Roads choked with abandoned cars, the ruins of suburban housing tracts, empty hospitals and prisons, etc. really bring home the state of the world.

It is also, however, a seriously depressing book.  Following all these people through their troubles and learning to understand their individual situations only to have them killed a few issues down the road is demoralizing.  You feel as the survivors feel, that maybe it's not worth making connections when any of them could die at any time.

Overall, I will definitely pick up the series again (it's already on issue #98) but it will take a little while to get over the trauma of this book.  It's depressing to see the world crumble around you only to watch it built back up through painstaking effort only to have it crumble again worse than before.  It's a masterpiece of human drama in extraordinary circumstances just for the emotional rollercoaster Kirkman takes us on.

9 out of 10.

Book 44: The Sweet Life in Paris by David Lebovitz

For my non-fiction selection this time around I'm reading a book that was loaned to me by my sister-in-law.  It is written by a guy who has written several cookbooks, mostly on desserts, though this book is more about his life in Paris and dealing with Parisians.  My sister-in-law tells me that it's very funny so I'm giving it a shot.

It's quite short, at 269 pages, so I only need to read about 39 pages per day.


REVIEW:  I like the way this book is structured.  Each chapter consists of a short narrative, almost a blog post, giving a specific lesson learned about living in Paris.  The stories are well-written and typically very funny.  The role of food is prominent as the author's life is deeply immersed in the culinary world.  And, at the end of each chapter is a recipe, usually somewhat related to the story and always mouth-watering.

I think the only thing I really didn't like about the book was that I read it too quickly.  The ideal way to read this book would be to read each chapter, then prepare the recipe at the end.  In this way, I think you might be able to savor each.

The book shows Paris, and especially, Parisians, in a light that is sometimes quite ugly, but he goes a long way toward redeeming them by the end.  Parisians may be superficial, vain, pushy and condescending but they also live in one of the world's great cities, a world capital in food, culture, finance and politics... and they know it.

The Sweet Life in Paris is a quick, light read.  Nothing of any real depth, but very enjoyable.  It's great for anyone interested in food or Paris or both.

7 out of 10

Book 43: The Murder at the Vicarage by Agatha Christie

Every time I come back around to the Mystery genre I think that I should probably branch out a bit and try some other authors.  But Agatha Christie is just so good!  I am trying something slightly different... instead of reading one of her Hercule Poirot books, I'm trying the first Miss Marple book.  Maybe next time I'll try a different author, but for now, I'm going to enjoy some more of this one.

247 pages is an easy 36 pages per day.


REVIEW:  Well, this is the third Agatha Christie novel that I've read and I still have not been able to guess the ending correctly.  The first two that I read were sort of gimmicky in that the endings were based more on the author's tricks than on a cunning plan.  This one, however, got me.  It was solely due to the plan by the guilty party that I was duped.

As I mentioned in the intro, this is the first Miss Marple book that I've read.  It was definitely a different style than the Poirot mysteries.  Miss Marple took almost a back-seat to the story.  Most of the book was narrated by another character, the vicar of the title's vicarage.  Occasionally, Miss Marple would show up and give some subtle clues or ideas and then disappear again for a few more chapters.  It's almost a stretch to even call it a "Miss Marple mystery" when she is hardly in the book at all.  She does show up at the end to wrap up the case, though, and since this is the first appearance of the character, I'm giving it a bit of leeway.

The book was very fun, though, and I raced through it, excited by the thrill of the case.  Christie writes some very memorable characters and very clever plots.  One of these days I'll actually figure out the mystery before the end but, until then, I look forward to being outsmarted a few more times by Ms. Christie.

8 out of 10.