The Wolves of Midwinter (The Wolf Gift Chronicles)

The Wolves of Midwinter is the second book in The Wolf Gift Chronicles by Anne Rice.

After my enthusiasm for The Wolf Gift, I jumped straight into The Wolves of Midwinter, then kind-of got distracted and took about 3 months to finish it. The long breaks during reading this book made it feel more disjointed than it probably would have done if I had read it in a shorter time frame. The book was divided into several distinct story lines, which in some ways made it easier to take breaks. With the exception of a few scenes of werewolf-on-werewolf love action, which I could have lived without, it was a pretty cool book.

I’m looking forward to the next one!

Cheers

Tim…

The Wolf Gift

The Wolf Gift is the first in The Wolf Gift Chronicles by Anne Rice.

Followers of the blog will know that I made a conscious attempt to get into reading a few years ago, having made it to my late 30’s (at the time) having only read a handful of books in my life. Having made the decision to begin reading, the first series of books I chose were The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice. I loved The Vampire Chronicles. I loved New Tales of the Vampires. I loved Lives of the Mayfair Witches. I couldn’t face any of the religious or romance novels by Anne Rice, so once I had finished these three series, I thought that was the end of the line for me.

Fast forward a few years and Anne Rice has returned to her roots and started a new series called The Wolf Gift Chronicles, which is not surprisingly about Werewolves. For me, this is like coming home. I like the way Anne Rice writes. I find it very easy to read and typically the pace of her stories suites me perfectly. The Wolf Gift is no exception.

If you’ve been suffering from Anne Rice withdrawal symptoms, you really need to read The Wolf Gift. I don’t think you will be disappointed.

Cheers

Tim…

 

Untogether Lives

A little over a year ago, I wrote a review of a book called Girl 99 by Andrew P. Jones. I got an email from the author a few days ago to say his latest book, Untogether Lives, was released on Kindle, so I downloaded it straight away. Here’s what it’s all about.

Untogether Lives is a collection of fourteen stories that peek through the curtains of an eclectic cast, struggling to keep mind, body and the world around them together. From an amputee shoe thief, to an unlikely arsonist, to a sexually frustrated quadriplegic.

Predominantly dark and occasionally disturbing, these stories are not for the faint-hearted, but neither are they without humour. Not everyone in Untogether Lives gets a happy ending, and not everyone survives – but, hey, that’s life for you.

I loved it! It seems strange saying that when the subject matter is so dark, but it’s true. The writing style works really well for me. The content is very different to what I normally read, but it was good being taken out of my comfort zone. What really amazes me is the amount of connection I felt to some of the characters, even in the shorter stories. Despite the darkness, there is humour in there too. This book is definitely not for the sensitive souls out there, but I think it is a great collection of stories. I’m looking forward to the next book from the author!

Cheers

Tim…

The Rise of Endymion

The Rise of Endymion is the fourth book in the Hyperion Cantos series by Dan Simmons.

The Hyperion Cantos is essentially two stories. The first one split over the first two books and the second split over books three and four. The two stories are separated by about 300 years, but there are some links and even common characters. Throughout the books the characters and scenarios were consistently interesting, but the books themselves were not always so consistently good to read. The Rise of Endymion is a good example of that. There are some totally excellent sections of the book and some that could just do with being cut completely. There was a section describing the mountain ranges of a planet and I just found myself thinking, “WTF is the author expecting readers to think here? It’s a string of made up names for mountains that don’t exist. What a waste of words…”

Despite the issues, I was extremely interested to see how things turned out. Who lived, who died, did the Pax/Church get exposed and overthrown… In that sense, the book delivered very well.

On reflection, the series reminds me a lot of the Dune series. A combination of exceptional high points and some rather lacklustre sections that test your loyalty. 🙂 Both series are well worth the effort though…

Cheers

Tim…

Endymion

Endymion is the third book in the Hyperion Cantos series by Dan Simmons.

After finding the last book a little patchy at times, this one returned to the same sort of pacing and thrust that made me love the first book. This story picks up nearly 300 years after the last one ends. The daughter of one of the characters from the previous book entered one of the time tombs and appeared in Hyperion 274 years later. Since then things have changed throughout the former web worlds and the church has a vested interest in keeping things the way they are. The last thing they need is a little girl, with the power to topple their stronghold on the galaxy, messing things up for them.

The timeline does jump around a little and there are always a couple of stories happening at the same time, but it is a lot more direct and easier to follow than the last book. I think this was helped by the fact I was able to read is in relatively few sittings. OK, they were spread over the best part of a month, but at least each time I picked it up I got through quite a few pages.

I’m really looking forward to the last book in the series. Fingers crossed it ends strongly…

Cheers

Tim…

The Fall of Hyperion

The Fall of Hyperion is the second book in the Hyperion Cantos series by Dan Simmons.

I’m not really sure what to say about The Fall of Hyperion. On the one hand, I was very interested to see what happened to the characters from the previous book. On the other hand, this book was much less focussed and quite disjointed at times. It didn’t help that it took me a long time to get through it, reading it in small snippets, rather than a few long sittings.

Despite my minor misgivings, I’ve already started the next book in the series and I’m keen to see how this plays out.

Cheers

Tim…

PS. I’ve just checked the dates between this post and the one from the proceeding book. It took about 2 months to get through it. I’m sure that has a big factor on my perception of it.

Hyperion (Dan Simmons)…

Hyperion is the first in the Hyperion Cantos series by Dan Simmons.

What a great Sci-Fi book! A group of seven travellers are on a pilgrimage to Hyperion. Six of the seven tell the stories of how they came to be there, with the sixth story kind-of linking things together. There is no real conclusion to the story as the next book carries on the story from the point the first one ends. It was definitely written as a series!

The timeline jumps around quite a bit through the book, but in a good way. It’s not done in a confusing way.

Definitely worth a look for any Sci-Fi readers out there.

Cheers

Tim…

PS. I put the authors name in the title, for fear of confusing people into thinking this was about work. 🙂

Chapterhouse: Dune

Chapterhouse Dune is the last in the Dune series by Frank Herbert.

It’s really hard for me to make a judgement about Chapterhouse: Dune. On the one hand there are some excellent characters and the general story line is great. On the other, there are parts I found really boring. I got a bit sick of the teasers without any explanation. At first is was intriguing, but as they continued I just got a bit fed up with them and decided to stop second guessing the outcome and just let it happen. I think there are two ways an author can play this game:

1) Make the outcome fairly obvious from the start, but make the journey to get there exciting. Kind of like The Dresden Files.
2) Make the outcome a mystery, but subtly lead you in the right direction.

I think this book is trying to do the latter, but is quite clumsy about it. Having said all that, I’m glad I read it. The overall outcome is more than satisfactory.

I’m not going to read the books by Frank Herbert’s son. I’ve been told they are not good, and the brief snippets I’ve read seem to reinforce that.

I guess the end of a series of books like this needs a bit of a summary. I think the first book is a total classic. The rest you can take or leave. There are definitely interesting elements to all of them, but they are not nearly as accomplished as the first.

Cheers

Tim…

Prize Winners : Oracle E-Business Suite R12 Integration and OA Framework Development and Extension Cookbook

A couple of weeks ago I started a competition to win 2 copies of Oracle E-Business Suite R12 Integration and OA Framework Development and Extension Cookbook by Andy Penver. Thanks to Packt for donating the prizes. The competition closed yesterday and the lucky winners are:

  • Arun
  • Ajay Sharma

I’ve sent your email addresses to my contact at Packt, who will contact you to deliver your e-book.

Cheers

Tim…

Win A Free Copy of Packt’s Managing Multimedia and Unstructured Data in the Oracle Database e-book

I recently did the technical review of some of the chapters in a new Packt book called Managing Multimedia and Unstructured Data in the Oracle Database by Marcelle Kratochvil. I’ve known Marcelle for years and although we don’t always see eye-to-eye on DBA matters, she is definitely the first person I speak to about matters concerning multimedia and Oracle databases. A number of people “talk the talk”, but Marcelle is one of the few people that can actually “walk the walk” on this subject!

If you are interested in getting a free e-copy of this book, Packt Publishing are organizing a give away. All you need to do is leave a comment on this post telling me why you think you deserve a copy and what you hope to achieve after reading it. In 2 weeks (approximately 26-April-2013) I’ll read and judge the responses and make sure an e-copy of the book gets to the 4 lucky winners. I’ll be contacting the winners by email, so you will have to use your real email address when you comment! 🙂

I’m not going to reveal my judging criteria, and I’ll probably ask Marcelle to help me decide, so try and be a little creative in your answers. 🙂 Just asking for a copy is not going to make you a winner. 🙂

Let the games begin…

Cheers

Tim…

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