I found myself sad and heartbroken at times as Croaker outlives a lot of his friends and allies in the Black Company but still found that I did not want to put it down (a sign of a great book).

This series is a great read for anyone who loves epic Fantasy.

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Finishing this book I was left astounded by the remaining state of the Companions of the Hall. It will be interesting to see where R.A. Salvatore continues with this series from here.

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My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I read a review for this book that basically said, “Horribly written, but impossible to put down”. For the most part I would agree with that statement. I’ve read all of Dan Brown’s books and to be honest it feels as if his writing style has deteriorated as his popularity has grown.

The plot twist, dramatically revealed near the end of the book, was clumsily made obvious 250 pages before. Unlike Angels & Demons where you spent half the book trying to deduce who was the villain, only to be surprised by the plot twist: There is no real surprise here.

Still though the plot timing is done well, and you find yourself drawn to the book for the historical myths and legends portrayed and to find out how it ends. If you’ve enjoyed any of his previous books, it may well be worth the read, but just be warned it is not his best work.

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My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book honestly surprised me. I had picked it up just as another book to read but when I finally sat down to read it, I found myself swept into the world in the book, which is odd considering I hadn’t read the previous 5 books.The characters, dialogue and setting all seem well thought out and sweep you away into the world. I will likely be exploring other books from Jane.

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Dramatic saga, though the writing style takes a bit to get used to. Feels like Christopher took his father’s notes and added his own writing putty between them.

Still it’s an intense drama and a good read, though I will warn that it takes a bit to get involved in the storyline and the ending is almost disappointing.

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rating: 4 of 5 stars
This latest installment in Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels starts with a bang and doesn’t let up through the entirety of the novel. Other than a rather explicit romp with a past lover, Sookie finds herself in one mess of trouble after the next.

Overall it was a rather enjoyable installment. Much darker than the earlier books, though they’ve been heading this way over the last few. A number of characters that we’ve grown accustomed to having around in this world are now gone and I know I’ll miss at least one of them.

My only real complaint is that the ending seemed much too abrupt, I felt almost cheated when I finished the last page of the book.

Anyway, bring on book 10!

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rating: 3 of 5 stars
Overall it was a good read, though Clive’s prose did leave me a little baffled at times (for one, I found that the book, at least in the beginning, contained way too many metaphors for my liking). I also found it interesting that he wrote himself into the book as a bus driver/teacher in the Gobi Desert.



In my opinion, the bulk of the book could have been compressed. Nearly half the book is spent setting up the global oil crisis created by the oil company utilizing the Khan’s fortune.



Anyway, a decent read, though more of a pulp action read.


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rating: 5 of 5 stars
Completely enjoyed this trilogy. About a quarter of the way into it, I found that I was having trouble putting it down. A great sign of a great book.

Raw, visceral and compelling characters. I can’t wait to read the other books in this series (providing that I can find them).

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rating: 3 of 5 stars
Was a decent read, though I did not find the characters as well developed as in her other books. Harper seems to have a lot less spunk and passion than Sookie, maybe this has to do with her back story being a lot darker.



Though that being said, I found a lot of the back story repetitious and I hate to say it a bit boring. I found myself glossing over it a bit while reading.



I think the character/setting could have promise, but I think Charlaine needs to focus more on the story than the back story. Perhaps the subsequent books will move more in this direction


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I normally enjoy a Michael Crichton novel, relishing escaping into the thrilling almost science fiction of some of his earlier works such as: Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Timeline, Sphere, and Congo.  However, this one left me a bit dizzy, trying to piece together the separate, unrelated view points into a cohesive plot line.  It tries to come off like the movie Snatch, separate seemingly unconnected view points that over the course of the story show a relation that heightens each individual story, but falls short of that goal.

Instead it reads more like a collection of author notes on varying elements of genetics and bio-engineering pieced together to try and represent the author’s views on the topic.  The pieces that are there are fairly well written, but a number of the characters come off as shallow and poorly represented.  I also found that a number of the story arcs weren’t closed to my satisfaction and left me wondering what the point of that arc in general was.

If you’re curious about genetics or bio-engineering, you may thoroughly enjoy reading the author’s view points in this fictional representation, otherwise you may find this to be a waste of your time.

I did enjoy the story arcs involving the two transgenetic creatures.  Dave the Humanzee and Gerard the Human/Parrot hybrid, though while Dave at least has a prominent role in what I considered to be the main story arc (see below), Gerard unfortunately seemed almost as filler meant to entertain the reader but serving no real purpose to the overall story.

From what I could glean from the book the main story arc revolves around a gene dispute between Biogen and a man whose cells produce a potential cure to cancer after a treatment he received to cure his rare form of leukaemia.  The university that treated him took samples of his cells and without his authorization for commercial use sold these to the highest bidder (Biogen).  As a result, Biogen declares ownership of the cell line, including those within Mr. Burnet and his family.  Following sabotage of Biogen’s copy of the cell line, they  set out to try and reclaim the cells using a Bounty Hunter.