The Golden Compass
Oct
07
2007

The Golden Compass
by Philip Pullman
399pp (Paperback)
My Rating: 7/10
Amazon Rating: 4.5/5
LibraryThing Rating: 4.3/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.25/5

The Golden Compass (known as Northern Lights in the UK and everywhere other than the U.S. from the sounds of it) is the first book in the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. I’ve had the entire trilogy for a few years now but just hadn’t read it for some reason (well, mainly because it takes less time to buy new books than it does to read them). Since The Golden Compass movie is coming out this December, I decided I had better hurry up and read it so the movie doesn’t spoil the ending for me.

Lyra, a young girl living at Jordan College in Oxford, hides in the master’s room one night just in time to see him attempt to poison her uncle, Lord Asriel. Lyra’s intervention saves Lord Asriel, who then tells Lyra to watch the master from her hiding place in the wardrobe during a meeting with him and the other scholars at the university. At this meeting, Lyra is intrigued by what she hears about Dust and severed children but cannot entirely understand what the adults are discussing.

Soon after this, a beautiful and charming young woman named Mrs. Coulter comes to the university to take Lyra away with her. Early in the morning before she is to leave, Lyra is awakened and summoned to the master’s room. He gives her a device resembling a compass known as an alethiometer and tells her it measures the truth. The master warns Lyra not to let Mrs. Coulter know about his gift to her and their conversation is cut short before he gets to finish what he was going to tell her about Lord Asriel.

Lyra finds that Mrs. Coulter is not as warm and pleasant as she initially seemed, escapes from her, and is caught up in adventures with gyptians, armored bears, and witches on a quest to save Lord Asriel. Her mastery of the alethiometer allows her to play an important role in fate and she is destined to fulfill an old prophecy.

The world in the story is a parallel universe in which a defining characteristic of humans is that they are linked to a daemon, an animal who must stay near the human or both will suffer. The daemon is a constant companion that feels the emotions of the human. Adults have specific animals as their daemons, but children’s daemons are flexible and can take many forms until the child reaches puberty.

This story is marketed for young adults, so it is a fairly short, fun book that is very plot-oriented. Characterization is flat and the dialogue is nothing impressive, but it seemed like standard young adult book characterization and dialogue. As is often the case with young adult books, the world itself seemed more imaginative than a lot of adult fantasy. It had some of the same fantasy themes but written in a less regurgitated standard fantasy way.

The Golden Compass is an enjoyable tale of a child and her daemon companion who are fated to change the world. This is a light read and nothing spectacular, but it is very good for young adult literature. The ending indicates that the future books may have some deeper themes more appealing to adult readers.

7/10

The Shades of Time and Memory
Oct
07
2007

The Shades of Time and Memory
by Storm Constantine
448pp (Hardcover)
Rating: 9/10

The Shades of Time and Memory is the second book in the Wraeththu Histories trilogy by British science fiction and fantasy author Storm Constantine. I would not recommend reading this book (or this review) if you have not read the original Wraeththu Chronicles books and the first Wraeththu Histories book. While The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure, the first of the Wraeththu Histories, filled in some of the gaps in the Wraeththu Chronicles, this book picks up where both the first Wraeththu Histories book and the original trilogy ended.

As with the first book in this trilogy, I was a little nervous about reading this one in case it didn’t live up to my expectations. The first book in the new trilogy was really good, but this book actually continued the story after Cal returned to Immanion and was reunited with Pellaz. It turns out my fears were unfounded since I found this book to be as enjoyable as The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure.

One part of this book that I really enjoyed was that it made it seem more difficult for Cal to begin life in Immanion. At the end of the original Wraeththu trilogy, it seemed as though Cal came to the palace, defeated Thiede, restored the relationship between Pellaz and Caeru instantly, and found it easy to adjust to life reigning as Tigron with Pellaz. They lived happily ever after – The End.
This book shows more of the struggles involved with this ending in the beginning of the story. Events played out the same way in a less rushed manner, but it was not instantaneous as the end of the first trilogy made it seem. Pellaz is happy to have Cal back, yet he is resentful of the removal of Thiede. Cal finds that Pellaz has changed over the years. Some members of the Hegemony are planning to remove Cal and put another in his place.

The final members of Pellaz’s family are introduced in this book – Dorado, now known as Snake, and his son Moon. Dorado is an exceptionally powerful seer, who is fearful of his vision of his brother the Tigron of Immanion finding him and Moon. Cobweb, a powerful seer who claims to be weak in comparison to Snake, has become aware of Snake’s presence and convinces Pellaz they need his brother’s powers for the times coming.

Meanwhile, Ponclast the Varr joins forces with a dark and mysterious power to escape the prison he has been in for years. Ponclast has had many sons in preparation for the day when he can fight the Gelaming, and one of these children, Diablo, is granted the power to travel the Otherlanes without a sedim. By accident, Diablo meets the bitter son of Pellaz and Caeru, Abrimel, who is all too eager to defy both his parents and side with Ponclast in the upcoming struggle between the exiled Varrs and the Gelaming.

As always, the characterization is superb. Any character who could be considered evil has motivation instead of just being evil for the sake of it. The characters are not at all black and white and are very vivid. Some of the dialogue struck me as being excellent and more reminiscent of the old Wraeththu trilogy.

As with The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure, this book is more plot-oriented than the very heavily character-oriented Wraeththu Chronicles. The first person perspective is gone and it focuses on a wide variety of characters instead of just one character’s perspective.

I highly recommend the Wraeththu Chronicles and Wraeththu Histories series to anyone looking for a unique story with well-written characters. Some may find there is too much focus on interpersonal relationships, especially in the original trilogy, but if that does not bother you, these are definitely well worth the time spent reading them. This series is imaginative, beautifully written, and filled with gray characters who each have their own very distinct personality. I have never read anything else like it and it has become one of my favorites of all time.

9/10

Improving the Blog
Oct
07
2007

I was hoping to get at least one review up today since it was finally Saturday, but I ended up getting distracted with making the blog a little more interesting… And before I knew it, the day was gone and I hadn’t done much other than some household chores and working on the blog. Oh well, it will be nicer in the long run and I’m excited to see it looking better!

I did a few things I’ve been wanting to do for a while – getting a bunch of books added to my librarything account so I could use it for random books and to display what I’m reading and adding pictures to posts. Thanks to Chris from The Book Swede for reminding me I’ve been wanting to add pictures. 🙂

My fiance also made me the new graphic that has been added, which I’m very happy with. I told him I wanted a dragon sitting in a coffee cup, so he did the next best thing. I like what he did better than my idea anyway.

Next up is to add a few more links… And, of course, adding those 2 reviews (or 3, since I’m getting close to the end of The Golden Compass) that I’m behind on.

Signed Copy of The Orc King
Sep
30
2007

R. A. Salvatore’s newest book, The Orc King, is currently available on The Signed Page. There are only 13 copies of this book signed by both Salvatore and Todd Lockwood (cover artist). It’s $40 and with only a limited number of copies available, making this a rare book, it will go quickly!

Heavenly Sword
Sep
30
2007

I saw the trailer and animated series for Heavenly Sword for the Playstation 3 today and it looked really, really cool. Now if only I could afford a PS3.

The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure
Sep
30
2007

The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure is the first of the Wraeththu Histories trilogy that Storm Constantine wrote about 17 years after writing the original Wraeththu Chronicles. This book begins about halfway through the first of the original Wraeththu books, The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit, and ends shortly before the ending of the last of the original Wraeththu books, The Fulfillments of Fate and Desire. For that reason, I would not recommend reading this review unless you have read the original Wraeththu Chronicles or you do not mind if part of the story is spoiled.

I was a little apprehensive about reading this book since I loved the Wraeththu Chronicles so much and I was afraid that revisiting it would be disappointing and not at all the same. Now that I’ve read the first two books in the Wraeththu Histories trilogy, I still prefer the original trilogy but I did not find this one worse so much as having a different purpose. The poetic writing is not as prominent, but this series is told from third person instead of the first person point of view so all the thoughts of the characters are not as fleshed out and a simpler, more succinct writing style is more fitting.

The first Wraeththu trilogy was more about the individual Wraeththu characters – the story of Pellaz in the first book, then Swift, then Cal. It was an exploration of what it meant to be Wraeththu and the way this new race developed and adjusted (or didn’t adjust) to no longer being a part of humanity. The Wraeththu Histories series is less character-driven and more plot-oriented; it is beginning to explore where the Wraeththu and their sister race the Kamagrian came from and why they were created.

In The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure, the affects of the death and rebirth of Pellaz on the rest of Wraeththu-kind is shown. Ulaume (whom we met briefly in The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit in a scene in which he attempted to overpower Pellaz and strangle him with his hair) is obsessed with getting revenge on Pellaz. He makes plans to cast a spell on Pellaz during an important festival night and instead feels the death of Pellaz very strongly. This affects him deeply and Ulaume runs away from Lianvis and the rest of the Kakkahaar tribe. Soon after, he finds an abandoned Kakkahaar child, whom he cares for and raises.

Meanwhile, in Saltrock, the shaman Orien also sees the death of Pellaz. Eventually, Cal returns to Saltrock heartbroken and sure Orien knows why Pellaz was killed. Flick becomes close to Cal and is devastated when Cal kills Orien (yes, more details on what happened with Cal and Orien are in this book). Flick had promised Pellaz he would find his family one day, so he leaves Saltrock in order to fulfill this promise and meets a mysterious spirit who teaches him about the dehara, a pantheon of gods. Eventually, Flick finds Mima and Terez, the sister and brother of Pellaz, and meets up with Ulaume and the child Lileem who appears Wraeththu yet does not.

The main characters in this book are Flick, Ulaume, Mima, and Lileem, although Pellaz does appear more toward the end which made me really happy. I missed seeing him in the second and third books, but this book has a lot more about him. I was hoping to read more about Vaysh as well since I found him a particularly intriguing character, but he only made a brief appearance or two.

This book also contains more details on the Kamagrian and their similarities to and differences from the Wraeththu, which was interesting since I was not sure exactly how similar they were.

I did find this book a lot harder to get into than any of the original Wraeththu books, probably because it started with characters I knew very little about. Once it got going, I really enjoyed it, although not quite as much as the original trilogy. I still love all the characters – even the minor ones always seem to have their own personalities that set them apart from the others. Each character has their strengths as well as their flaws and is very realistically portrayed.

While not quite as enjoyable as the original trilogy, this book was interesting and well-done. It was fun to see more of Cal’s return to Saltrock after Pell’s death as well as a few glimpses into Pellaz’s life in Immanion. Also, this book tied together events in the first three books so the motivation behind happenings made more sense. I would highly recommend these to anybody who has read the original Wraeththu trilogy.