Science Fiction Fantasy Books

Not as good as the first. Their was a point in which I contemplated shutting the book for good. Yet I suffered through it to find a bearable ending. It did not 'hook' me whatsoever, which may have been the ending that the author was looking for.
Alyss and friends have rebuilt the Heart Castle and undid most of the damage done by Redd. The first part of the book seemed like a segment from an action movie. It was entirly about Alyss fighting off the glass eyes. The next two parts of the book were just boring.
I don't know weather or not i'll read the next one.

Not as good as the first book but still a great read. If you liked book #1 then you have to continue reading the story.

Great book. Excellent sequel to the Looking Glass Wars. Want to read it again. Great character development that makes you want to root for the other side. Couldn't put the book down once it was picked up. Not going to give too much away, but if you loved Looking Glass Wars, you must get Seeing Redd.

This is an awesome book for anyone who loves Alice in Wonderland. It is an interesting twist on the old story and I cannot wait till the 3rd book is out.

Fantastic book! Loved every page! Received the book very fast and had no issues with it! Everything was great!! Thanks!

What can I say? I've read all the Pendragon books and I love them all. But this book is my favorite. I love Saangi's cocky attitude and Loor's jokes. To me there is no competition, this is my favorite book.

By far this is the best book yet! Packed with
mystery, action, romance, and revealed secrets about what a travelor is really capable of. This book will keep you entertained.

The Rivers of Zadaa is the sixth installment to the Pendragon series. I loved this book it had adventure and it has mystery in it. This book was the best of the Pendragon it gave me everything that I wanted in a book. This book starts with a tragic death then ends very surprisingly. Saint Dane has gone to the territory of Zadda were he is influencing two warring tribes now Bobby must stop him with the help of the traveler Loor.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes an adventure book that is also a fantasy. This book now had to be the best because you had no idea what was going to happen next. I absolutely loved this book I just never wanted to put it down. I definitely would put this book in my top 5 of favorite books.

DJ, you keep me waiting too long. I want you pumping these books out faster.I can't get enough!!!

Hands down the best series I have laid my eyes on.

My daughter recently turned 7 and she can't put these chapter books down. Great books to read over the summer for girls or any child interested in fairy fantasy. Definitely recommend.

We own all of this series! Started reading them when my daughter was 4 (she just turned 5 now), and they are age appropriate. Not too scary and always a happy ending. One book only takes us about 4-5 nights worth of reading together. The longer ones are good too "Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg" and "Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand", but they are a little bit scarrier than the short books (more appropriate for ages 5-7 I would think).

My daughter loves the Disney fairies and she is learning how to read. Because of the topic, she is having a great time reading these and learning faster than she would with other books. Great books!

Its a lovely set of books for beginners to fairies land. Great for grade schoolers. Beautiful pictures easy to read.

We purchased these books for my 6-year old daughter. We read them together and love the stories. We also enjoy the life learning that can be extracted from them.

I don't even like cats and i loved this book! The author describes the characters very well. I have already read 6 of the series and each book leaves you on the edge and there is always something new. I give it two thumbs up.

Warriors #1: Into the Wild (Warriors)

This was a very fun book to read. It is about Rusty, a cat that wishes to catch a mouse. He leaves his home and joins a clan to save all the Warriors in it. He must please everyone in the clan. He must hunt for the clan and train to be a Warrior. His best friends in the clan are Graypaw and Rayvenpaw. The clan leader's name is Bluestar; they must always protect her. I loved reading this book and if you like cats you will love this book! I can't wait to get the second one!

Fire and Ice (Warriors, Book 2)

It was a chore getting my daughter to read 30 minutes each day until she discovered this series. She got thru Harry Potter and other great books before this, but it was not until this series that she started carrying her books around with her all day, so that she could sneak in a few paragraphs constantly throughout the day. She would read 8 hours straight if we didn't make her put her books down. Now we have to tell her to stop reading. I also read a book to her at night at bedtime. We like to find books that we both like including such great titles as The Golden Compass, which required quite a bit of explaining. She had already finished the Warrior series on her own, so when we finished our most recent book together, she requested that I read the Warrior series to her at bedtime because she wanted me to share it with her. I am pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable this series is to read, especially out loud. We both like it. My daughter is 9.

This book is about the adventures of Rusty, who is a six month (moon) old tom.

When he is a house cat, his normal dreams are always interrupted by dreams about catching mice in the woods, so he decides to try to really catch a mouse. His best friend Smudge lives next door. Smudge tells him "Don't go out there! There are wildcats who eat bones! Dangerous!" But Rusty insists.

He is attacked by a little gray tom, his age. The gray cat stops fighting, and says his name is Graypaw. More cats come out of the bushes the silver she-cat asks him to join her clan, Thunderclan. Soon Rusty accepts, and is named Firepaw, he meets Tigerclaw, who may be a dangerous mystery, Yellowfang a grumpy she-cat who has more than meets the eye, and the big threat of Brokenstar, Shadowclan's leader.

This book has a powerful adventure in it, and I was instantly drawn into the warrior cats' world. I think it is suitable for anyone. Some stories about wild animals make me cry when there are really sad parts, but this book was fine.

At first, I had trouble with some of the vocabulary. I didn't know what "brindle" meant, for instance.

Kyla Cherry
(on her mother's Amazon account)

In the warriors series cats live in the forest. Erin Hunter the person who wrote the book and is actually three people they didn't want to confused.The story begins when an ordinary house cat walks into the forest. All this happens in the forest and rusty finds deceit and lies not to mention secrets buried in secrets only to find-- can't tell the ending.

I loved the first book Into the Wild. in the begging a cat named Rusty walks into the forest to meet Gray paw a Thunder Clan apprentice. Gray paw takes Rusty as an intruder and attacks him then he realizes Rusty is a kitty pet and lays off. They get into a conversation and Gray paw tells Rusty everything and rusty decides to become a Thunder Clan apprentice.

Every one would love this book Every One. This is a fantasy book and is about cats. The message Never Stop Trying.

i absolutely ADORE this book. i fell in love with it for the first time when i was 12. i am 18 now, but the storyline and the characters are endearing to me every time i read it i must have read Ella enchanted about five times. the romance between ella and char is innocent, but it captures my heart every time. I was very disappointed when i saw the movie. I dont think the movie captured the essence of Ella and the magic that Levine bestowed in her book. If I could, I'd create a movie that is true to the book and its characters. Even though it is a children's book, it is still accessible to adults (though i am still kind of a child at heart- i LOVE fantasy stories)

1000000% RECOMMENDED

I actually saw the movie before I read the book and I loved the movie, but it's vastly different from the book. It was interesting to see the differences. I can see why some of the changes were made for the movie, but both are great in their own right.

I liked the treatment of Lucinda in the book better than in the movie. In the movie, Lucinda never learned or understood what she did to people, but in the book she did when Mandy tricked her into experiencing what she put Ella through.

I also liked that Ella had to find the inner-strength to break the curse, opposed to having an easy quick fix of undoing it. To be honest, Ella would have probably in more trouble if Lucinda had reversed the spell, so even if she wanted to obey at times, she would then be under a curse to never obey.

I also like that the prince was treated as a real person and given a real personality. Rewatching Disney's Cinderella as an adult, I was shocked how truly vapid the prince was. He had no personality. He was just a stereotypical pretty boy.

It was also nice reading the progression of Ella and Char's relationship, instead of her going to a ball and just falling in love with him.

This is a great book, which I'll definitely read again.

Romance, although also could be fantasy. Upper elementary to middle school. Reading level is supposed to be grade four, but it seems higher to me. 232 pages.

I read quite a bit of this book before I started to enjoy it, but because the librarian recommended it, I stuck with it. The book is the back story of Cinderella, although the reader doesn't realize it until near the end. Instantly, the story of Cinderella--which I never really liked--has a profound truth I now see: When we walk in another's shoes, our perceptions change. Honor book. No illustrations.

Ella Enchanted
By Gail Carson Levine

Ella only wanted to be a regular girl. But instead the day she was born, a curse was bestowed upon her. The gift of obedience. The fairy Lucinda does not think before she gives these silly curses and so when Ella is told to do something, she has to do it. If someone told Ella to kill herself she would have to obey. When Ella's mother gets very sick and dies, Ella is left with Mandy her cook that is her fairy godmother and her father. Ella's father traveled all the time and he doesn't know about her curse. Just like her mother said "Don't tell anyone about your curse." Ella had to obey.
But when Ella's dad introduces her to Dame Olga and her dreadfully bossy daughters, Ella realizes that the elder one, Hattie knows that Ella will do anything she says. Hattie commands Ella to give her the necklace that Ella's mom gave to her. But there is a silver lining on the story. Ella becomes dear friends with Prince Charmont, or as his friends call him, Char. Just when Ella thinks that Char and her are becoming great friends, Ella's father ships her off to finishing school so she can become a true lady with Hattie and the spoiled Olive (Hattie's sister).
Finishing school is the worst place for Ella. She must obey every command no matter how awful or difficult. When Ella cannot stand it anymore she runs away, and decides to quest for her fairy godmother and reverse the spell. But Hattie had forbidden Ella to see Char. So how will she be able to tell him how she really feels when he thinks she never wants to see him again?

Many young girls dream of having a fairy tale life just like the ones that appear in Disney movies such as Cinderella, but what happens when these girls grow into young ladies and expect a little more than your usual fairy tale? In her novel Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine adds a whole new twist to the familiar story of Cinderella. With the use of point of view, characterizations and themes, she achieves to appeal to a budding, young female audience that already has a love for the classic Disney tale.

Point of View
Carson presents a first person point of view that allows Ella to narrate her own story. Her thoughts, her commentary and each of her actions are plain for the reader to enjoy and experience a first hand look into Ella's world. The reader is allowed to relate her character, as she seems more realistic (as far as a fairy tale goes) than ever before, as she goes through every day teenage trials with boys (a prince, to be exact), friendship, fitting in, envy and such problems that still happen today.

Characterizations
Ella
While Disney's Cinderella is an upbeat, optimistic girl that seems to have the whole world set out for her, Levine's Ella is given a whole new dimension as a character. Ella, as a child, receives the "gift" of obedience by the wayward fairy, Lucinda. Forced to do everything she is told, Ella develops a strong, rebellious character determined to become her own person, despite what others command her to do. She may subdue physically, but mentally and spiritually, she is a character that is intelligent beyond her years that refuses to conformity, aesthetics and propriety for the wrong reasons. Carson develops Ella in such a way that her flaws and struggles with herself and others are present. Ella is not a glorified storybook character that has everything going perfectly for her; she fights for what she believes in, she makes mistakes to learn from them and goes through the motions just like her young female audience.

Prince Charmont
When the thoughts of a charming prince come to mind, what is available is only the idea of a charming prince who is just there to both save the day and marry the girl. While in most fairy tales, the female lead character usually overshadows the male equivalent; Prince Charmont is far from hidden. Carson develops Char (as he is cleverly nicknamed) in such a way that he breaks away from the usual princely stereotypes by adding a little more to his personality but still maintaining the characteristics that would most likely still make any female weak in the knees. When Ella first meets Char, she keeps her distance in a demonstration of respect of his nobility, but he refuses to be regarded of higher ranking and asks to be addressed as any other person. He is kind hearted and humble but still he holds strong and true to the convictions that he is instructed as a young ruler. One example of this is when he pauses the beginning of a military journey to get on his hands and knees to help a merchant whose cart is overturned, instead of leaving off and ignoring the lower class. Another defining characteristic is that he, like Ella, struggles to create his own identity under the overpowering shadow of his future as the ruler of the kingdom of Frell. Char's authentic infatuation for Ella and his deep respect for her are what make the reader believe him as the true charming prince.

The Fairy Godmother
One may expect a flick of the wand and a bibidi boppidi boo to describe a fairy; Carson declines to this generic view. Mandy, Ella's fairy godmother is described as aging, overweight, speckled with freckles and frizzy hair. She hides her true identity from Ella and for the first 16 years of Ella's life, she is known as the kitchen maid and nanny. Her real self is only discovered after Ella's mother died and Ella is left to the care of no one but her father. The way that Carson portrays Mandy is in a stern, parental way so the reader can see her as a mother figure for Ella, more than just a fairy godmother that provides every single wish. Carson makes Mandy out to be a lovable character towards the reader because she nurtures and takes care of Ella while still remaining firm to what she thinks is best for her goddaughter.

Themes
In this novel, Carson explores themes that are of interest to a young female audience. One of these is the search for an identity and a place in the world. Carson develops her main theme as Ella is trying to establish herself as a person with her beliefs and convictions, and not just become a pawn to anybody's game that has knowledge of her curse. She demonstrates to the audience that they do not have to conform to a popular idea and encourages the reader to form opinions by gaining knowledge by Ella's example of maintaining her integrity and refusal to ignorance.

Another theme that goes hand-in-hand with the one mentioned before is integrity, being true to who you are. Carson encourages this by making Ella such a strong character that even though she is forced to be someone else, in her mind, she is determined to be who she truly is. Char is also another example of integrity. He is a prince, a trait that may give way to arrogance and to discrimination by status, but he denies any association of himself as a person to his nobility.

With these different literary aspects, Gail Carson Levine creates a fairy tale all her own that only alludes to the commonly known storyline. She creates a story for young girls to be immersed with such believable characters in a fictional world that teach very valuable lessons while also having those key elements that happen to draw the audience in.

I first read this when I was about 9. My dad was (and still is) a hot-air balloon pilot, which is why I probably found it in my parents' room one day. I don't know what made me start to read it, but once I started I couldn't put it down. Recently I found that it's still in print. Hooray! It's just as good now as it was then; a very stimulating and imaginative story that makes you long to be there!

The Twenty One Balloons

In the book, The Twenty One Balloons by William Pene du Bois a professor crashes on the island of Krakatoa in a hot-air-balloon then to discover hidden treasures on the island. I think this book was very exiting and interesting and I would read it again if I could.

A professor named William Waterman Sherman sets off on a journey around the world in a hot-air-balloon from San Francisco. He then crash-lands on the island of Krakatoa then discovering a huge diamond mine and villagers hidden on the island.

I very much enjoyed the book because I love adventure books and there is always something new to find on the island. And the only thing that was a little boring was the beginning but once he landed on the island it got much more exiting. I would recommend this book to anybody looking for an exciting and adventurous book

This was a really great book and I highly recommend it to anybody who wants to read it.

This book is sort of a "Jules Vern-lite" sort of thing. And while it's more of a travelogue than a story but it's still very captivating and quite a page-turner. I recommend it to readers 10 and over, or to be read to children as young as 7 or 8 (so certain concepts could be explained). Adults looking for an enchanting and pleasant diversion will enjoy it too.

I first read this book when I was in grade school. I am now almost 40 years old, and this is still my favourite book. It's a fantastical tale of adventure, diamonds, food, etiquette, and hot air balloons! It will not dissapoint...I didn't love to read until I read 21 Balloons. The author does a magnificant job of illustrating as well.

The 21 Balloons,
By William Pene Du Bois

A man wants to stay up in the air a year in a balloon, but he crash lands on the island Krakatoa where he meets nice and civilized people. This is a very good book that is very unpredictable
William Waterman Sherman wants to stay up in the air a year in a balloon. The wind blows him in to a flock of seagulls and sadly for him one of the seagulls pops his balloon and he comes crash landing down on to the Island Krakatoa. Professor Sherman meets odd civilized people. The main person that helps him is called Mr. F. Mr. F, shows him around the island, where there is a diamond mine. Professor Sherman is astonished by what he sees, diamonds everywhere, in the size of even a human. However, through out the Island there were a few shakings, kind of like an earthquake, but no damage done. The island also has incredible technology considering they have been on the island for over 5 years. Professor Sherman enjoys many good dinners. One day, there was a huge rumbling in the island. The volcano had started to erupt! They narrowly escape.
This book is very good. It has many examples of foreshadowing, like when he landed on the island you could tell that something bad was going to happen. The 21 Balloons is also very unpredictable. Something that you think will happen will most likely not, such as the diamond mine in the middle of the island. One of the bad things in this book is that it takes a few chapters until the exciting parts come.
I would say that this is one of the best books that I have ever read. Hope you enjoy! =D

On an enclosed alien world, gravity works very differently than we are used to. As the story begins, the world's previously dormant culture embarks on a journey of scientific discovery to understand their world and its environment.

In a different story arch, the entire Milky Way has been thoroughly inhabited and explored by a peaceful amalgam of races. When given the opportunity to investigate the enclosed alien world in the Milky Way's core, one of the Amalgam's citizens take off, mostly motivated by the boredom stemming from the prospect that exploration is nigh-impossible.

In the center of the story is a scientific riddle. The idea is nice, but if you have read Larry Niven and know a bit of Newtonian physics and relativity theory, you can figure most of it out fairly early in the story.

As the story unfolds, we follow the aliens' scientific struggle to understand their world. Unfortunately, this is written in a rather abstract manner, so it quickly becomes quite repetitive to read.

Egan should be commented for writing a complete novel without having to resort to action writing. In fact, there's no conflict in the novel at all, and only a vaguely felt danger. As such, the scientific puzzle becomes the only real driving force in the story. If Egan had been able to pull this off, this could have been a really noteworthy piece of science fiction, but unfortunately, the book is just boring.

In these days of mammoth science fiction 'epics' bursting with filler, the book's short length is a redeeming feature.

This is an ambitious attempt at a serious science fiction novel for the discerning reader. Alas, it doesn't succeed.

I just wanted to point out that Egan's story "Riding the Crocodile" is set in the same universe as Incandescence. You can find that story in the anthology One Million A.D. edited by Gardner Dozois.

This book is very much in the tradition of Hal Clement's hard science fiction, where the investigation of what happens under various extreme physical conditions is the prime focus of the work. For this work, it will definitely help if you are at least somewhat familiar with orbital mechanics as detailed by Newton and Kepler, Einstein's general theory of relativity, and the work of Schwarzschild and Kerr dealing with black hole properties.

The extreme conditions of this book imagine a small, rocky body inhabited by some quite small six-legged insectoid beings that is in orbit around a black hole, and embedded in the black hole's accretion ring. Given the energies and radiation levels associated with such a ring, the inhabitants are by necessity confined to the inside of their little habitat, which provides the necessary shielding from the worst of the radiation, while at the same time the ring provides the necessary energy input to their world to form a functioning biosphere. Clearly, these inhabitants would be at a severe disadvantage in trying to figure out just how their world works, as they cannot just go `outside' and see everything in their heavens. Much of the story of this book revolves around just how they do determine just what is happening, and how they determine both that their world is in danger of having its orbit deteriorate to where it will fall into the black hole and what they can do to avoid such a fate.

This story thread is placed in-between a different story line, where a far-future `human' ("child of DNA") is recruited by the Aloof, a very nebulous group of beings who inhabit the central bulge of stars in our galaxy, to find the origin and current status of an anomalous asteroid found within this bulge with microbiological remnants of DNA based life. As the story progresses, it's clear that the two stories are related, though not directly, and separated in time by perhaps many millennia.

Both story lines are prime examples of the methods of scientific discovery. Most of the charm of this book is in just how the characters connect the observable facts with deductions about the universe around them. The described world of the insectoid race will definitely challenge your sense of `normal', with weird gravitational effects that your first instinct is say `that's impossible' - but as you delve deeper, you begin to see just how such effects would occur, and the fun is watching the major characters determine what is going on. There is a lot of explanation of some fairly esoteric concepts detailed here, somewhat to the detriment of the story line, and this is dense material, as Egan tries to describe in English some rather complicated mathematics. I highly recommend that while reading this, the reader also look at Egan's website at gregegan.net for some nice diagrams and animations that will help with understanding this material (and for those with the necessary background, the actual equations are detailed here also).

However, all this concentration on the pursuit of science means that characterization is fairly slim, and some of the ethical and moral problems faced by the `human' of the second story line don't seem to have any solid grounding in what little background we are given about him. The two story lines do not have a nice, tied-up-with-a-string intersection, but rather the ending is left somewhat open, inviting the reader to do the final connect-the-dots operation.

The net is, if you liked things like Clement's Mission of Gravity and like seeing real science driving a truly odd and different physical scenario that can invoke that `sense of wonder', then this book is for you. If instead, you'd rather have something more character driven, and can't stand math (or had difficulty with algebra and geometry), then this one will leave you cold and unhappy.

---Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

You will find Greg Egans "Incandescence" very helpful.

Of course you need to be inside a physical body again.
Being software linked into a scape is no good.
Like the heroes of Incandescence you must transfer to
a body. A body that must be left to engage
with the physical world.
- "It felt odd to be
on such intimate terms with the physical world again,
without a layer of simulation. It
was like being naked for the first time in a century".

And a very dangerous thing this thing about having a body.
- "To travel is to die".
Certainly true if you are in
the wilderness of stars near the black hole in
the center of our galaxy.

But you will experience many wonders with a body:
- "Out in the disc people usually waited
for cultures to develop interstellar travel
for themselves before making contact with them;
the exceptions had often been messy".

However, Using an avatar, a tiny thing some 1 centimeter high,
you can explore other civilizations.

An so it goes - Our heroes make contact with some locals
on an ark, survivors from some ancient, 50 million years +, civilisation.
The ark itself is circling a neutron star near the
core of our Galaxy,
So here we go: Our heroes is now inside a body that looks somewhat
the same as the arkdwellers.

-"My name is Ra", Rakesh said.
-"I am Neb", the farmer replied.
-"I've come from the outside world", Rakesk announced boldly.
-"We have enough workers" - Neb explained.

Hilarious stuff from the core of the Galaxy....

Egan explains it to us:
"To the arkdwellers it was frivolous diversion
to talk about anything but their sleepwalking existence.
Inconsequentiel chatter is what the arkdwellers
wants - about food, sex and sleep".

Yet the arkdwellers have general intelligence.
And their makers have given them a mechanism,
where extreme stress triggers a genetic mechanisms
that brings about curiousity. Enlightement on overdrive so to speak.
It is just a question on when to throw the
switch to enlightement.

So of we go to throw the switch on enlightement.

All brilliant stuff - and on the way Egan wants
to teach his readers some general relativity.
Unfortunately I dont think that part of the
book reaches the heights it could have gone to.

In Egans own words:
"Incandescence grew out of the notion that the theory of general relativity --
widely regarded as one of the pinnacles of human intellectual achievement --
could be discovered by a pre-industrial civilization with no steam engines,
no electric lights, no radio transmitters, and absolutely no tradition of astronomy".

"How, then, could my alien civilization possibly reach the same conceptual heights,
when they were armed with none of these apparent prerequisites?
The short answer is that they would need to be living in
just the right environment: the accretion disk of a large black hole".

"How? Put on your space suit, and pump out all the station's air.
Then fill the station with small objects --
paper clips, pens, whatever -- being careful to place them initially
at rest with respect to the walls.
Wait, and see what happens".

Yes. Ok. Next time I find myself stranded inside a rocky world
near a black hole I will find that part of the book very helpful ...
But come on. There should be a new revision of Incandescence
where you actually get the math and the theory of
general relativity that goes along with each chapter in the book.
Otherwise it is just to hard to be a reader....
You will have to read all the extra material
on gregegan.net to make all the right connections -
Certainly this stuff should have been included in the book?
Along with some easy to understand additional cartoon
like explanations ?-
To understand is to have it explained in many different ways?

-Simon

Greg Egan writes about the intimate perception of scale.
In Diaspora, he induced vertigo in his readers describing the search for consciousness through boundless dimensions. In Schild's Ladder, a personal quest for purpose was echoed by universe-changing wave that spanned hundreds of light-years. In Incandescence, Greg Egan tackles time and what lies beyond purpose. But how can you write an intimate story that covers 50 million years?

With a skill that he has honed since Permutation City, Egan let us slip effortlessly in the mindset of the long descendants of his "copies", consciousnesses in digital form, to set up the protagonist's plight: what is there left to do in such an age of technological marvels? Explore the last remaining mystery when the opportunity is offered? But why?

Taking a page from Vernor Vinge's book (namely, A Deepness in the Sky), the answer comes from a second storyline seen from the viewpoint of an alien. I don't know if Egan was inspired by Vinge, but his bug-like "arkdwellers" and the changes they go through were as alien and as convincing to me as Vinge's spiders, even more so when you consider their level of animality and their non-industrial society. I particularly liked Roi's dialog and behavior in the first few chapters and I was surprised to go through the same culture shock she experienced when her society began to change.

Yes, the book could have skipped some of the scientific details - I would have trusted Egan to be true to the science even if he had taken more shortcuts like the "template frames" - but some moments of insight and discovery make the detailed explanations worth it (the first experiments in the Null Chamber, the adoption of "parallel computing", etc.).

As for the reviewers who complain about the apparent lack of resolution or correspondence between the two story threads, Egan does go against expectations, but there *is* a big reveal in the end that ties everything together, even though it's disguised as an innocuous dialog line (reread Haf's last words if you don't believe me).

As always with Greg Egan's writing, this book leaves me with a great feeling of hope for humanity and with new ideas almost too big for my head to contain.

Ray Bradbury'
s book was something that I've wanted to read for quite some time. Unfortunately, I had already seen the film so I had a plot in mind as well as a mood. Bradbury as always strings metaphores together like we do popcorn on the Christmas tree. It's his main setup for atmosphere and that is the books great strength. Unfortunately for me, the characters of Will, Jim and Will's Dad are flat, underdeveloped and dull. Without a back story, I really don't have a sense of caring for the characters and as hard as I tried that didn't change. This was typical of Dickens at times. He created characters and then threw them into the story for development. I never found this technique particularly inviting for me.
The story is simple enough -- a carnival comes to town creating strange and bizarre situations that invite temptation. Jim wants to be older -- but we aren't given a good enough reason why. Will's Dad wants to be younger and the idea feels more universal than centered on the character in question and it falls short. The carnival can do this of course but at a price. That alone feels as rundown an idea as I've ever read. Everyone has that statement. The ending feels more of a fable than anything else and perhaps that's what Ray wanted out of the story. Perhaps he would have put 'once upon a time' and 'happily ever after' were it a different time.
The message -- don't fall into temptation and don't let misery eat away your soul. I don't know, the book has great mood and atmosphere but had the same feel for me as 'Tale of Two Cities' -- I couldn't want to finish it and move on to something else.

Usually I connect Ray Bradbury with weird enough stories that always seem to have plenty of heart. And I am not saying that this does not have plenty of heart, but rather than the usual strange sci-fi Ray Bradbury makes something truly horrific that has actually caused me nightmares. Through the innocence of children and a traveling carnival Bradbury makes an intelligent and creative story that deals with the hidden desires of humanity itself. It's weird, terrifying, and altogether Bradbury classic.

I read this book for the first time about 16 years ago, when I was 10 or 11 years old. I was so impressed by the book, which had gripped me with its enchanting prose, that I immediately re-read it. Over the next couple years, I read several other works by Ray Bradbury and I periodically tried to imitate his style for school projects. I loved the book.

I just re-read it for the third time, and I was still bewitched. Ray Bradbury's writing is impressive! He is poetic, and his writing perfectly fits the spooky subject of the book. In the book, there are dark characters whose bodies are covered with tattooed illustrations or who have been squashed down to resemble dwarves, and Ray Bradbury's writing, which is full of images, metaphors, and poetry, captured these characters and provided a great accompaniment for the book's story.

Rereading it, now, after many years, I understood the book in a different way. The book's repeated discussion of immortality stuck with me, and has a different significance for me now. Also, between the first reading and this third, I had learned a bit more about Ray Bradbury's life. Did you know that Bradbury claims that, at a young age, he met a circus performer called Mr. Electrico? According to Bradbury, this performer, who had electric current pumped through him in front of a crowd of people, pointed his sword at Bradbury and declared: "You will live forever!" Knowing this story had a significant, and I think positive, impact on my reading!

Finally, I'm glad that so many reviewers have liked this book. That's great. At times, I wondered whether other people would like Bradbury's wild writing, which jumps around, and calls forth images, and which captures the dark magic of the performing freaks. On a few rare instances, the prose felt forced, or seemed vaguely pretentious, or felt too overdrawn . . . But, when the writing seemed like this, the sour impression would only last for a moment before the story once again swallowed me whole.

I was very glad that so many readers have found Bradbury's prose appealing.

This is Bradbury's finest novel, in my opinion. All of Bradbury's fiction is lyrical in nature, but in this work his prose flows quickly and magically from the first page to the last.

The book is closer to horror than sci-fi, but I regard it as simply a great novel and believe that its universal theme of good vs. evil qualify it as literary fiction of the highest order. It is a book I read every few years to remind me of what language is capable of doing and to listen to the voices of Bradbury's unique small town characters as they attempt to deal with the mystifying forces of Cooger and Dark's Pandemonium Show, a traveling carnival.

The one-star reviews appear to be from the usual students who were forced to read the book. Don't be deterred. If you like a scary tale that also examines love and the human heart, you can't go wrong with SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES.

Thirty-five years after its initial release, this magical and mesmerizing story still carries a punch. The opening pages are more like a thriller where you know something is out there...waiting. You can hear it; you can feel it getting closer. And it's not going to be pleasant.

You follow a pair of young boys on their pre-Halloween adventure until you realize there is a lot more at stake than just going to the carnival. And the father of one of the boys, a meek and beaten down man, has a great decision to make. Others in the town face a temptation that could and does change each person's life.

A small town story with universal truths about life and what you make of it. This is a true masterpiece using Bradbury's poetic phrasing and the hypnotic pictures he paints with words.

Read it again.

The first book had the small benefit of leaving hope that a plot would eventually start to evolve or at least characters would become interesting to the reader. After the first 100 pages of the second book in the series it's obvious that this is going nowhere. Beware the 5 star reviews who admit "its slow, but..."

Its tedious...period.

I like Robin Hobb's work quite a bit. This is no mean feat if only because the kind of epic fantasy that she writes is a genre that I am very fussy about reading. I am easily disappointed and annoyed with swords and sorcery works. They have to be really good to keep my attention.

Let me make a long story short-- I wasn't disappointed in Forest Mage. It is not a perfect book. But, in part I enjoy Hobb as a writer particularly because she does not write perfect books. Her characters are imperfect, often irritating. She resists the obvious happy endings just enough to be really interesting. I like that her characters can be important figures without being the Sekrit Heir to the Throne or whatever other stereotyped fantasy goal there is to achieve.

Forest Mage is strongly flavored with melancholy and dismay. I actually liked Nevare much better in Shaman's Crossing than here. There are some obvious uncomfortable points about his character development (can't say much without revealing a spoiler) but those aside, I also got frustrated with his stubborn refusal to face change. I will grant you that many of his reactions are perfectly realistic, but it got a little bit guilt-ridden and whiny-- particularly towards the end.

I stayed up way too late reading this book when I should have been sleeping. That, by itself, says something about how compelling the story is. I'll be looking forward with interest to Renegade's Magic.

This is the second volume is the Soldier Son trilogy (after Shaman's Crossing and before Renegade's Magic).

Recovering from the plague, many surviving cadets can now only hope for a fragile health. Nevare convalesces remarkably well though, but as time goes by, he realizes the Specks' magic is taking a much crueller toll on his imbued body.

Looking forward to travelling back home to Widevale for his brother's wedding, his joy will be short lived. Nevare is far from welcome. Indeed, his father blames him for his condition, and will do everything to set things as they should be. To no avail. When the plague comes again and decimates the region, Nevare has no choice but to leave.

Cast out, he makes his way eastwards, and spends some time in Dead Town. There he meets Amzil and her children, who'll become as close to friends as he's ever had in the last months. But as he helps her, her neighbours' jealousies start to threaten her life. He'll leave when his duty commands him to take the wounded scout Buel Hitch to Gettys.

Gettys is a fortified town at the base of the Barrier Mountains, the last one on the King's Road which is being built to reach the sea beyond the mountains. But upon arrival, Nevare rapidly notices that the city is a pale shadow of what he expected, that the command is a shambles, and that roadworks has all but stopped at the edge of the forest. Not only are felled giant trees blocking the way, but a strange spell of fear and despair has fallen over the inhabitants, preventing any progression of the construction.

Despite his crippling condition, Nevare manages to gets a post at the graveyard. In the nearby forest, he'll meet a Specks woman named Olikea, and will start to learn about her People.

True to her tradition, Robin Hobb deals her main character unjust fate after unfair hand. And as poor Nevare is really at a lost about what he should do about the Magic, his social situation only gets worse, he becomes the victim of wrongful decisions, biased reactions and finally, false accusations. All this is interwoven with lavish forest scenes betraying the author's love of trees and Nature, and exquisite descriptions of food that you can savour with Nevare. The ending is beautiful and very moving and I'm very impatient to read the third and final book.

I liked the first book in this series, but this one didn't pull through. It is a very melancholy tale and it was really hard to like the protagonist. I won't purchase the next book in the series.

This book mostly deals with something Nevare suffers from after getting the plague. As the synopsis on the back of the book states, it has something to do with Speck magic that's possessed him. It's caused his family and friends to shun him. For a large part of the book Nevare is learning to deal with this condition and what to do about it, and how to return to a normal life. But the magic won't let him. It's a constant battle between what he wants and what the magic wants. In the end, he has to choose.

I first impression of this book as I read it was the same that I had of Shaman's Crossing -- it drags major plot points through hundreds of pages, when I thought it could've been tightened up. But that's probably just how Robin Hobb writes. Then I thought that some of what was happening was bizarre. His condition and the description of it (I don't want to give any spoilers) and what happens as a result of it is definitely very bizarre. Then Robin Hobb, as usual, goes through and makes sure she can both physically and mentally torture her protagonists. Again, I'm sure that's just how she writes.

Some of that was a bit annoying, but the story was so compelling that I was always interested in what would happen on the next page. I found myself ocassionally reading ahead just to see what other character Nevare would be talking to on the next page. I always had to know what was going to happen to him. There's also a lot of drama and I can't say that I was disappointed in what happened in the end of the book. Overall it's a great read, and worth every penny. If you want to read more realistic fantasy that is very engaging and can keep you interested, then this book, or any other by Robin Hobb, is a good place to start.

Eve Levine is a dead witch. Because she has broken all the rules, she expected to end up in a Hell for witches. But, to her surprise she finds herself in a supernatural holding place, if it is not heaven... it is definitely not hell.

Of course, Eve needs to be a superpower. She thwarts the Fates whenever she can... In the process, she finds herself indebted to them (the Fates). That is when the real story begins. Eve as supernatural bounty hunter for evil supernaturals.

Anyway, the story and the character are enjoyable. I started keeping Armstrong's books so that when I am out of reading material, I can re-read them. So sad. LOL

Eve Levine is a ghost. In "Industrial Magic" she makes a deal with The Fates and, if Paige and Lucas are returned to life, she'll owe The Fates a favor. In "Haunted," they've decided to call it in.

What they want seems to be impossible. The Nix, a demi-demon, has accidentally been let loose in the world. For, oh, several hundred years. She's been nearly caught but has escaped. Eve's task is to track her down and bring her in, so to speak. She's scared witless but she isn't alone: she has the help of Kris (who is her daughter's father and the love of her life) and Tsriel, an angel.

The Afterlife, according to these books, is very different from what most of us think of as "Heaven." Eve encounters various things: a pirate's enclave and a school for poltergeists, for example. There is a version of what hell must be like but, in this case, was reserved for the worst among us: serial killers and like that.

The story goes back and forth between Nix and Eve, which can get confusing. I had to look back a few times to remember who this person or that person was. I have to say, as you can probably tell by the lackluster thoughts here, I didn't really care for this book. I am a big fan of Armstrong's but this one just didn't thrill me.

On the plus side, we see more of Savannah, of Paige and Lucas (who got married between Industrial Magic and Haunted) and Jaime. Since Jaime is going to have her own book coming up, that's a good thing.

I have enjoyed the Women of the Otherworld series thus far. I read them as quickly as I can so I can pass them off to our nanny, who is also a big fan. However, this book was a chore to read. The ideas were so far fetched and bizarre. Child ghosts being raised by ghost parents who couldn't conceive? Ghost hockey leagues? Magic being used in the afterlife? I realize that it's a bit contradictory to love books about werewolves, witches and vampires and call this far fetched, but it was just so hard to do much more than roll my eyes and trudge through.

I would have skipped it if I weren't concerned I'd miss something from the other story lines. This was just such a disappointment from an author I have been very impressed with. I have moved on to Broken and am already back in love again, though.

I am new to this author and this series. However, I have blown through five books in about a month (which is AMAZING as I have a 1-year-old at home) which means I gave valuable SLEEP TIME up to read them. The book was a great easy read with characters that you can't help but root for and villians you can't wait to see fail. Although I have a few more to read, I am already missing all the characters when I am done...

When Eve Levine (while alive, a witch not afraid of using Dark Magic to reach her goals and protect herself and her daughter Savannah) is called by the Fates to do them the favor owed (see Industrial Magic (Women of the Otherworld, Book 4)), she is taken by surprise. It seems that there is a nasty spirit out there - a demi-demon called the Nix - who has escaped from her hell dimension and is periodically possessing murderous young women, who only need a little encouragement to get their lethal tendencies going. Even more surprising, Eve finds herself teamed with an angel (Trsiel) to accomplish this.

While Eve and Trsiel race the clock to try to find the Nix before she causes more havoc, Eve also struggles with her feelings for Kris Nast, who is in the same Afterlife dimension and who is doing his best to convince her to try starting over with him. Kris is, however, concerned with her obsessive need to watch over Savannah and often calls her on this.

A fast-paced and fun read, "Haunted" is just kind of book that book-lovers can devour in a few hours. Eve's restlessness, impatience and dark sense of humor is balanced out by Kris' patience and the need Eve has to complete what she has started.

This series of books continues to be a joy to read. I do hope Ms. Armstrong keeps 'em coming for a good long while.