Dragons: Lost is the first installment in the Requiem for Dragons trilogy by Daniel Arenson. In this story world, weredragons—people who can change into dragons—once ruled the roost and now are hunted down and killed and are virtually extinct. Newborns are tested to see if they are weredragons, and if they are, they have the ability to change into a dragon removed from them by paladins of the Cured Temple, a very repressive group of people who force the people to live in austerity while they live the good life. The story starts when Cade transforms into a dragon after seeing his baby sister get her dragon abilities removed from her and then becomes hunted by the paladins of the Cured Temple. He then tries to find others like him.
For me, this is just an okay novel. The concept is a good one. I like the idea of weredragons. The world building is pretty good. But the book falters beyond the high level concepts it has in it. The writing is a bit underwhelming. The biggest problem with it, especially when it comes to the action scenes, is that the description is to general. I don’t feel as if I’m in the scene and part of the action when reading these scenes. There’s a lack of visceral, sensory detail, and it seems as if the author is just skimming through these sections. Characterization is also lacking. Every character seems to have some horrible dark thing that has happened to them in their past that they are trying to forget yet haunts them. The villains in the story, are particularly poorly written. They lack dimension and are one-note characters.
The novel does provide a good bit of entertainment value, and despite some of these flaws is worth reading, and I will continue on with this trilogy.
Nos4a2 might have the single coolest cover an any novel I have ever seen. And although you may not be able to judge a book by its cover, it certainly got me wanting to read it. When I first saw the title, I figured the novel would be about vampires, but there are no vampires residing inside—at least not in the traditional sense of the word. I suppose that the story’s villain, Charles Manx, is a type of vampire. He doesn’t drink blood, but he does feed off the emotions of children, who keep him alive far longer than any person would expect to live, living in Christmasland—a fantasy world of his own making.
The foil in this story for Charles Manx is Victoria McQueen. Since she was a small child, Victoria had the ability to get on her bike and find things. She, along with others like her, have talents similar to Manx, but they don’t use their ability to abduct children. As a teen, she runs into Manx, and he is arrested for abducting her. Later in her messed up life, after she has a child of her own, Manx and his Rolls Royce get out of his confinement and return to Christmasland after taking Victoria’s son captive.
This was an imaginative and enjoyable novel. The world of the story is richly built. The writing is captivating. For the most part, the characterization is strong, although I wasn’t so enamored with Victoria McQueen. She was a bit hard to root for as a protagonist. The story was overly long and could have been trimmed, especially the second third of the novel. But I think what really stood out for me was the story’s villain, who, although he is a despicable character, is the hero of his own story and truly believes that what he is doing is good. I think villains are hard to get right and Joe Hill nails it.
Season 4 of Stranger Things had a darker and more horror feel to it than any of the previous seasons of the show, which I appreciated. There were allusions to Stephen King and Nightmare on Elm Street—even going so far as bringing in Robert Englund to play one of the roles in the Max possession episode, which I thought was the best episode of the season. That horror feel was something that was pervasive throughout the season and enjoyable.
One thing that didn’t work so well was the flood of new characters that they brought into the season. Of course, many of them served as cannon fodder so that they could be killed off. Through four seasons, the show has exhibited a pattern of only willing to be kill off newly introduced characters, and not any of the bigger characters, which I think is a shortcoming of the show. They teased the death of Hopper last season and Max this season, but they won’t take that kind of risk.
Another thing that didn’t work for me was the lack of believability of some of the more ordinary parts of the show. I’m perfectly fine stretching disbelief about the upside down, people with superpowers, and any of the supernatural elements of the show, but this season, a government agency going into a California neighborhood and shooting it up with machine guns, rival government agents killing each other and torturing other members, and that entire scene when Mike and company went to Utah to see Dustin’s girlfriend was a bridge too far and really hurt the season.
But mostly this was a really good season. I would probably rank it behind season 1. There were three separate story lines that coalesced in the end. The season had great tension and cool moments. As the child actors have grown, they have become less interesting, but the strength in the characters are with the older characters, in particular Steve, Robin, and Murray really shined this season. I would have liked this season to be the last for Stranger Things before they wear out their welcome, but clearly the ending set up for a season 5.
Ozark ranks for me as one of the best shows in the past five years, and might even crack my top 10 list of all time. It reminds me of Breaking Bad in many ways. In both shows there is someone who is a novice who enters the world of the drug trade and fumbles and stumbles their way through it. Eventually the novice becomes very good at plying the drug trade and rises to power, but there is a nonstop barrage of obstacles in the way.
That was the case in season 4 as well. There were several times where Wendy and Marty Byrde got into situations where I had to ask myself, “How the hell are they going to get out of this?” But, as usual, they prove to be super resourceful, although Wendy acted irrationally in the final season and more or less lost it. Ruth Langmore also acted in utterly insane and reckless ways.
The cast and the writing in the show were definite strengths. In particular, Marty and Ruth Langmore were my two favorites. What I enjoyed about Marty is that he was always so even keel and logical, even in the face of some incredibly difficult and stressful situations. Ruth, on the other hand, was neither of these things, but she oozed attitude and moxy. Of course, these things got her into all sorts of trouble. The one character that really irked me was Jonah Byrde. His story line, where he was a money laundering mastermind at age 15, was just a bridge too far for me to cross.
Ozark ended the same way it had been for four seasons. Even when everything was seemingly going great, you just knew it wasn’t going to last, and things would ultimately burst at the seams. Both the season and the ending were really well done and fitting thematically. The show had run its course, and I am glad they decided to end it at this point.
Wards of Faerie is the first book in the Dark Legacy of Shannara series. There’s no question that Terry Brooks has a formula that he follows in all of these series. Some great talisman must be found (in this case missing Elfstones). A group of characters must be gathered and this group always involves druids, elves, at least one member of the Ohmsford family, a member of the Leah family, and an assortment of others. They have to travel a long distance to achieve this goal and there are both human (the Federation) and non-human groups opposing them.
Although this is formulaic to be sure, it is also comforting. I know that when I read Terry Brooks, I’m going to get a well written epic fantasy novel. There’s going to be danger, good characters, a journey, and many of the elements that I like in my fantasy. This novel is no different. The first novel sets the stage, but to really judge it, you have to read the entire trilogy, and then see how it compares to the other trilogies.
What I like so far is the use of airships for travel. It’s not the first time they are being used, but I think they are a cool addition. I also like that the series is coming full circle now that science is coming back again to the world. After the world went into an apocalypse where science (in the form of nuclear annihilation) led to the end of the world and the rise of magic, science is now making a come back and threatening the supremacy of magic. The tone is overall a little darker than in some of the other books in this series.
Thus far, it’s a solid first book. It’s not spectacular but good. As I mentioned before, it’s difficult to judge this by itself but only in the context of how good the overall series will be, which is still too early to tell.
