Books! and The Blood King by Gail Z. Martin

So this is going to be a two part post. To start things off...I was immensely happy to have received some money to go and buy some books. I managed to tone down my desire for more books by settling on only three. Two of them by Karen Miller. One of which is a newer one called the Falcon Throne which is going to be part of her Tarnished Crown series. This one really caught my eye because the description made it seem like it might be similar in idea to The Song of Fire and Ice by George R. R. Martin. Hopefully, it won't break my heart as much as his series did. Needless to say, I really can't wait to dive right into that book. The second book by her that I bought was Wizard Undercover from her Rogue Agent series. For some reason it was an oversight and I never got it to finish the series off...I really have no idea how that happened. In general Karen Miller's (a.k.a. K.E. Mills from some of her other books) are extremely enjoyable. They are those kinds of books that you forget how much you love them until you manage to wonder on over to them and pick them up again; and then you are upset that you forgot how much you loved the books. In general: it is good writing, each series has a very unique story (you do not feel like she is re-using anything), and the characters are very likeable with a notable exception. Hekat from her Godspeaker series....I just wanted to punch her in the face...more than once. So I guess you could say she makes very good bad guys too.

The third book I bought took some restraint...the series sounded very good and I nearly bought the whole box set of the three books in hardcover for $100...and then I made the difficult decision that I should not drop that much money on an author I don't know if I will like. So I settled with getting just the first book, even though I had that gut feeling I was going to need to run to the bookstore immediately upon completion to get the last two books. So without further ado! I bought A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. The only thing that made me hesitate was the inclusion of vampires. But, if everything else is awesome then it might make up for any clicheness that might happen. So please, if anyone of you have read the above three books, let me know if you liked them or not.

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The Blood King by Gail Z. Martin

Now the reason I included this in a post with something else is that there really is not much else to say about the second book in the series that wasn't said about the first. I love the characters, but the writing in general gets a little simplistic (in the sense where things seem to be glossed over and skipped where more detail would probably be more appropriate). However, something that is very interesting about this series up to this point is the very important idea that Tris needs to change the intent of which he plans on taking Jared and Arontala down. He cannot do it in the mode for revenge, because they killed his family, because if he did it this way he will die. But he must instead choose to take them down because of the harm they have done and they are going to essentially destroy everything. The difference between your emotions and the greater good. The ending did get a bit suspenseful, which is good. However, I feel like this book and partially the first one are overshadowed by the third and fourth books. I personally liked the third book much more than the first two; but I still recommend reading them because they are worth the buildup for the remaining two books.

Reading and the New Year

So first and foremost I wanted to apologize for being a slacker on the reading. I have been busy finishing up the last presents I have been making for my family. Or else I would have been done with this series already. So I have been thinking about whether or not I want to continue with my current reading list...and I have decided for right now it is going to go on a hiatus. And I have had a very strong urge to go and read some books that take my down memory lane. This is in the sense where it has been years since I have read them; not because they aren't good but because I just hadn't had the urge to revisit them. Most of them were books that I bought when I was in high school and middle school and read them to death. There is one book in particular that I did not ever finish, but that was because at the time I recognized it was beyond my reading comprehension (a book my mom bought me when I was probably 6th grade). And I just never came back to it, and decided to hold on to it.

So anyways, the whole idea of the new year is to go about doing new things. Starting anew. And maybe I will get a nice new perspective on some old favorites. I will list the main ones that have been whispering to me to read them...well not really whispering...that is just what I call it when I look at my bookshelves and certain parts of a book just pop into my head. And that is when I know it is time to read them. So what books are whispering to me?

1) Random Terry Pratchett books...I haven't decided which ones yet. I always loved Going Postal and Reaper Man. I think I will probably throw in some random Terry Pratchett as it suits me.

2) A College of Magics by Caroline Stevermer

3) The Dragon Quartet by Marjorie B. Kellogg

4) The Quickening Trilogy by Fiona McIntosh

5) All of my Michael A. Stackpole books. Which consists of a duo, a prequel, and a series that follows after the prequel.

6) The Path Trilogy by Diana Pharaoh Francis

These are the main ones to name a few. I might even embark on my Anne McCaffrey books; the Dragonriders of Pern, the Freedom Series, and the Mysteries of Ireta.

However, I don't know how far I will get. Now that I have a new job I see myself going on a book buying spree for my birthday. I could even write a book haul...I have quite a few series that I need to get updated on. Specifically my Circle series by Tamora Pierce. I started in the middle and promptly stopped once I realized that I need to buy the beginning series.

If you want to throw in a word about the books I plan on reading, please do so. OR if you just want to share a book you haven't read in awhile but plan to do so, please share. :) Everyone have a happy holiday season if you are celebrating. Or just enjoy the end of 2014, and get ready for hopefully a better year with 2015. 

The Summoner - Gail Z. Martin

This is definitely an interesting series. To start things off, the series starts as a story of revenge. And generally with a lot of revenge stories that are in movies, tv shows and books; which tend to be really focused on beating the bad guy not because they are bad and evil but because they did something to me. And this is how it starts. But what I really like is that Tris, the main character, starts to see that by trying to make this all about him when there is definitely a bigger picture that it will do much more harm than good. There is one touching moment where Tris is training with Carina and the witch which is kind of crazy and she poses this question to him. Tris breaks down with the realization that he needs to let go of the revenge aspect and become something greater. She also meant business because if he had not let go, she would have killed him right there because seeking power for revenge is definitely a good way to start the path to evil and darkness.

The religion of the Winter Kingdoms (sort of brings to mind Winterfell >.>) is one that I really find rather appealing. The idea is that there is the One Goddess, which is very nice change away from there being a god instead, and that she has many aspects. Each kingdom sort of reveres the different aspects of her as it fits the way that they as a people live and worship. There are eight different aspects: Chenne the warrior, The Lover, the Whore, the Crone, the Childe, the Dark Lady, and the Mother are the ones that are worshiped the most. What is very appealing to this is that everyone recognizes that these aspects are of the same goddess, which outside of exterminating a cult that is secretly probably still worshiped in Nargi it takes the religious motivation for some wars out of the equation. It makes it much more apparent that wars between countries really comes down to either selfish rulers or in this specific case the aim to remove a tyrant.

The characters that stand out the most in this series and specifically the first book are Tris, Kiara, Carina and Vahanian. I believe that is mainly because they have pretty much a bigger back story versus the others. Who, do not get me wrong, make very nice support characters, but pretty much only that.

There is not much wasted on the description of areas, which essentially means that there is description enough to get you started on using your imagination. Which can be both good and bad. Good in the sense that you can imagine a given area more to your tastes of how you think it should be. But bad because it doesn't show you exactly how the author imagined it

The basic story line that is shown you by the end of book one is that all roads lead to getting Jared and Foor Arantola gone for good. And with no surprise there is a very short time limit in the long scheme of things. Sort of in the sense of Avatar the Last Airbender where Aang needs to master everything by the time of the comet. Tris similarly has to master this amazing Summoner/Good Necromatic power that he has inherited from his grandmother the famous Bava K'aa in order to destroy Foor Arantola and the Obsidian King once and for all.

Switching gears I am generally not a fan of stories with vampires and werewolves. Out of all my books, there are only 3 series that have vampires (one of them really doesn't count because they are more like mecha vampires, but  still...). It has never struck me as very interesting, and so I have to be pretty impressed with either how they are handled or the story line in general to stick with a book with vampires. In the Summoner there are vampires, which go by the name vayash moru. Personally, I think that is a much cooler name then 'vampire' but that is my opinion. I believe that the only reason I do not get put off by them (outside of the cool name rebranding) is specifically the two main vayash morus; Gabriel and Mikhail. As the series goes on, they make the whole vampire aspect in this book okay.

This book specifically is a relatively fast read, and a good one at that. It is one of those books for me where the story is good...but easily outshined by other books I own...but is one where I come back to because of specific characters I feel like reading about. I have books that I keep because the story blows me away, both the story and characters blow me away, or the characters are the kind that I like to revisit now and again. And the whole series for the Chronicles of the Necromancer is one where the characters are what keeps me coming back.