"Fall of Giants"

Fall of Giants (Ken Follett)

I made it 300 pages into this before giving up. This is a historical novel about a bunch of different families starting just before World War I, and it turned into a real slog rather quickly. I couldn't put down a different Follett book, The Pillars of the Earth, and I really feel the difference is a simple one: Pillars of the Earth has one, single overarching narrative thread that may touch many people and subplots, but keeps everything tied together; Fall of Giants is missing this, and is instead very, very loosely woven from five or six threads that barely rub up against each other. Almost every character's thread is interesting, but jumping away from them to dive into another, almost totally unrelated one kills all the momentum, and eventually makes the book a chore to read. I'd recommend taking a pass on this one.

Grade: C-

"Kushiel's Dart"

Kushiel's Dart (Jacqueline Carey)

A big fantasy novel about a courtesan who's tossed into a high-stakes world of political intrigue in late medieval fantasy Europe. For the first 300 pages or so this was really hard to put down; Carey's great at world-building and weaving exposition, and the world she's made is pretty interesting. Unfortunately the book eventually slows down and starts dragging, hamstrung by two issues, one big and one small. The big one is that it's simply too, well, big - the paperback comes in at a hair over 900 pages, and it's not hard to suggest some useless parts that could be cut (my recommendation would be the entire Master of the Straits storyline, which not only adds almost nothing to the story, but feels very out of place having a super-powerful wizard in a very low-magic setting). The second issue is that the characters are not always fleshed out as much as one would hope; our heroine and the main cast mostly come off pretty well, but the head antagonist is barely more than a sketch.
All in all, I guess this is a good beach book, but it's hard to really recommend seeking it out unless you pass it on the shelf at the library.

Grade: B

"The Grey Knights Omnibus"

A collection of three novels about (checks title) the Grey Knights, W40's super elite anti-demon hunters, and as close as the setting comes to good guys. Contained within are three novels:

Grey Knights - This is a good start; the book kicks off with a battle where an isolated group of Grey Knights mounts a almost hopeless assault on a evil, naughty demon who's sealed for a thousand years, with the story picking up as some naughty, evil Chaos chumps attempt to summon him back into real space. The 13th Black Crusade is going on in the backround (as it is for the entire omnibus, actually), meaning that our heroes are working on as close to a shoestring budget as 8 foot tall psychic genetically modified guys in powered armor can be. Since our heroes work as the Inquisition  anti-demon branch and inquisitors need to be super suspicious, there's also a health dose of paranoia, although I'm not sure I exactly followed one character's redemption late in the book. Solid, slightly above average stuff.

Dark Adeptus - This is my favorite novel in the omnibus. It kicks off with an entire planet screaming out of the Warp, and our heroes go to investigate, saddled with suspicious allies who they don't entirely trust, and vice versa. This aspect really makes the book stand out, with our heroes fighting not just against the entire possessed world, but keeping an eye on their companions, who they suspect are there to steal some ancient, highly valuable technology. It does take a little while to get going, but once the characters make it into the more interesting parts of the planet (basically a corrupted super-server), this is the best material in the whole collection.

Hammer of Daemons - Unfortunately the omnibus goes out with a real slog; Our hero is captured in the first ten pages and spends the rest of the book trying to escape a demon planet dedicated to Khorne, the least interesting Chaos god, whose gimmick is that he's real angry and loves blood. While it's interesting seeing our hero taken out of his Grey Knight comfort zone, a lot of the book is portent-filled dreams and symbolic demon possession attempts, and this gets old real quick. I appreciate the author trying something new after the previous two novels, but it didn't quite work in this case.

All in all, this falls squarely into the large pile of good, not great, W40k fiction out there; two good and one okay novels for the price of a single paperback is hard to pass up.

"Blood Angels Omnibus"

The Blood Angels Omnibus (James Swallow)

This omnibus collects two novels and a short story. Normally I'd review the novels separately, but they're basically two halves of the same tale, and if I had read the first novel by itself, I probably would have been pissed at the cliffhanger ending. (I also don't know that I have much to say without giving away the first book's story.)
Collected as a omnibus, the two novels work great; I have yet to read a bad James Swallow book, and the streak holds here. Swallow's villains are always more interesting than his heroes, and this omnibus stars a particularly loathsome piece of filth pitted against our (somewhat forgettable) heroes. I don't want to say much more except that this falls into solid good-not-great territory; it's a easy recommend for W40k fans, but if you're not familiar with the setting, I'd recommend Swallow's excellent Fear to Tread first, which covers the same chapter of Space Marines and serves as a very nice introduction.

Grade: B+

"Honour Imperialis"

Honour Imperialis (Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Rob Sanders, Steve Lyons)

A W0K omnibus about the good ol' Imperial Guard. I'm going to review all of the novels one by one.

Dead Men Walking (ADB) - This is probably the worst ADB novel I've read yet, meaning it's just good and not great. Honestly, by the time I got to the end of the omnibus, I'd forgotten almost everything that happened in this novel; I do remember there were some great action scenes, and I was also kind of gobsmacked that the book contained literally zero female characters. (The Imperial Guard's omnisex - unlike the setting's popular stars, the Space Marines - so there's really no excuse.) That said, I don't want to be too tough on the book; it's exactly the kind of above-average but not spectacular book that fits perfectly in a omnibus like this.

Grade: C+

Cadian Blood (Rob Sanders) - This author wrote one of my all time favorite W40K novels in Atlas Infernal, and he's written probably the best novel in this omnibus. My big issue with Cadian Blood is the same problem I had with Atlas Infernal : The author keeps jumping around the chronology of the story, cutting between our heroes being interrogated in prison and earlier scenes running around fighting Orks. This is annoyingly confusing, all the more so as some characters are introduced in the flash-forwards before we meet them in the earlier parts, which make up the bulk of the book. Still, this is pretty good - it's not quite as bonkers as Atlas Infernal, but this novel is the star of the omnibus.

Grade: B

Redemption Corps (Steve Lyons) - Remember when I said that Cadian Blood was bonkers? This book has Imperial Guard guys charging Necrons on horses. I couldn't imagine this without laughing.
That's pretty much the high point. This is a good-not-great book, unfortunately weighed down by making the focal point of the beginning of the book a frankly boring romance between two goofs I was hard-pressed to care about. After this problem is disposed of, the novel falls into the W40k trap of having too many POV characters, although in fairness it's not nearly as bad as some other books (cough, cough). I'd recommend just skipping all the parts with the two lovers, at least until the second half of the book - once the Necrons warp in the book gets a lot more interesting.

Grade: B-

After the main attraction there's four short stories - one really good ADB one, one not so great Steve Lyons one, and two pretty good ones by (cough cough) and (mumble mumble). All in all, this is one of the stronger W40K omnibusses out there; there's not a single miss here, and while none of the novels themselves are superstars, all three of them for $9 is a great deal.

Total Grade: B+

"Path of the Eldar Omnibus"

Path of the Eldar Omnibus (Gav Thorpe)

Normally in an omnibus, I like to review each novel separately; I'm not going to be doing that in this case since the author has written three novels that all describe the same basic events from three point of views.
This is an interesting idea, but I unfortunately I don't think it quite works. The first book is pretty interesting, but the second and third suffer from already knowing what's going to happen. It doesn't help that the main characters of all three books are kind of obnoxious - the first book's hero is a self-obsessed creep, the second book's hero is a arrogant know it all, and the third book's hero is basically the villain of the piece, a truly loathsome dickbag I was hoping would get some kind of comeuppance for his frankly vile actions (admittedly, this reaction really kicked in once he started capturing ship crews to be used as slaves). The book isn't terrible; there is a lot of interesting Eldar background material, and for once they aren't being used as punching bags to show how cool and strong someone else is, but I can still only really recommend this to W40k nerds. (Or, if you're curious, I guess get it out of the library long enough to just read the first included novel; you won't miss much.)

Grade: C+

"Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader"

Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty (Bradley Martin)

I'm torn about this book; it's divided roughly into thirds, with one being very good, one being interesting but dry, and one being pretty boring and pointless. The first third is a biography of Kim Il-Sung, covering from his birth up to his son taking over most of the power in Korea, and this part's easy to recommend as the author gives a interesting and informative history of both Kim and the development of North Korea. After this the book goes into the second section, which is a large batch of interviews with defectors. This kind of primary source is pretty interesting at first, but between the sheer volume of them and the fact that the author just presents the interviews without any kind of narrative thread eventually made me start skipping pages. 

This comes to the last section of the book, which I just recommend skipping; the author speculates on the future of North Korea, and it seems like the book's editor didn't read this far as it's quite disjointed. A large part of it also deals with the question of who will succeed Kim Jong-Il, which was a good question in 2006, but has been answered pretty definitively at this point. 

All of this makes a book that's difficult to recommend. I would say get it out of the local library, read the first half, and return it.

Grade: B

"Empire of Liberty"

Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789 - 1815 [Oxford History of the United States] (Gordon S. Wood)

For a massive history book I really enjoyed, I'm not sure I have much to say here aside from a strong recommendation; The core of this book is a why-didn't-I-learn-this-in-school exploration of the early clash between the Federalists - trying to make America into a European-style Power complete with landed aristocracy - and the Democratic-Republicans under Jefferson, attempting to mold America into a republic full of small farmers. This might not sound that interesting, but if so I'm not doing it justice; some of the truly bizarre ideas (including an attempt to completely outlaw commerce) are really staggering, and this is an easy recommend to anyone even casually interested in American history. Don't let the size scare you off from this gem.

Grade: A

"Days of Fire"

Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House (Peter Baker)

This is, so far as I'm aware, the definitive history of George W Bush's two terms - the author had access to Bush, Cheney, and a number of disgruntled staffers, which produces as inside a look as possible. Combined with the author's fairness is a book that's quite gripping despite its intimidating size (Amazon says 816 pages, but that includes copious end notes). In fact, I could have easily read more; so much happened during these eight years that I could easily see the book being another 50% longer.
What I really appreciated in the book is that it makes Dubya into a real person; I'll freely admit that after eight years of his administration I had unconsciously started thinking of him as a political cartoon midget with a huge cowboy hat. It's nice to see the moments that make him a relateable human being, even if I still think he was a terrible president. (On that note, the author and I seem to agree that Bush's presidency was defined by lost opportunities more than anything else; I thought the author went a little too far in the afterword defending Bush's presidency, but it's the kind of difference of opinion where I understand and respect the argument, but don't agree with it myself.)
If you have even the slightest interest in politics, this is an easy recommend. I'm certainly no Bush fan, but the only time I wanted to put this book down is when holding all 800 pages of it up made my arm tired.

Grade: A

"My Indecision is Final"

My Indecision is Final: Rise and Fall of Goldcrest Films (Jake Eberts & Terry Ilott)

Well, I tried with this one; I made it over a hundred pages without giving up, but bowed to the inevitable put this down to read another Warhammer 40000 novel. In brief, this book suffers from the same problem as The Secret History of MI6: all the most interesting stuff is left out in favor of page after page of turgid organizational detail. In this case we get tons of ink spent going over the boardroom moves and financing deals of putting a picture together, which is interesting for a little bit, but by the time we get to the exhaustive details of setting up four separate credit pools for the company to draw on, I had checked out. It's a shame; Goldcrest was part of some great movies, but The Killing Fields gets maybe three total pages, while there's at least five pages about how the company that owns Goldcrest Films is set up as a personal trust of the so and so family. This book is practically unreadable; there's a good story in here somewhere, but it's buried deep under a layer of thick, soupy financing deals. Might be good to read when you're having trouble going to sleep.

Grade: D

"Journey to the West"

Journey to the West (Wu Cheng'en, translation by WJF Jenner) [Second look!]

Second on my hit list of the four classics of Chinese literature. Unfortunately, I couldn't really get into this the way I became absorbed in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. I put this down to two factors: The first is that our hero, Sun Wukong, never really grew on me the way he apparently did with most readers. I just found him to honestly be kind of a dick and not very likable, and given that he's the star and main attraction of the story, this was a rather major impediment to my enjoyment. The second issue is that where Romance of the Three Kingdoms is a historical novel, Journey to the West is pure mythology, and a bit of a slog to someone like me who is not very familiar with Chinese religion and culture. It's tough to recommend this book for that reason; it's a classic story and a good translation, but I just couldn't make reading it feel like anything but a chore.

Grade: @_@

"The Rise and Fall of the British Empire"

The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (Lawrence James)

I'm not sure what to make of this book; On the one hand I was never bored reading it, but on the other it's tough to recommend. I think the problem really just boils down to scope. The author has set himself quite an audacious task here, and I'm sad to report that it falls a bit short, on length if nothing else - chronicling the rise and fall of the worldwide British empire is a massive undertaking, and even coming in at over 600 big pages, what you have here is mostly a very high-level overview. Subjects like the Raj that could take up entire volumes themselves are distilled down to under 200 pages. The result is a good, but unfortunately shallow; I would recommend this as a first read before seeing which parts of the history described whet your appetite, then looking for books that cover those areas in more detail.
Now, to be fair, aside from not getting enough of it, what you do get is pretty good; its brevity (well, relative brevity; it's still massive) keeps the book moving very quickly. The only other complaint I can muster is that there are a few bizarre errors in the text - numerous typos, words left out, and my personal bane, quotation marks that begin and don't end, as well as one case where there's a set of ending quotation marks without a beginning. Add this all up and you've got an interesting but not essential book. (Also works well for flatting out curved Magic cards)

Grade: B-

"The Pillars of the Earth"

The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)

This is a massive novel set in England in the 1100s. I wouldn't describe this necessarily as a historical novel - there's none of the obsessive accuracy of, say, the Masters of Rome series. I'd describe this as more maybe historically-flavored. In either case, I believe it can also be described as a real page-turner; Follett juggles multiple story arcs and sets of characters in the 40+ years the novel covers, mostly centered around the town of Kingsbridge and its attempts to build a cathedral. It's all very entertaining, and Follett is great at juggling a big tale with multiple story threads. At first, even the small-scale ones are quite gripping - very early on in the book we're following a family that's cold and hungry in the woods who gets their pig stolen, and it was very difficult not to flip pages because I was so worried about them getting that pig back so they don't starve to death.
It'd be easy to slap an A+ on this book if it was all this good, but unfortunately the second half begins to drag and at times become quite tedious; at one point the focus leaves the more interesting storylines to focus on two young lovers, and I had to stifle some annoyed yawns after one of them was like "I love you so much that I'm never going to speak to you again," which kicks off a truly irritating batch of pages that doesn't really go anywhere or tie in to the rest of the story. The book does pick up again after that (although at this point Follett starts recapping earlier developments for some reason), before coming to a somewhat abrupt and bizzare conclusion, so you're probably looking at about 800 great pages and maybe 200 that you should feel free to skip. I'm looking forward to reading some more Follett books; even with the occasional stumble in this novel, I devoured over a thousand pages of it in five days because I didn't want to put it down.

Grade: A- 

"Blankets"

Blankets (Craig Thompson)

I was a little tough on the first Thompson book I read, a graphic novel called Habibi that reached for greatness and couldn't quite grasp it. Weirdly enough, his previous work - this book -  is everything I could have asked for and more. I don't want to gush too much, but this book is beautifully written and drawn, at turns hilarious and heartbreaking (mostly heartbreaking) as it follows our hero Craig and his struggles growing up.
I guess if I'm looking for some criticism, the art in Blankets isn't as breathtaking as it is in Habibi, both because this is earlier in Thompson's career and because the setting is more stark and less fantastical - and come to think of it, that's more of an observation; the stark art in Blankets perfectly fits the tone of frozen Midwestern lost despair. Huh. Well, I guess for once I can't think of a single thing to complain about. Um, highly recommended.

Grade: A+

"The Space Wolf Omnibus"

Space Wolf Omnibus: Space Wolf / Ragnar's Claw / Grey Hunter (William King)

Three novels about, umm, space wolves. I'm going to review all three novels in one post; never let it be said you don't get value here!

Space Wolf: This entire novel is a flashback showing how our hero, Ragnar (I kept thinking of the guy from Dragon Quest IV) became a Space Wolf, opening with him as a normal dude and ending as he's completed his initiation and is ready to head out into the galaxy to fight. I was going to complain about the fact that we know that he doesn't die because this is the first novel in the omnibus, but the novel itself spoils this by having him get whacked on the head and flash back, so you know he's gonna be okay. Plus, I guess, the novel is titled Space Wolf, not Guy Who Tried To Become a Space Wolf But Died. No, the real issue I have is that the writing is what could charitably be called workmanlike and perhaps more accurately be called pedestrian; this is a interesting book because of the novel-sized depth given to becoming a Space Marine, not necessarily because it's well-written. I'd probably only recommend this to people on the ends of the 40k fan spectrum: It's a good place to get started or an interesting read if you're really into the setting.

Grade: C+

Ragnar's Claw: Goofily enough, this is another novel-length flashback, this time with a older Ragnar flashing back to his first deployment. The plot's a bare-bones GET THE MCGUFFIN, and honestly it's not as interesting as the fact that this novel is where things start getting weird. King seems to be working off some old, no longer in canon idea of what a Space Marine is, as Ragnar meets a Inquisitor who is "almost as tall as [Ragnar] is" - no small feat considering Space Marines are usually 8 - 10 feet tall without shoes. (This gets even sillier when they meet a guy who is taller than a Space Marine who is "tall even for a Space Marine", which by my estimate would make this guy a normal human who is over ten feet tall.) More than that, these guys don't really act a lot like Space Marines, as I found myself incredulously reading about them farting and then teasing each other for who produced the most impressive gas.
In a way, this is interesting in itself, but it runs against one of the more interesting themes in W40k, which is how the Space Marines' super-humanity sets them apart from the average human (for a more nuanced take on this subject, I recommend, of all things, A Thousand Sons). The heroes of this book are just guys who can smell well and don't get tired, and this combined with the nothing special plot results in a novel that isn't bad, but doesn't really have much to recommend.

Grade: C-

Grey Hunter: Unbelievably, the omnibus goes three for three with flashbacks, as this novel too opens with a page of Ragnar in the present day and then the rest of the book is a huge flashback. I'm not really sure I have much to say about this novel; free of the first novel's unusual focus on the making of a space marine and the second novel's weird obsession with farting, this is just a straight up average old W40k novel. The basic plot is that some Chaos guys stole a MacGuffin that the Space Wolves want back, so they go and shoot and stab a bunch of people. It's perfectly serviceable and there's nothing wrong with it, but a few days after reading it I'm struggling to remember anything interesting about it at all.

Grade: C

In sum, I think this entire omnibus is like the first novel it contains - it can only really be recommended to someone looking to dip an exploratory toe in the W40K setting, or for superfans for whom $10 for 3 full-sized average-quality novels is irresistible. There's nothing really wrong with this collection, but even at such a cheap price for so much, there's some really excellent W40K material out there that this omnibus just can't stack up against.

Grade: C

"Absolute Promethea" (Book 3)

Absolute Promethea: Book Three (Alan Moore, J.H. Williams III & Mick Gray)

Not to be confused with Prometha: Book Three, this is actually Books Four and Five collected in one huge volume. (I know it's confusing; this is what happens when you switch formats halfway through a series!) Since Promethea only runs to five books, this collection wraps the series up. Upfront, I'll say that it's quite good, and then I'm going to get into some minor spoilers...

A big part of this book is Promethea getting ready to end the world, with the series just about wrapping up as she does so. However, her actions don't really bring around anything like the end of the world. Instead, it's more like she's giving out a revelation. There isn't any widespread distruction, and the only people who die are people who kill themselves because of what she tells them. This is certainly tragic, but not exactly the END OF THE WORLD!!! that so many of the book's other charecters were trying so hard to prevent throughout the book. Also, the revelation she gives out falls a little flat to me; maybe you had to be there.


Anyways, the spoilers are over, and that one issue aside, this is quite good. Actually, wait, there is one other thing; the last issue is Promethea talking directly to the reader, and while I would have really liked to read this, the backround of every page is a huge garish rainbow smear of color, rendering it basically unreadable. Even in this extra-large format under a strong lamp, I could feel my eyes writhing in terror at trying to make out the text.
So that's really the only negative things I can say. Since this is the Absolute edition, there's some nice extras at the end, including two mini-comics about the least-seen aspect of Promethea drawn in early 20th century style that I found quite charming. All in all, if you've come this far you owe it to yourself to finish the series, and if not, uh, I really hope you didn't read those spoilers up there.

Grade: A-

"Titanicus"

Titanicus (Dan Abnett)

The last time I read a Dan Abnett book, I was, uh, not exactly enthralled, so I admit I was a little scared going into this one. Luckily, this book is much improved and very entertaining, albeit marred with some pacing issues. Actually, that may be a little too kind; this book is entertaining but bloated, weighing in at 600 pages, and containing three absolutely pointless story threads (a old crazy guy watering his garden, a toymaker who, um, makes toys and nothing interesting happens to, and a dockworker who happens to be the husband of another, slightly less pointless character). There's also one story thread that really has nothing to do with anything else in the book that could probably be dropped, all the more so as it's one of two threads about desperate PDF troopers behind enemy lines. (Also, the star of this story thread is the "slightly less pointless character" alluded to above - so if you cut this thread you might as well cut his as a bonus).
So the book's too big and has too many characters, half of whom nothing interesting happens to, but it's also the really only bad thing I have to say about the book, and I guess a novel titled Titanicus being too big at least makes some kind of sense. There are other little issues - the book wraps up way too quickly, which I chalk up as a symptom of having too many characters. Considering some of the terrible endings I've seen for W40k novels, this could be much worse, as it does at least wrap up the big plot threads competently  Also, this is not a book for 40k beginners; I recommend reading Mechanicum first, or you'll be lost trying to keep straight if a Warlord or a Reaver class Titan is larger. (Spoiler: It goes Imperator, Warlord, Reaver, Warhound. I can tell you're impressed!)
To sum up, if you skip the needless storylines and you've got a great book; as it is, it's entertaining but flawed, which is still good enough to earn a solid

Grade: B

"Dragon Keeper"

Dragon Keeper (Robin Hobb)

I tried with this book, I really did. This is another free Kindle e-book, a genre which I have not exactly enjoyed in the past. In this case, I tried to make it 50 pages (this is not easy to measure with the Kindle's "location" system), and after three and a half chapters I just couldn't stand it anymore. Reading this book is like wading through hip-deep mud: It's slow, heavy, turgid, and your mind constantly wanders to something more interesting. The book opens badly, starting with a bunch of dragons cocooning themselves, but they're all weak and dazed and half of them die, and it's so ham-handedly GUYS THIS IS SAD that it becomes silly; I couldn't help but imagine these dragons drunkenly bumbling around to comical music.
Then we switch to focus on a deformed harpy girl and her dad, and nothing happens, and while reading this part I was missing the dragons stumbling around. After a bunch of pages of nothing of interest happening we switch to focus on Alise, our mary sue who LOVES DRAGONS GUYS, and while reading this I was somehow missing the earlier parts about nothing happening to a deformed harpy girl. At this point (I was reading the book in the bathroom) I would have rather just listened to the various gross sounds coming from the next stall than continue reading this book, which I guess is very mean to say, but there you have it.

Grade: F

"The Founding"

The Founding (Dan Abnett)

This is a omnibus containing three Gaunt's Ghosts novels, Gaunt himself being a Commissar in the 40k universe. Collected here are First and Only, Ghostmaker, and Necropolis. Since it took me so long to read, I don't feel bad reviewing each novel one by one. Suck on it, libs!

First and Only: According to the introduction, at one point this was the best-selling book published by Black Library. I get the sense this book came out quite early in the Black Library's run. It's entertaining enough, but it's marred by some weird issues - The Guard is all male, Chaos Space Marines are killed with single shots from a Guardsman's laser rifle (!!), and there's a deformed psyker commissar (!!!!) who "atomizes" an entire city when he dies (?!)
There's also just weird careless details: Gaunt's bolt pistol becomes a laspistol becomes a lasgun becomes a boltgun. On top of that, some of the writing is, put charitably, clumsy (a character's reaction when he realizes he's just been decapitated: "Only when his headless body fell onto the deck next to him he realized that... his head... cut... bastard... no.")
So with all that, is this book worth reading? Well, it's not bad, but the above mentioned issues make it rather difficult to recommend. I'd probably only suggest this book if you either love military-style novels (which this is at heart), or are looking for a friendly introduction to the 40k universe. Otherwise, it's perfectly serviceable, but I can't really recommend going too far out of your way to track it down.

Grade: B-

Ghostmaker: This is a short story collection that meanders around giving different Ghosts some time in the spotlight. I applaud the idea - up until now they've basically been cardboard cut-outs whose personality is no more fleshed out than "medic", "scout", "heavy weapons guy". In fact, the Ghosts themselves have less personality than the Team Fortress 2 characters who are literally named Medic, Scout, and Heavy Weapons Guy. So giving them some personality is a very welcome idea, but the actual execution unfortunately sinks the entire enterprise. What do we learn from a spotlight on Mkoll, the silently-moving scout? Turns out he's a scout, and that he can move silently. The author seems either unwilling or unable to flesh out characters  If they're good, they're tough, blue-collar, gritty heroes, and if they're bad, they're either deformed chaos monsters or blue-blooded elitists sipping coffee while our heroic, blue-collar, gritty heroes get the job done. Maybe I've been spoiled by other w40k novels. I'm bumping the grade up because I appreciate Abnett's efforts to imbue the Ghosts with a personality, but it's a cringing failure, and I only got like an eighth of the way through it.

Grade: D+

Necropolis: I was hoping that these novels would improve with time as Abnett became more familiar and comfortable with the setting he's working in, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case. Although the writing isn't as clumsy in this book, it's still full of distracting, careless errors. On page 669, a character is Trygg in the first paragraph and Trugg in the second. A character is hit by a lasrifle shot and bleeds out in a matter of minutes, even though the author has pointed out numerous times that lasrifle wounds are self-cauterized because of the weapon's heat. At the book's climax, Gaunt himself is shot by a bolt in the heart, but lives because he's wearing a steel rose on his shirt. This is dumb and cheesy enough as it is, but is nonsensical because a "bolt" is basically a rocket-propelled explosive. This is like surviving a hit from a RPG because you have a steel plate in your chest pocket; Gaunt would either be a mess on the floor or have had his steel rose punched straight through his body, but then I guess there couldn't be any sequels. Oh, and people also use "gak" as a swear word, and all I could think of was Nickelodeon Gak.
In short, this is not a good book. Some of the military action is exciting, but combined with Abnett's carelessness, lame characters  and annoying habit of cutting away from the actual important parts of the book to follow needless sideplots that don't go anywhere, this is a slog far more often than it is an engaging story.

Grade: C-

So in sum, I can't really recommend this at all. Even if you're looking to dip your toe in 40k, I'd suggest the much better Caiphas Cain omnibuses, which not only actually get the details right, but are actually, you know, enjoyable to read.

Grade: D-

"Iron Curtain"

Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944 - 1956 (Anne Applebaum)

I've seen this book described as "formidable", and I think that's quite apt. This is not just because of the size, although it does weigh in at 470 big face-crushing pages - (without biblography!), but also because of the subject matter. Split up into two sections ("False Dawn" from the end of World War II to about 1948 and "High Stalinism" from then until 1956), you can probably guess what it's about. I normally prefer straight narrative history, but Applebaum's approach here is to split the changing society up into themes, which are explored by looking primarily at the examples of East Germany, Poland, and Hungary. It's a testament to Applebaum's writing that working under the dual handicaps of a style I don't care for and the exceedingly grim material she has produced a very readable book. I know that sounds like faint praise, but it's no easy task making a book about, well, the crushing of Eastern Europe into both an informative and enjoyable reading experience. That being said, even Applebaum can only do so much to make an entire book about this kind of thing from being too depressing, and I recommend taking occasional breaks to peruse something with a slightly lighter tone.

Grade: A