Broken glass

  I initially passed on Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas since an endorsement on the cover compared it to Game of Thrones and the Hunger Games. That sounded pretty much like a copycat of sorts to me. I was both right and wrong. As usual the endorsements didn’t really help the book, but just confused a potential reader. The story didn’t truly remind me much of either series of books mentioned, but is a somewhat original take on the mythical fantasy assassin.

  Celeana is in jail, in beyond cruel slavery in hellish salt mines, a dreary, unending existence, without any visible hope of getting out, but eventually she does, anyway. Her further path remains perilous. One wrong move may mean death. Her freedom beckons, but only if she can survive a competition between killers and become the King’s Champion. She does not ask if it’s the right thing to do. She doesn’t have a genuine choice. So she fights and keeps fighting, like she’s practically born to do.

  There is cruelty here, even if there should have been more, there is realism, even though there should have been more of it and better defined. I read the entire book through and that is certainly rare enough in itself. Usually, I lose interest halfway. The story does hold my attention. Its suspense is sufficient to hold my interest to the end, and I might want to read the next book in the series in spite of its flaws.

  This is a young adult romance book and that is ruining much of my enjoyment. An assassin behaving like a lovesick brat is so infuriating that I can hardly express it. The absence of sex and of truly mature themes in general is always insulting.

In the age of Trump

  This novel would have been important no matter who the US president happens to be, but in the age of Trump: novels like Thunder Road -Ice and Fire by Amos Keppler become more important than ever.

  There is just a desperate need for people speaking up against the narrow-minded view on climate change and life in general Trump and his people represent.

  This isn’t a documentary, even though it’s documenting in excellent ways the step by step results of human folly. It’s an engaging story describing the ultimate ramifications of recent human idiocy. We follow a group of people slowly turning into a tribe, following them as they travel from south to north in Europe, and even as climate change refugees from even farther away.

  Human civilization itself is collapsing around them, collapsing under its own weight. Extreme measures slowly, surely become needed and downright mandatory in order to survive. They fight on, against impossible odds, struggling beyond struggling to reach a place at least approaching a safe haven, in a world that has become so dangerous that death might strike at any time. This is a reality far removed from any ivory tower and especially those where Trump and his people reside.

  One of the greatest scenes in the novel is when a man stands in front of his house and the fast-rising ocean splashes his feet and he shouts: NOTHING BUT NATURAL VARIATIONS

  I will always visualize Trump in my mind when I think of that part…

The scary depths within us all

  This is my review of Shadows by Shaun Hutson. Hutson was a great, underestimated author during his lifetime. It pleases me to honor him now.

  He wrote many fairly good novels, but this is his best. This one is great!

  You know early on that this isn’t a storybook, a run of the mill tale. It’s too cruel, too real life for that. The characters aren’t exactly model citizens or saints in any way. I see it pretty much as a hard core, black metal novel without audible music. It offers a hard, uncompromising look at modern mankind, giving no quarter.

  Against a backdrop of the celebrities’ paranormal scene, we’re drawn into a dark and sinister stage. Hutson pulls no punches when describing either that or a society plagued by corrupt politicians and officials. One scene of the book, where a politician goes completely overboard with his distaste for his constituents is particularly memorable. Hutson excels in gallows humor, not only in his writing of dark tales, a feature I certainly appreciate.

  In a very clever manner we never see the entire picture, everything happening until almost at the end. Several people we might suspect of being the villain are revealed to be just unsympathetic and not the true instigator of the ongoing and deepening horror. We keep guessing until the shocking end and are left hanging even then.

  Hutson, at his best is an entire genre on his own, as every author should be.