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Book Review: The Prometheus Project: Captured by Douglas E. Richards (series, #2)
Summary:
Brother/sister duo Ryan and Regan are back only this time they’re officially part of the team of scientists working in the top-secret alien city discovered deep underground in Pennsylvania. They rush off every day after school to work in the city of Prometheus. One weekend they convince their parents to let them sleep over in the city, only to wake up to discover all of the adults captured by a ruthless alien escaped convict whose mind control abilities mysteriously fail to work on the kids. It’s up to them to save not just the adults, but the earth itself from alien rule.
Review:
This follow-up to The Prometheus Project: Trapped (review) brings even more action and science than the first time around. It’s also a longer length that is more suitable for the older middle grade crowd.
Ryan and Regan’s relationship with each other has progressed from sibling tolerance to a level of respect for each other clearly due to working together in the city. It’s nice to see a healthy sibling relationship modeled in a middle grade book.
Again the plot fooled me with a twist ending I didn’t see coming, but that made perfect sense when it was revealed. This is the sort of thing I’d have loved as a middle grade reader. A mystery that manages to out-wit me without playing any tricks.
The villain is threatening without being too frightening. Although the kids’ parents are held captive, no undue violence is shown. Predominantly the scientists are held with plastic ties on their wrists and a simple verbal threat of “do this or else….” It seems an appropriate level of suspense for the age-range. The enemy is formidable, but it is possible to out-wit him.
Although the science, plot, and characters are strong, something just couldn’t let me jump from liking it a lot to loving it. Perhaps this is because I am out of the age-range intended, but it does seem to me as though sometimes the story expects a bit too little of the young reader enjoying it. I hope in future books that Richards challenges young readers a bit more with the writing in addition to the science.
Overall, this is another strong entry in this middle grade series. I firmly believe the series will keep young readers with an interest in scifi and secret government operations happily engaged while parents and guardians can have peace of mind about what they are reading.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Won copy in exchange for my honest review from the author via LibraryThing
Previous Books in Series:
The Prometheus Project: Trapped, review
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Book Review: Lucky Stiff by Tonia Brown
Summary:
Peter’s just a young 18 on his first spring break to New Orleans with his friends when he accidentally takes ecstasy instead of sleeping pills and dies. His friends, terrified, drag his corpse off to a local voodoo priestess who raises him with her special kind of magic–tantric magic. Somehow this method of raising Peter combined with the time of year makes Peter into a very special kind of zombie. One who can feed off of female orgasms instead of human flesh if he so chooses.
Review:
In case it’s not abundantly clear from the summary, this is an erotica novel. A zombie erotica novel. Frankly if you’re not grossed out by vampire undead sex, then this book shouldn’t bother you at all. It’s not like Peter decays (don’t worry, Brown takes care of that part logically). So it’s less sex with a decaying corpse and more sex with an undead dude.
Brown’s concept is hilarious and well-executed. Peter is a zombie with a permanent hard-on who can’t come but needs female orgasms to feed off of to keep him from going all cold-blooded killer. Um possibly the best female-friendly set-up for a paranormal erotica ever? Since he died a virgin, he starts off with the Madam learning how to pleasure a lady for five years, then he gets booted out to go find his own way and become a pick-up artist. He’s completely focused on and fascinated with the female orgasm. You might even call it a fetish. ;-)
It doesn’t matter if I can’t come as long as I can be a part of it when you do. (page 15)
On top of the fun and varied sex scenes though there’s lots of well-conceived plot. Peter has issues he has to deal with. He basically has to grow the fuck up enough to be able to handle a monogamous relationship and recognize real love for what it is. For instance, at first he thinks he’s in love with the Madam, but she tells him:
Sex is just sex. Sometimes it’s really good, true, but it’s nothing in da grand scheme a’ things. We may have fucked, but we never made love. (page 87)
In other words, he only thinks he loves her because he lost his virginity to her. He needs to go out and learn what real love is. That combined with navigating morality and your faith (he becomes a voodoo convert loyal to La Croix) are at the center of the plot.
Brown also drops in various witticisms that exhibit wisdom but are simultaneously hilariously dripping in paranormality:
The trick to being undead, much like being monogamous, is keeping everything fresh. (page 33)
Bits like that kept me laughing out loud whenever I wasn’t caught up in the erotica.
Alas, sometimes the dialogue is a bit stiff (haha, sorry, couldn’t resist). Ahem, in all seriousness, sometimes the dialogue felt a bit forced and unnatural. Similarly, I was bothered that, although Peter clearly is bisexual (he makes multiple comments about wanting to try things out with men in addition to women), for some reason male orgasms are too violent or pointed or whatever for him to be able to feed off of them. Um, I’m sorry, but this isn’t logical. At the very least it would make that if Peter gave head to a guy it would feed him, yes? It felt like Brown wanted to be edgy by making Peter almost bi, but refused to really go all the way. A great example of this is that Peter tries sex with a dude once, but only in the context of a threesome, and it’s the only sex scene not written as erotica. It’s simply briefly mentioned in past tense. I really wish Brown had gone all the way and made Peter bi. It’d be interesting to see that here. Alternatively, to just make Peter totally straight would’ve been fine too. This fine walking of the line rubs me the wrong way though.
Overall this is a fun erotica with a unique storyline that manages to make zombies sexy with a heavy dash of voodoo. I recommend it to those who love zombies and erotica fairly equally. I’m betting, knowing the people that I know, that this is not as small a portion of the population as some may think.
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4 out of 5 stars
Length: 248 pages – average but on the shorter side
Source: purchased
Buy It (Amazon. Not available on Bookshop.org.)
Book Review: The Egyptian by Layton Green (Series, #2)
Summary:
Dominic Grey, previously a government worker and before that a champion jiu-jitsu fighter, is now working for Professor Viktor Radek on private detective cases frequently involving religious mysteries and the occult. His first case seems straight-forward enough–retrieve a vial stolen from a biomedical company in Egypt. But there’s more to this biomedical company than meets the eye, and Dominic soon finds himself racing around the globe from New Jersey to Bulgaria to Cairo in an attempt to unravel a mystery involving what just might be the elixir of life.
Review:
This follow-up to The Summoner (review) lives up to the excitement and global noir feel of the original without retracing the same steps. This holds promise for the series as a whole as one issue in writing serial detective novels is keeping everything fresh for the reader.
Green has either traveled the world extensively or done a ton of research, as his writing shows an intimate knowledge of the various areas of the world Dominic’s work takes him that is only evidenced by those who have been there. It is easy to tell when a writer intimately knows the setting they are speaking of, and this is clear in Green’s work. This lends an extra edge of excitement to the work.
Dominic’s character develops at a believable rate in this entry of the series. Who he is at the core is still the same, but his work and his encounters with a variety of people lead him to question himself, his life, and his intentions. I also appreciated that instead of pulling a 007 and moving on to the next woman without thinking much of his love interest from the first book, Nya, Dominic struggles with his emotions about the women he sleeps with. He is certainly no saint when it comes to the opposite sex, but the way he deals with women strikes a believable middle.
Unfortunately, Viktor does not feature as prominently this time around, and he also appears to be on a bit of a downward slope in his fondness for absinthe. I hope his character will be addressed more fully in the next entry in the series.
Two of the new characters added this time around are particularly enjoyable–Veronica (the love interest) and Jax (an international mercenary). I actually fell for Jax much harder than I’ve fallen for Dominic. He is from small town America with no ties to family, completely confident in the most rural corners of the world. He’s brassy, witty, and clearly has a bit of a good streak buried in him somewhere. I think both the ladies and the men reading the series will enjoy his presence, and I hope he’ll pop up in later entries (or even get his own spin-off series). Veronica is enjoyable for different reasons. She’s a career woman starting to question where her life is heading and falls for the guy she can’t have. It may seem cliche, but that sort of thing happens all the time in real life. She’s sympathetic without being pathetic. Also, personally, I found her a lot more enjoyable than Nya. She’s more assertive with Dominic; let’s just leave it at that. ;-)
The writing style itself still struggles in places on the sentence level. Sometimes Green tries too hard to sound philosophical, and it comes across as forced. Similarly, some paragraphs lean a bit too heavily on showing, not telling. The instances of this occurring are fewer than in the previous book, though, and it is obvious that Green is working hard on improving his craft. Personally, I did not find that these instances distracted me from the exciting plot at all.
Overall, The Egyptian is a fast-paced, unpredictable detective mystery, perfect for those looking for a light-weight, page-turner for their evenings or the beach.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Free kindle copy from the author in exchange for review
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Note: The Egyptian and The Summoner are on sale for 99 cents for this release weekend only (August 27th and 28th)
Previous Books in Series:
The Summoner, review
Book Review: Wolf Hunt: The Burning Ages by Sebastian P. Breit (series, #1)
Summary:
It’s the future, and the world is in another semi-cold war between NATO and BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China). A NATO group of British, American, and German naval ships is being sent to Brazil on a mission, but part-way there they are all zapped back in time to 1940. With the chance to change history for the better, what will they decide to do?
Review:
I first want to point out that Breit is German and wrote this in English himself; it is not a translation. I have to say that I wonder why he made that choice as the plot certainly seems to have more of a European than an American appeal, but I am impressed at his effort to write in his second language.
The summary of the book makes the plot sound fast-paced, but in fact it is actually distressingly slow-moving. It takes about 1/3 of the book for the all-important time-traveling event to happen. I spent the whole first part of the book just waiting and wondering when it was going to happen, because once the basic politics of the world and character traits were set up, it’s just a waiting game. The naval mumbo-jumbo filling up the rest of the space just wasn’t necessary. This issue carries on throughout the book with half of the sailors spending a solid amount of their time stranded on an island, for instance. Since this is marketed as a fast-paced historical thriller, perhaps somewhat like the style of The Da Vinci Code it quite simply needs to move along faster. Intense naval specifics and codes are not necessary. Fast-moving plot is.
Breit also needs to invest in a British and American editor each, as the British and American characters say and do things that are just flat-out wrong in British and American English respectively. One that really slapped me across the face is that one of the characters is from Boston, but everyone refers to him as a “Bostoner.” People from Boston are called “Bostonians.” I have never once in my life heard anyone say “Bostoner,” and I live in Boston. Another example is at one point one of the Americans reads another American’s birthdate from off an id and says it the European way “11 September 2001,” instead of the American way “September 11th, 2001.” This is one of those instances where the author needs to have his facts straight in order for the story to be believable. Nothing makes me not believe a character is American quite like having him get a bunch of American English wrong.
Additionally, as a woman and an author, the way the female characters are handled is distressing to me. Just one example is that a bunch of the stranded female sailors are attacked on the island by some of the locals in an attempt at rape. These women who had the exact same training as their male counter-parts are apparently completely incapable of saving themselves, but instead have to be rescued by their male comrades. But it gets worse. Later when the captain of the ship is relating the event to another man, he asks if the women were alright. The captain responds by saying that the doctor said they were fine. The doctor. Apparently nobody bothered to ask these women if they were raped (HINT: I’m pretty sure women can tell if they’ve been raped or not). Plus no one seems to care that these women are clearly not going to be emotionally ok after almost getting raped, and not once do any of the female characters who were attacked say anything about it with their own voices. This is just completely inexcusable. It’s a removal of women’s voices from ourselves, and it’s insulting to a female reader.
There’s the issue of European bias expressed through the American characters. For instance, one American character expresses shame at how Americans only speak one language. First of all, the rate of bilingualism in the US is actually rising, so following the arc of the future, there should be more bilingual Americans, not less. Second, I’ve never once heard an American express woe in an all-encompassing way like that by saying something like “It’s so sad Americans aren’t bilingual.” People say, “I wish I was fluent in another language,” or “I wish I was fluent in Japanese,” but they just don’t put it that way. That whole paragraph sounded like a European using an American character as a puppet to say what Europeans think of Americans. Yeesh.
I also have problems with the German characters though. A bunch of them express the desire to stop the Holocaust not to save lives but to save the German people from harboring the shame and guilt for generations to come. Um, what? That’s your concern oh time-traveling Germans? Having been to Germany myself on a student exchange and visited Dachau, etc… I can say that I have a hard time imagining any of the kids my age at the time (15ish in the early 2000’s) focusing in on that as opposed to stopping a bad thing from happening because it’s evil and wrong. I can only imagine that generations even further along would be even more focused in on stopping a genocide as opposed to saving some broad idea of German honor. It’d be like having a time-traveling modern American decide to stop the Trail of Tears to save us from shame as opposed to doing it to save innocent Cherokees. The whole thought just makes my brain hurt.
To sum up, Breit shows ability as a writer that needs to be worked on and honed. I’d recommend either getting a good editor who can handle both British and American English or switching to writing in German. He also needs to work on tightening up his plot. Normally I’d say, nice first effort keep trying, but due to the opinions and biases and presentation of women present in this first attempt, I’m afraid I can’t say that. It’s readable, but why would you want to read it anyway?
2 out of 5 stars
Source: Ebook from author in exchange for my honest review
Product Review: Print from Easy Canvas Prints
I was wonderfully excited to receive my second offer for a product review from Melissa Pont of Easy Canvas Prints. In her super-friendly email she gave me the opportunity to create my own 8 by 10 print in exchange for reviewing my experience (and the print) here. As a 20-something slowly trying to decorate my apartment like an adult, I jumped at the opportunity.
The site basically creates professional artist quality prints from your own photos. This means any one of your many digital photos can become a piece of artwork in your home. By far the only difficult part of my whole experience was choosing which picture I wanted hanging in my home! I love taking photos, and Boston as well as my visits home to Vermont gave me a whole slew of scenic items to choose from. I finally decided to narrow it down by first choosing which section of my apartment needed decoration the most. My kitchen won by a long-shot, as it only had one picture hanging in it. Once I chose my kitchen, I knew which picture I wanted in there.
I took a picture my senior year of undergrad at a New Year’s Eve party of raspberries in champagne with SoCo in the background. The colors in the photo (yellow and red) go with the color theme I’m slowly working on in my kitchen, so that was the choice! I then had to visit Easy Canvas Prints to create the print.
The website is clearly set-up and guides you through each step smoothly. First you upload the picture. Second you choose which size you want. Third you choose if you want a border or not. If not, your photo wraps around the edge. I wanted a border, so I then had to choose what style. I selected a solid color and a golden-yellow to match the color of the champagne. You then simply place your order.
My print arrived in just about a week, which I think is a very reasonable time-frame for creation and shipment. It arrived well-packaged in completely recyclable cardboard and brown paper and clearly stamped as “Fragile.” Hanging it literally took me about one minute, as the bracket for hanging was perfectly placed on the back, so I simply had to stick a nail in my wall.
It’s a truly gorgeous print and has absolutely added a level of class to my kitchen. I had a wonderful experience with Easy Canvas Prints, and I encourage those looking for professional quality art for their home made from their own photos to check it out. It’s a truly unique way to decorate your home.
Close-up of the print.
Print hanging on my kitchen wall. Notice how the raspberries match my red toaster. ;-)
Book Review: The Prometheus Project: Trapped by Douglas E. Richards (series, #1)
Summary:
Ryan and Regan can’t believe their scientist parents made them move from San Diego to the total snoozefest of Pennsylvania practically overnight just so they can work at a boring science corporation, Proact. But when they accidentally overhear their parents talking, they realize there may be more to Proact than meets the eye, and they’re determined to find out!
Review:
I don’t think I realized when I entered the giveaway for this (a really long time ago, sorry about that, Richards!) that it’s a middle grade/children’s series. I don’t usually read below the YA level anymore unless I’m reading to my four year old nephew, but I am a librarian, so I put my librarian cap on for this book. I also tried to hearken back to what I would have enjoyed at the age of eight or nine.
Ryan and Regan are a cute brother/sister pair. Ryan is older and thus underestimates his sister sometimes. They tease each other, but never cruelly, and it is evident that they truly love each other. The sibling dynamic is definitely well-done. It was refreshing to see the adults depicted as adults and not idiots or mean-spirited. What Ryan and Regan accomplish is because they’re the smart kids of smart parents, not out of any short-comings of the adults.
The science is really well-done. Richards’ author bio states that he used to write for National Geographic Kids, and it shows. He explains things eloquently without talking down to kids. All of the science found in the book is factual. I would have loved stumbling upon such learning in fiction as a kid.
The ending has a twist that even I didn’t see coming, and I was sort of expecting to being a grown-up reading it, haha. It’s not cheesy or over-the-top, and I’m betting kids will love the surprise.
My main criticisms are that sometimes the descriptions of the characters focus too much on their hair and eye color to the exclusion of other things, and the book felt too short. It just seemed a bit short for the grade level. Mentally I compared it to Nancy Drew which are generally like 25% longer, and I think that length would be ideal. The sequel is longer though, so that’s a good thing.
Overall I think if you have middle grade reading level kids who like science, mysteries, or scifi you should feel completely confident in handing them this book.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Won copy in exchange for my honest review from the author via LibraryThing
Book Review: Hetalia: Axis Powers by Hidekaz Himaruya (series, #1) (manga)
Summary:
The nations involved in WWII and the events leading up to it are personified as over-the-top manga characters and through manga-style scenarios the historic events leading up to WWII are explored.
Review:
One of my good friends loaned this to me informing me that I would love it. I DID. I REALLY DID. I haven’t seen WWII this funny since Hogan’s Heroes was a mild obsession of mine in middle school, only this is historically accurate.
Each nation’s stereotypes (that are partly true) are blown over the top for the manga characters. France is proud and snobby but pathetically weak. The UK acts like a put-upon uncle who really just wants everyone to start acting their age. Japan is impatient with Germany for including Italy in their alliance. Italy is really short and loves pasta. The US can’t stop eating hamburgers long enough to speak with his mouth empty. It just goes on and on from there. Every page or two depicts a different historic event that set the scene for WWII to explode across the globe, complete with footnotes to clarify anything that might not be entirely clear from the manga-style interaction.
I was a History major in undergrad, and WWII was “my war.” (Every History major has a favorite war. My close second was the Revolutionary War, but I digress). In any case, I have a lot of knowledge about WWII, and Himaruya clearly knows his stuff, but he also gets the irony and funny aspects of different cultures clashing, and that’s what makes Hetalia so incredible. It felt like reading nonfiction in an incredibly entertaining way. It reminds me of back when the History Channel was amazingly cool.
I can’t wait to swap this for the next book in the series from my friend. I’m incredibly curious as to how Himaruya will handle the more serious topics such as the Bataan Death March and the Holocaust in the future entries.
While I loved this book, I primarily recommend it to fans of humorous manga and WWII buffs primarily. I have the feeling others might not “get it.”
5 out of 5 stars
Source: Borrowed
Book Review: A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard
Summary:
On June 10, 1991, eleven year old Jaycee Lee Dugard was abducted from her school bus stop by Phillip and Nancy Garrido with the aid of a stun-gun. Jaycee was locked up in a backyard compound and repeatedly raped and abused by Phillip in a bid to satisfy his pedophilia. Over the course of her 18 year captivity, Jaycee gave birth to two daughters in the compound. Eventually with her increasing age, the sexual assaults stopped, but she was still held captive. Finally, on August 26, 2009, Phillip brought Jaycee and her daughters with him to the parole office in an attempt to explain away why he was spotted in public with the two girls. Jaycee, who hadn’t been allowed to speak her name for 18 years, was able to write it down for the police. This is the memoir of her experience and gradual recovery from the captivity.
Review:
Jaycee wrote this memoir without the assistance of a ghost writer, something very uncommon in memoirs by victims of abduction. She states in the beginning that her way of remembering things is a bit off because of the trauma, but that her way of telling her story will provide a genuine experience for the reader to truly see how the abduction affected her. She is correct that the memoir is not set up in a traditional way, but this tends to make for stronger books when discussing something as painful as this. It reminds me a bit of the very non-traditional story-telling methods used in another memoir When Rabbit Howls. Eliminating the ghost writer and letting the victim speak grants us, the readers, the opportunity to truly connect with a survivor. I humbly thank Jaycee for her bravery in this.
Most of the chapters start with Jaycee remembering the events from the perspective of her younger self. This absolutely makes scenes such as her first molestation by Phillip incredibly haunting. She then ends each chapter with a reflection from her adult, free perspective on the past. This structure is unique, but it provides an interesting perspective, showing both Jaycee the victim and Jaycee the survivor. Toward the end of the book this structure is lost a bit as we suddenly are shown many pages from the journal Jaycee carefully kept in captivity, as well as talking in a more present manner about the therapy she’s been going through. Her therapist sounds truly remarkable. She uses horses to help the survivors deal with problems, which seems to work incredibly well for Jaycee who often only had animals around to talk to during her 18 year ordeal.
Although Jaycee does recount her abuse and manipulation at the hands of Phillip, that is not at all what stands out in this memoir. What comes across is what a strong, sensitive, caring woman Jaycee is. She is not lost in woe is me. She does not even think she has it the worst of anyone in the world. The one thing she repeatedly states she’s learned is that she was not assertive enough as a little girl, and that personality trait backfired on her repeatedly throughout the ordeal. She states that she sees this as the reason abuse of all kinds are able to go on, because people don’t speak up.
There are moments in which all of us need to have a backbone and feel that we have the right to say no to adults if we believe they are doing the wrong thing. You must find your voice and not be afraid to speak up. (page 143)
This message of “speak up” is stated repeatedly throughout the book and leaves the reader feeling empowered rather than downtrodden at such a tale. If Jaycee could live through such a situation and come out of it stronger and as an advocate for victims and survivors of abuse to speak up, how can any of us do any less?
I recommend this book to those who enjoy memoirs and survival stories and can handle scenes of a disturbing nature.
4 out of 5 stars
Source: Amazon
Book Review: Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop (series, #1)
Summary:
In this fantasy matriarchal land, people are ranked by their power based on what color jewels they are mystically assigned to wear when they come of age. The darker the jewel, the better. The women all have some sort of witchcraft power, but none have had the power of The Witch in hundreds of years. Corrupt women have messed with the structure of society turning it from harmony to darkly using the men and women to their own advantage. Men in particular are used by controlling them via a ring of obedience (placed around their penis). Into this messed-up society the much waited for Witch is born, but most do not recognize her. Lucky for her, the demon dead Saetan and his two living sons, Daemon and Lucivar, do.
Review:
This is what I would call high fantasy. The only thing missing really is knights in shining armor. A friend gave me this trilogy for my birthday as it is one of her favorite series, and she thought I would like it. I can see why she thought I would like it. It’s dark, graphically violent and sexual, and the choice to depict a messed-up matriarchy instead of patriarchy is unique. Unfortunately I just couldn’t get into it.
First there’s the whole jewels and traveling on webs and wind and speaking on a soundwave that only people with that jewel can hear thing. None of these things are ever particularly explained. They just are. Ok, so that probably works for fantasy fans, but I’m a logical, scifi reading lady. I want explanations for things. Also, how society fell apart is kind of massively unclear to me. I’m not sure how things went from good to bad or what the properly functioning society is supposed to look like. It’s all very confusing, and frankly, I can’t remember the order of the ranks of the jewels. I just remember that gray is second-strongest and black is strongest. But then later in the book some people say they’ve worked their way up to stronger jewels than their birthright. Um, what? When did that happen? How can that happen? If you can do that then why does your birthright jewel matter at all? None of this makes any sense. Agh.
Then there’s the ring of obedience. So they put this on violent males who are now sex slaves, apparently. They serve witches. The ring makes it so they can’t get a hard-on without pain. But they don’t take the ring off for sex, which means these women are using sex slaves but never actually having intercourse. Who would want that?! How does that make sense? Also, Daemon can apparently pleasure women and tie them up just with his mind. He can do this but he can’t get a ring off his dick? This feels like badly-organized erotica. Which would be fine if it was erotica, but it’s fantasy, so wtf Bishop.
So then we have Jaenelle, The Witch. She’s eleven or twelve, I can’t remember exactly which. Her family thinks she’s crazy because she’s super-powerful and travels around meeting mystical creatures and told them about it, which was a bad move. She got sent to an asylum then brought home, and she’s been all Miss Mysterious Dark Eyes That Are Actually Gorgeous and Sapphire ever since. This is the main mystery of the book. That and the manly threesome trying to protect her from the big bad queen witches who want her dead. So Daemon is working in her house and basically falls in love with her. He’s never felt sexual desire for a witch before, but now he does. He feels horrible that he feels it for one so young and vows to wait until she’s grown up enough to be with him, but he still feels it.
Then we *spoiler alert* find out the asylum is just a cover-up for pedophiles, and of course Jaenelle gets raped, and a good witch saves her, and Daemon and Saetan work together to try to save her, and in her mind she tells Daemon that he just wants her body just like everyone else, and he basically makes out with her in her mind to show her he wants to be her lover not hurt her. This makes her come back to her body and heal it. Then she escapes to Saetan and Daemon escapes off to a brothel.
Can we just HOLD THE PHONE for a minute. I am not at all against a pedophilia storyline or plot device. These things happen in real life, so it’s ok for them to be in a story. I do have a problem with the “good guy” having sexual feelings for an eleven or twelve year old when he’s literally centuries old. He himself admits this is bad, but instead of going away from her, he makes out with her in her mind (when she’s in half-horse form no less). I just….what. What the what. What am I supposed to think about this? How am I supposed to feel about a book written by a woman in which the matriarchy basically abuses everyone and yet the men still wind up with most of the power (the manly threesome) over this young girl who is supposed to become the awesome ruler one day, and one of the guys has pedophilic feelings for her. WTF.*end spoilers*
I suppose it’s possible that Daemon is an anti-hero, and we’ll find that out later in the series. That Jaenelle will triumph and prevail over everyone and fix everything. We can only hope. I do suspect that part of my issue with the book is just point-blank never feeling comfortable in the fantasy world Bishop lays out. I just don’t do high fantasy. When will I learn this?
That said, it does seem well-written, and I think if a fantasy fan can handle very dark and graphic violence, sex, and themes, they will probably enjoy this trilogy.
2.5 out of 5 stars
Source: Gift
Book Review: The Last Manchu: The Autobiography of Henry Pu Yi, Last Emperor of China by Henry Pu Yi, translated by Paul Kramer
Summary:
Henry Pu Yi became the last emperor of China when he was almost three years old. During the chaos of a post-WWI China fighting between republics and war lords, he would periodically rule, be a figurehead, or be in hiding on foreign-held embassy land. Working with the Japanese in WWII he sought to refind his throne by ruling as the figure-head of the Japanese-held Manchuria region. He then was held prisoner by the Soviets for five years before being turned over to the communist Chinese for thought reform.
Review:
Although the translator states that Henry Pu Yi’s life is an excellent way to examine how China survived so many upheavals in the early 20th century, after reading the autobiography I simply cannot agree. Henry Pu Yi’s life was incredibly unique and absolutely not a reflection of what was really going on in China at the time. If anything, he seemed to operate from an oblivious perspective up until the communists kind of smacked him in the face with reality. For instance, during the time of chaos, civil wars, and famine in China prior to WWII, he states:
Just as food was cooked in huge quantities and not eaten, so was a vast amount of clothing made which was never worn. (location 544)
When reflecting on his past perspectives, it is evident that his past self did not understand why such wastefulness would infuriate China’s poor or make them push for a republic via Chiang Kai-shek. Of course, one cannot entirely blame Henry Pu Yi for this short-sightedness. He was raised from a young age being treated as a god by all those around him, being told it was his destiny to be the holy emperor. That would mess with anyone’s mind. However, as he became older he did have teachers and advisors who tried to enlighten him, he just refused to listen.
Eventually, Henry Pu Yi reached this odd mental compromise where he believed everything Western was good, except for their ruling system.
I also became far more convinced than I had ever been in the days when Johnston was with me that everything foreign was good and everything Chinese, except the Imperial System, was bad. (location 2184)
His selfish mindset saw everything good he himself could garner from the west, but didn’t seek out anything positive to change or do for his people. This self-centeredness in a ruler is disturbing at best.
This is even more evident during the time of his life when Pu Yi was puppet ruling for Japan in Manchukuo (Manchuria). Pu Yi increasingly came to fear more and more for his life as it became more evident that Japan would lose the war. The more afraid he was, the more he beat members of his household and staff. Yet he simultaneously claimed to be a good Buddhist who would not even harm a fly. It seems the only thing Pu Yi excelled at was compartmentalizing his actions. A former servant of Pu Yi summed up his personality quite eloquently during one of the criticism sessions of the communist thought reform:
Pu Yi is both cruel and afraid of death. He is suspicious, tricky and a hypocrite. When he beat or scolded his servants, it was not for mistakes they committed, but due to his own mood at the time. (location 4020)
Pu Yi, for most of his life, was incredibly selfish. He was obsessed with his own death and life and with maintaining his emperor status. He cared little to nothing for those around him or for the people of China. One must wonder how things may have been different if a strong, selfless man had been made emperor during the same time period.
Thus for most of the autobiography, we’re reading about a most unsympathetic man from his own perspective. That can become a bit tough to endure. The light of the autobiography comes in the last quarter of the book, though, when he recounts his time in thought reform.
The translator refers to this time period as Pu Yi being brainwashed. I can’t say that it appeared that way to me at all. Pu Yi was not tortured, made to starve, or beaten. He was simply placed in prison and reformed. Frankly, I think his time in communist prison did him a world of good. Suddenly he was having to fend for himself. Where before he never even had to open a door or mend a button, suddenly he did. Slowly the communists gave him more and more responsibilities so that eventually he was on the same cleaning and work rotation as the other men in the prison. Pu Yi says himself that he came to realize how truly useless he was at doing anything worthwhile. Although at first he blames those who raised him, he comes to acknowledge his own bad character eventually, being ashamed for how he behaved. When he is eventually deemed reformed by the communists, he enters society as an equal and works hard to do his fair part. Personally I think if American prison systems could have this kind of excellent 180 result, we would soon see a much smaller inmate population. For isn’t the purpose of prison supposed to be reform? And one cannot deny that Pu Yi came out a better man than he went in, even if communist China has made many other mistakes, it is evident with Pu Yi things were handled quite well. A man was reformed and made useful in society instead of senselessly killed off.
It is a bit of a wait to get to the interesting thought reform portion of the book, however. Pretty much everything before that makes you want to attack Pu Yi through the pages. His style is a bit rambling, although the translator claims that’s partly just Chinese culture versus Western culture. It is an interesting read, but I do think it will only really hold the attention of those with a strong interest in China.
3.5 out of 5 stars
Source: Amazon
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This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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