Not very good two weeks of Books
I blame “50 Shades of Gray” for this (this horrid trilogy started it!) , but the last 2 weeks have been a bit underwhelming book-wise:
Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
This book was much better than “50 Shades of Gray”, but this isn’t saying much as anything is better than “50 Shades of Gray”.
How to say it gently? I thought “Vampire Hunter” to be quite boring, and Vampires seemed just an added excuse for the author to write another autobiography of Abraham Lincoln. May be if you are particular interested in Abraham Lincoln or American Civil War this book might be more interesting to you, but unfortunately I wasn’t that interested in this topic to start with. I was there for Vampires and the vampire part of it was very unsatisfying.
And to add to it, I have a personal problem with this book - I really don’t like fiction where some of the ugly bits of human history are explained by vampires, or aliens, or anything else. It seems to me that the authors want to say “Oh, no, humans are not capable of such awful things! Slavery, Nazism, Stalinism or anything else - humans couldn’t have done any of those evil things! It is all vampires, aliens, or demons fault! Humans are good!” and I do not agree with this type of thinking. I think we need to remember that humans JUST LIKE US did these things, and all on their own accord, without any demon intervention.
The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold
Overall, this was not a bad book, because no book about Miles Vorkosigan can be bad for me as his wonderful character always gives me the encouragement to continue "the struggle of life"! But it was the weakest book I have read in the Vorkosigan Saga so far (I am reading it in the proper chronological order, finished by now : Falling Free, Shards of Honor, Barrayar, The Warrior’s Apprentice, the Vor Game). The book seemed disjointed for the first half and the events in this first half seemed to be quite unexciting. But it all got better towards the end and everything was wrapped up nicely, I have to give the author the credit. Overall the book was good, but not brilliant.
Tangentially, as much as I like Miles, my favourite books in the series have always been the ones about Cordelia and Aral, and this hasn’t changed so far - "Shards of Honor" and "Barrayar" are my absolute favourites. I wish there were more books about Cordelia and Aral in main roles, or may be more books with them in secondary roles.
Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
This book was much better than “50 Shades of Gray”, but this isn’t saying much as anything is better than “50 Shades of Gray”.
How to say it gently? I thought “Vampire Hunter” to be quite boring, and Vampires seemed just an added excuse for the author to write another autobiography of Abraham Lincoln. May be if you are particular interested in Abraham Lincoln or American Civil War this book might be more interesting to you, but unfortunately I wasn’t that interested in this topic to start with. I was there for Vampires and the vampire part of it was very unsatisfying.
And to add to it, I have a personal problem with this book - I really don’t like fiction where some of the ugly bits of human history are explained by vampires, or aliens, or anything else. It seems to me that the authors want to say “Oh, no, humans are not capable of such awful things! Slavery, Nazism, Stalinism or anything else - humans couldn’t have done any of those evil things! It is all vampires, aliens, or demons fault! Humans are good!” and I do not agree with this type of thinking. I think we need to remember that humans JUST LIKE US did these things, and all on their own accord, without any demon intervention.
The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold
Overall, this was not a bad book, because no book about Miles Vorkosigan can be bad for me as his wonderful character always gives me the encouragement to continue "the struggle of life"! But it was the weakest book I have read in the Vorkosigan Saga so far (I am reading it in the proper chronological order, finished by now : Falling Free, Shards of Honor, Barrayar, The Warrior’s Apprentice, the Vor Game). The book seemed disjointed for the first half and the events in this first half seemed to be quite unexciting. But it all got better towards the end and everything was wrapped up nicely, I have to give the author the credit. Overall the book was good, but not brilliant.
Tangentially, as much as I like Miles, my favourite books in the series have always been the ones about Cordelia and Aral, and this hasn’t changed so far - "Shards of Honor" and "Barrayar" are my absolute favourites. I wish there were more books about Cordelia and Aral in main roles, or may be more books with them in secondary roles.