Review: The Last Shadow

The Last Shadow by Orson Scott Card
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Full disclosure: I am a huge fan of the Enderverse, with Ender's Game sitting on my top 10 shelf. The Enderverse is basically divided into two parts: Ender’s Saga which of course follows Ender’s life … and the Shadow Series which follows the lives of his supporting cast. However, the style of the books after Ender’s Game was markedly different, taking a more thought provoking or philosophical approach that I found interesting, but not all that exciting. Generally the Shadow Series was a return the the original style of that first book, retelling the same story from a different perspective and I really enjoyed them. The Last Shadow is much more like Speaker for the Dead and Xenocide … and I highly recommend that you read through at least that far before reading this book, which actually picks up sometime after Children of the Mind and tones down the weirdness a little.

Ender is Dead … Long Live Ender.

Basic Premise
… you got an apocalyptic virus with a team trying to save humanity
… you got crazy genius kids (vaguely connected to Ender) straight from the Big Bang Theory that can help figure out who dunnit
… you got space travel with time dilation (so 1000s of years in the future) with super secret blink tech to give you a “first contact” situation without the centuries of waiting.
… despite all the bickering, all the kool kids are way civilized and rarely challenged much … it was amusing in a Calvin and Hobbes sort of way.

Even with all of that silliness … I really enjoyed the book … reading it in just under two days, so it does pull you along nicely. Parts can come across as a tad preachy, but not too bad or over the top … and it does get you thinking about “things.” I would say it is not his best work, but it was better than Children of the Mind, so in that respect I am rounding up to four (4) stars.

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#TheLastShadow #NetGalley

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Review: The Christian Moral Life: Directions for the Journey to Happiness

The Christian Moral Life: Directions for the Journey to Happiness by John Rziha
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Performance: Let's be real ... I expected this book to read like a text book and that's okay because I am very interested in the topic. This makes evaluating the narration difficult ... so I started with a comparison to my college professors somewhat monotonous lectures (multiple character voices are obviously missing). In that regard, I enjoyed Andrew's performance. His tone and cadence varied just enough to keep me paying attention to the content ... which is the goal here right?

Story: The first part of the book explores "ethical concept" of what it means to be created "in the image of G*d" ... specifically what is the soul and what is its connection to the body. The text skillfully includes references to some of the greatest Christian Theologist of the Western Faith to support the authors narrative (without subordinating the author's voice to these great thinkers). As might be expected, there are a few assumptions that are necessary to fully accept the philosophical arguments built upon these assumptions; principle of these would be the assumption that the reason or purpose behind the creation of man was for man to seek a knowing and loving relationship with his creator ... to be in harmony with body and soul and creation itself (aka perfection or paradise). Once the archtype of creation has been established, the author then explores the fallen nature of man. Finally the book gets to the whole point of the journey ... how do we get back to where we were ...

Bottomline ... I learned a lot from this book that I didn't know or had not thought about. That gives this a solid 4 stars. The fact that I anticipate coming back to this book to reinforce my understanding of the material gives it another star (I rarely come back to books after the first read)

Highly Recommended for any who wish to explore human morality.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

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Review: A Game of Thrones

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book was all about trade-offs. On the one hand, Martin introduces a fair amount of complex political intrigue and (what seemed like) realism in his world building gave it just enough grit to appear different then the standard epic (low) fantasy I had grown used to. In fact, some time later I read that Martin was quite pleased with the fact that just because a character was a 'good' guy, doesn't mean he will survive the story ... the only problem was that it really was difficult to find them. Jon Snow was perhaps the only individual I liked much at all, but his story seemed to be there to set him up for something much later. The nominal hero of the story was probably Eddard ... whose complete rigidity and lack of empathy really made him a detestable figure, despite his adherence to honor et. al. It was not until the War started that the story started to redeem itself ... And it did so admirably. The War of the Five Kings was the best part of the book; but even that drops a star because of the number and frequent changes of the various Points of View within (8 total POV across 3 major plotlines). 

This was THE most frustrating aspect of the book as every single switch made it real easy to put the book down and forget about it for awhile (at least until the later part of the book where I was more tempted to just skip ahead and ignore the crap in between ... Then maybe going back and reading the next POV/storyline parts. I did struggle through to the end though ... And the irritation faded enough that I purchased the next book in the series after finding it in a yard sale for a quarter ... And it wasn't long before I encountered enough 'realism' and not enough 'idealism' to decide that this series wasn't as good as I had remembered. Parts of it were really fun; parts of it I really intensely disliked and I would have preferred to do without. I still haven't read past book two.

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Review: Raven: Reawakening

Raven: Reawakening by Mitchell Hogan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s a pretty common trope; a reluctant assassin fakes their death to escape the master’s control who then makes an abortive attempt to remove loose ends once they figure out the ruse. Fortunately Hogan does this fairly well, giving you a fun, basic hero’s journey with a relatable anti-hero. In addition, there isn’t much development outside of the MC PoV, which makes the story fairly straight forward if you actually like Raven; which I did. 

However, it was the world building that put this book on my favorites shelf. The magic system was something that was well developed and something that I had not seen before, with the source of magic coming from dawn, dust and the abyss/demonic. World elements were introduced as needed and appropriate, always leaving a bit of mystery to keep you moving forward, but as the details are finally filled in, any sequels will need to focus more on the characters then what we see here in order to stay relevant and interesting (there is an obvious conflict between opposing groups developing, but not yet front and center) … for the first of a series, it was a good balance with a few twists to keep the reader on their toes.

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#RavenReawakening #NetGalley.

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