The Devils' Alliance: Hitler's Pact with Stalin, 1939 - 1941 (Roger Moorhouse)
Kind of the European version of Japan 1941. As you can guess from the title, this book covers the strange period of time where Nazi Germany and Stalin's USSR were allies, starting just before the pact was signed and ending with the German sneak attack in June 1941. This is obviously a pretty depressing book, but as a look at a often-ignored period of time, it's fascinating; I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at how cynical Hitler and Stalin both were given that they both agreed to the titular devil's alliance, but here we are. My only caveat is that this is something of a niche title. I found the book very interesting, but a 432-page history of two years about World War II where World War II isn't happening between the subjects is kind of a hard sell. That said, this is probably an excellent appetizer to read before a solid history of the European front in WW2.
Grade: B+
Monday, March 30, 2015
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
"A History of Britian in 36 Postage Stamps"
A History of Britain in 36 Postage Stamps (Chris West)
This was an interesting book to read; I know basically nothing about postage stamps, and not a great deal about the period of British history covered (1840 - the modern day). I enjoyed reading it, but the history is very basic, and it mostly just left me wanting more. I can easily recommend this for school kids, history novices, and people with an interest in postage stamps; otherwise I'd probably give it a miss.
Grade: B-
This was an interesting book to read; I know basically nothing about postage stamps, and not a great deal about the period of British history covered (1840 - the modern day). I enjoyed reading it, but the history is very basic, and it mostly just left me wanting more. I can easily recommend this for school kids, history novices, and people with an interest in postage stamps; otherwise I'd probably give it a miss.
Grade: B-
Friday, March 20, 2015
"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
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
Friday, February 20, 2015
"Vengeful Spirit"
Vengeful Spirit (Graham McNeill)
I'm scared to start a Graham NcNeill book now; when he's good he's great, and when he's bad, he's infuriating. I'll cut to the chase here: Good McNeill showed up for this book, and the biggest flaw has nothing to do with his writing; it's the fact that we're deep in the Hersey now, but the story's possibilities are still limited by knowing the ending. The reader knows there's no way that Horus is going to die during the course of this book, neither is the titular Vengeful Spirit going to be destroyed.
That being said, McNeill mostly works around this by drawing on the now well established setting of the Horus Hersey (over 30 novels!) - to the point where even giving a basic sketch of the book's story risks running into spoiler territory, as a pivotal character thought dead returns in first few pages. The tradeoff here is that McNeill is able to sidestep the majority of the predetermined ending problem, but in turn the book is almost totally inaccessible if you haven't been reading the Heresy up to this point.
In short, if you've read enough of the series that you'll catch the book's references, it's an easy recommend; otherwise, take a pass.
Grade: B
I'm scared to start a Graham NcNeill book now; when he's good he's great, and when he's bad, he's infuriating. I'll cut to the chase here: Good McNeill showed up for this book, and the biggest flaw has nothing to do with his writing; it's the fact that we're deep in the Hersey now, but the story's possibilities are still limited by knowing the ending. The reader knows there's no way that Horus is going to die during the course of this book, neither is the titular Vengeful Spirit going to be destroyed.
That being said, McNeill mostly works around this by drawing on the now well established setting of the Horus Hersey (over 30 novels!) - to the point where even giving a basic sketch of the book's story risks running into spoiler territory, as a pivotal character thought dead returns in first few pages. The tradeoff here is that McNeill is able to sidestep the majority of the predetermined ending problem, but in turn the book is almost totally inaccessible if you haven't been reading the Heresy up to this point.
In short, if you've read enough of the series that you'll catch the book's references, it's an easy recommend; otherwise, take a pass.
Grade: B
Sunday, February 15, 2015
"Elizabeth"
Elizabeth: England's Slandered Queen (Arlene Okerlund)
I didn't really enjoy this book; mostly it made me want to re-read Allison Weir's the Wars of the Roses, a historical event that takes up about half of this book, and quite honestly the more interesting half. The parts that are actually about Elizabeth are ultimately doomed by the author stopping quite frequently to defend Elizabeth's reputation; While these parts do sound convincing to me, I had barely heard of Elizabeth before reading this book, and the author introducing arguments against Elizabeth to then refute them started turning into a real drag. I appriciate the author's attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of "England's Slandered Queen", but I'm afraid it doesn't make for terribly interesting reading, and I'd probably recommend steering clear of this one.
Grade: C
I didn't really enjoy this book; mostly it made me want to re-read Allison Weir's the Wars of the Roses, a historical event that takes up about half of this book, and quite honestly the more interesting half. The parts that are actually about Elizabeth are ultimately doomed by the author stopping quite frequently to defend Elizabeth's reputation; While these parts do sound convincing to me, I had barely heard of Elizabeth before reading this book, and the author introducing arguments against Elizabeth to then refute them started turning into a real drag. I appriciate the author's attempt to rehabilitate the reputation of "England's Slandered Queen", but I'm afraid it doesn't make for terribly interesting reading, and I'd probably recommend steering clear of this one.
Grade: C
Friday, January 30, 2015
"City of Ambition"
City of Ambition: FDR, La Guardia, and the Making of Modern New York (Mason B. Williams)
I feel bad giving this book a negative review, but I found that my attention kept drifting while reading it. It's a little difficulty for me to put why that was into words, but it seems to boil down to the book's main theme getting quite muddled. The opening material, sketches of FDR and La Guardia, is pretty interesting, and I enjoyed the book during this part, but when the author starts running through a detailed history of the politics of New York state in the interwar years, it's just not very gripping. I would suggest the author either needs to take a higher level overview of this material or dive in even deeper and really fill out the history; as it is, the level of detail has the reader see a lot of characters come and go without making much of an impact, and it turns into kind of a muddle. It also stirs the dreaded "Why am I reading this" feeling - I can't help but feel that a lot of the pages in the book could be condensed down to "La Guardia was in the political wilderness for a few years" without following the fruitless narrative thread about what the ultimately meaningless mayors and governors of New York were doing at the time.
For all that, though, I don't think this is really a bad book - it's just one I didn't personally enjoy. It's a bit tough to recommend; if your local library has it, I'd try the first hundred pages (I made it to 125).
Grade: :/
I feel bad giving this book a negative review, but I found that my attention kept drifting while reading it. It's a little difficulty for me to put why that was into words, but it seems to boil down to the book's main theme getting quite muddled. The opening material, sketches of FDR and La Guardia, is pretty interesting, and I enjoyed the book during this part, but when the author starts running through a detailed history of the politics of New York state in the interwar years, it's just not very gripping. I would suggest the author either needs to take a higher level overview of this material or dive in even deeper and really fill out the history; as it is, the level of detail has the reader see a lot of characters come and go without making much of an impact, and it turns into kind of a muddle. It also stirs the dreaded "Why am I reading this" feeling - I can't help but feel that a lot of the pages in the book could be condensed down to "La Guardia was in the political wilderness for a few years" without following the fruitless narrative thread about what the ultimately meaningless mayors and governors of New York were doing at the time.
For all that, though, I don't think this is really a bad book - it's just one I didn't personally enjoy. It's a bit tough to recommend; if your local library has it, I'd try the first hundred pages (I made it to 125).
Grade: :/
Sunday, January 25, 2015
"Glass House 51"
Glass House 51 (John Hampel)
I don't really know what to make of this book; it kind of reads like a boring fever dream, if such a thing is even possible. I'll freely admit I didn't make it very far, giving up after the author introduced 15 characters in 10 pages over the span of a confusing, painful exposition dump about a company called AlphaBanc that's getting ready to become the world's most powerful E-bank, but this serial killer nerd called the Gnome and I'm sorry, I seem to have slam-dunked this book into the donation pile and picked up something else to read. Might be worth seeking out if you want to read something bonkers, but not for me, I'm afraid.
Grade: D-
I don't really know what to make of this book; it kind of reads like a boring fever dream, if such a thing is even possible. I'll freely admit I didn't make it very far, giving up after the author introduced 15 characters in 10 pages over the span of a confusing, painful exposition dump about a company called AlphaBanc that's getting ready to become the world's most powerful E-bank, but this serial killer nerd called the Gnome and I'm sorry, I seem to have slam-dunked this book into the donation pile and picked up something else to read. Might be worth seeking out if you want to read something bonkers, but not for me, I'm afraid.
Grade: D-
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