KindleUnlimited – Page 6

Second Shift – Order (Wool #7) by Hugh Howey

March 4, 2013 by Adam Shields

Summary: Now that we know the background of the silos, we return to a different perspective, the instigators.

One of the unique perspectives that Hugh Howey brings with this extended series is a way of writing a series that does not primarily rely on affiliation with the main character to move the story. Instead while there are recurring characters in the books, mostly each new book has a new main character.

Done poorly this will mean that the author has to reacquaint you with the story and draw you into the character that you are now reading (and waste a lot of time for the reader in repetition). But with the Wool/Silo series Howey has used this method to move through a lot of time and tell the story from a wide variety of perspectives.

Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by CS Lewis

February 25, 2013 by Adam Shields

Summary: Memoir of CS Lewis’ early life and how he came to faith.

CS Lewis is an author that you just have to read if you are a Christian. If you have not read the Chronicles of Narnia, then you will have read Screwtape Letters or Mere Christianity (I never have) or his Science Fiction Trilogy or one of his other books. But as a person that considers myself fairly well read, I have not read nearly as much CS Lewis as I feel like I should have.

I picked up the Science Fiction trilogy when it was on sale last year but I have not read it yet. I have tried Mere Christianity a couple times but I have not finished it. I really like Screwtape Letters and the Great Divorce and enjoyed Till We Have Faces. One I have enjoyed more than almost any other is his Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer.

What really moved me to read this is the fact that two books I really like were adapted titles. Carolyn Weber’s Surprised by Oxford was the story of how she came to faith at Oxford and she intentionally modeled the title after Lewis’s book. And Lyle Dorsett titled his biography of Joy Davidson (CS Lewis’ wife) Surprised by Love (first edition of the book was called And God Came In).

I had always assumed that Surprised by Joy was about his relationship to Joy Davidson, but it was written long before he met and married her.

First Shift – Legacy (Wool #6) by Hugh Howey

February 21, 2013 by Adam Shields

Summary: A Prequel to Wool, we find out how it all started or at least we start to find out.

First Shift: Legacy (Wool #6) is the start to a prequel trilogy for five books of Wool by Hugh Howey. Without giving up too much of the storyline of Wool, the setting is a post-apocalyptic world where everyone lives in underground silos waiting for it to be safe to return to the above ground world.

First Shift tells both the story of how (and a little bit of why) the silos were built and the early years of living in the silos. The main character tells both stories through flashback.

Wool Books 4 and 5 (The Unraveling & Stranded) by Hugh Howey

February 12, 2013 by Adam Shields

Summary: After the first three books gave background, book four and five move into full blown action.

There is no way to review books 4 and 5 without giving away some spoilers. So if you have not read books 1 to 3, please skip this review and read the review of books 1 to 3 then read books 1 to 3 and then come back. (SPOILER ALERT)

Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin

November 19, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: A young wizard must find himself to make right a wrong he created.

Wizard of Earthsea is one of those classic books that I remember reading as a young teen. Like An Abundance of Katherines, it is a coming of age story. But unlike the other two books that I read this past week from the same era (Goldfinger and Stainless Steel Rat) it did not feel dated.

At the end of the book, Le Guin commented about the history of the book. This was the first book that a publisher had asked her to write, and she was reluctant. She had not written a book specifically for teen before this. And while she had written fantasy, the idea of fantasy as a genre was very new.

Lord of the Rings had only recently been published in the US. And the idea of young adult fantasy was just getting started. Lloyd Alexander had won the Newberry Medal for the High King the year before A Wizard of Earthsea was written.

In Le Guin’s little history she noted that she was subtlety trying to tweak the establishment. She followed the basic structure of a young adult version of a wizard, but she made him non-white. In fact all of the good characters in the book are not white. The only explicitly White main character is one that we see as a young girl and later as a young woman. And both times she betrays Ged to try and steal his power.

Goldfinger by Ian Fleming

November 15, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: An over the top villain tarnishes an otherwise decent Bond novel.

James Bond is one of those cultural items that everyone ‘needs’ to know. We know that Bond gets the girl(s), that he likes his vodka martini’s shaken not stirred (usually with a lemon twist). He always wins, he has cool gagets, cool cars, looks good in a tuxedo, always seems to be undercover, but still uses his regular name, etc.

Last year I read my first James Bond book, Dr No. It was more like the movie than I expected but I still basically liked the book. I am a fan of spy book, but more the John le CarrÃ©, Jason Borne, and Milo Weaver variety.

In the books, James Bond is racist, sexist and usually is against comic book style villains instead of other spies. In the movie, Goldfinger gathers together all of the mob bosses in the US so that he can get the man power to knockover Fort Knox. In the book it is similar but even more similar to a group of super villains from a kids cartoon.

Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley

November 1, 2012 by Adam Shields

Takeaway: The common conception of the book has nothing to do with what is really in the book.

So here is what is probably most interesting about reading ‘The Modern Prometheus’, almost nothing that I thought I knew about the story line is actually in the book. Many stories we primarily know through movie adaptations and not the book itself. That is not unusual. But the fact that almost all of the central features of the cultural understanding of the book are not in the book is fascinating.

Igor, lightning, the slow walk, the arms raised, pretty much all the features about the monster are all wrong. Not even wrong, it is the opposite of the book. The monster was brilliant, well spoken, desired only to love and be loved. Even the name is wrong. Frankenstein is the name of the Doctor, the monster is never named (I did actually know that part before reading the book.)

When I talked about the book with some friends there are pretty different opinions of it. My sister in law loves the book. She is a scientist and talked about it as part of a discussion about medical and scientific ethics.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

October 23, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: A brat of a girl falls into a fantasy world

One of my reading goals this year was to read more old books. Some of these I am re-reading, some I am reading for the first time. If you have a kindle or like to listen to audiobooks, there are tons of free classics available (although of varying quality.)

I picked up about 30 free classic kindle and audiobooks through a promotion (some still available) last month. Jim Dale’s (narrator for Harry Potter) version of Alice in Wonderland. This is both good and bad. Dale is a very good narrator. But some of his voices seems to be the same as some of his Harry Potter voices and that provides a little unintended humor and confusion.

Prior to this I have never read Alice in Wonderland. But I knew the basic story through the many parodies and cartoon remakes. Alice follows a rabbit down a hole. Alice drinks and eats things that make her grown and shrink. She meets the smiling cat that disappears and reappears. And then she meets a pack of playing cards where the Queen keeps crying ‘off with their head’ every few minutes.

Call of the Wild by Jack London

October 19, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: Classic children’s books about a dog that is kidnapped to work the Klondike Gold Rush.

I remember reading Call of the Wild as a child. I am sure it has been over 25 years since I last read it. But it still seemed quite fresh in my mind.

Jack London wrote clear prose. He feels like a western writer (like Zane Gray or Louis L’Amour). In fact I would not be surprised if I read this after reading some Louis L’Amour books. I had several uncles that were long haul truck drivers. And they spent a lot of time reading on their off time. The westerns were passed around frequently and I think that I probably read most of L’Amour’s books by the time I was 13. I am not sure if the prose feels similar because they were writing at a similar time, or because there is a similar western individualism that is flowing through the authors.

The Call of the Wild is clearly a children’s book in orientation. It is told in third person, primarily from Buck’s perspective. It is not Buck (the dog) narrating but a unknown narrator that is telling Buck’s story.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

September 19, 2012 by Adam Shields

Summary: A Faustian bargain to keep beauty and youth in exchange for your soul.

One of my reading priorities this year was to read more classics. I have not done very well on my other reading goals, so when Amazon and Audible released a ton of free classics to promote their new Whispersync for Voice I decided to pick up most of them and try to start reading more classics.

Honestly, other than the reference in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, I had never heard of Dorian Gray (and I did not even know there is a Dorian Gray movie until I started looking around for this review.) I knew that his portrait aged instead of his body. I assumed it was some sort of faustian bargain with the devil.

The actual book leaves a lot to the reader. There is a sort of prayer that Dorian Gray says when he is first shown the portrait where he says that he would give anything to keep his beauty and youth as the painting shows. But there is no explanation, supernatural or otherwise, for why Dorian stops aging and his portrait starts aging. Similarly, we are not really told whether it is Dorian’s own nature that he becomes evil and depraved or whether there is some connection to his soul being lost in the bargain that causes him to become depraved. I assume that Wilde just was allowing his reader to make the faustian connection.