Bookwi.se

Summary: The character continue to get deeper into the mythology and danger.

This is essentially the 9th fully book (with a couple more short story collections) of the Percy Jackson series.  This second series Rick Riordan has expanded his available mythology so that both Greek and Roman mythologies are available.  I am far outside my own depth and knowledge at this point.  That is not a problem because Riordan does not expect the reader to know everything.  But there are more and more minor figures involved in every book.

At the end of the last book, Percy and Annabeth were sucked into Tartarus (the deepest place of the underworld where the Titans and other monsters get banished).  The rest of the crew has to try to get to the door to the House of Hades to both let Percy and Annabeth out and to seal the door to keep the monsters from over running the world and to stop Gaia from waking up.

Read more

Empire of Bones is the third and final book in the Ashtown Burials series, and it’s best one. Wilson does a superb job of sourcing his villains and protagonists from classic literature and poetry, ancient history and mythology. It lends an immediacy and real-world feel the novel, like it all could be true and we common folk simply haven’t had visibility to the supernatural undercurrents swirling through our world history.

Teenager Cyrus Smith is an Explorer and card-carrying member of the ancient Order of Brendan. The Order is under threat from various forces (contemporary traitors and ancient evil powers alike), and the centuries-old battle threatens to spill over decisively into the broader geopolitical theater. With book 3, a lot of questions are finally answered and plot lines resolved, making it the fastest-paced and most emotionally satisfying of the series.

Read more

Summary: Good, but not quite up to par with the rest of Sanderson’s impressive body of work.

It’s the near future. The United States is fractured into mini city-states run by competing Epics–people who 10 years ago mysteriously gained super-human powers (in the vein of the X-Men comics). Nobody knows how or why this happened. The Epics have taken control over modern civilization and dominate the rest of the population. Steelheart is one of the most powerful Epics in the world, and he rules Newcago (Chicago) with an iron fist. He is seemingly invincible to all attacks, but every Epic has a weakness. Naturally they guard their secrets very closely.

Read more

Takeaway: The Psalms are an important part of historic worship and the modern church needs to work to keep them apart of our current worship.

Five years ago, if you had asked me what my least favorite part of the bible is, I would have probably said the Psalms.  I might have said the lists genealogies or Numbers, but most likely I would have said Psalms.

However, The Case for the Psalms is the third book on the Psalms I have read this year and I am moving toward a greater appreciation of the role of the Psalms, not only as illustrations of the range of biblical expression but as important centers for Christian worship and theology.

Read more