What has always drawn me to the Laguna Beach series is the ability the characters have to reinvent themselves as they triumph over personal and professional tragedy. Not everything in the world of fame is beautiful. Beyond the shine there lies hints of pain and ugliness. Ms. Phipps lived up to the legacy of Kaira Rouda with Hidden in Laguna. Braden and Tania are finding their way beyond the lights and building a bond based on strength of character and trust in themselves and each other. To face fears and move forward, that's a powerful message and it permeates throughout Hidden in Laguna's pages. Courage lies in every nook and cranny of Tania and Braden's journey.

Un Lun Dun
by China Mieville

 

"London through the looking glass" is a very good way to describe this book, I think.  But I'd also tack on a caveat:  "London through the looking glass, told in history text format."  Because Un Lun Dun, in theory, sounds like it would have been an exciting adventure of a child-hero saving a world from a malicious Smog-monster.  Along the way, she encounters allies and enemies alike, and fights to fulfill the prophesied battle against the main villain.  She learns about the gloriously strange world of UnLondon and how all the things that make up UnLondon come to be.

But the narration is full of awkward transitions, and almost deliberate introductions to one more strange thing of UnLondon.  Like I said, it kind of reads like a history text that follows Deeba, the Unchosen One, as she journeys to save a world she's come to love after one short trip.  Or maybe it kind of reads like a gaming guide, where each and every weird new experience, thing, or group of people is awkwardly defined to our hero by an NPC (non-player character, in game-speak), so that we, as the readers, know what's going on.

Because, boy does this book have a LOT of strange new vocabulary!  It almost got to a point where I just stopped trying to read 'unbrella' with the 'n', and just glossed over it as 'umbrella' and mentally tagging the definition of it on.  Otherwise, all of these strange words just made the book kind of difficult to read smoothly.

Because then you've got these little gems:

Which both adds onto the interesting world of UnLondon, as well as makes me stumble over my reading trying to figure out how I'm supposed to pronounce that without a glossary.

Anyway, as I had said, Un Lun Dun has all the potential to be an exciting adventure.  It even defies traditional fantasy tropes and stars Deeba, the friend of the Chosen One, successfully putting Zanna, the Chosen One, on hiatus for the majority of the book.  Things don't just go wrong for the prophecy and the Propheseers, but they go extremely, terribly wrong.  And it's up to Deeba to either accomplish what Zanna should have been the one to do... or do things her own way.

Really, if I were about a decade younger, I probably would have found myself immensely enjoying Un Lun Dun for the fact that the sidekick is the one who saves the day.  But there were a lot of little things about Deeba that frustrated me, even as I continued to feel quite impressed by the turn of events that the book takes, because nothing happens the way you would ever expect most fantasies with Chosen Ones to happen.

But I'm not really complaining all that much.  The entirety of the Un Lun Dun world is extremely creative.  In fact, it DID remind me of a video game world--and those are usually fun, even if not the best.  The characters were interesting, the adventure was exciting, and there really wasn't anything wrong with the imagination of UnLondon.

It just wasn't really my thing, I suppose.


***

2016 Reading Challenges:
• Goodreads Reading Challenge
• BookLikes Reading Challenge
• Reading Assignment Challenge
• Mount TBR Challenge
• 2016 Halloween Bingo

 

 

It took me a year to finish this book! Disturbing, long, but undeniably imaginative this is my least favourite of Barker's books I've read to date. I enjoyed aspects of this story, the plot is such that's impossible to summarize, I did try but it was getting so long I gave up. I'm still not sure what exactly happened, but it had it's moments and it's yet another of Barker's book's where the extra-ordinary is just under the surface of everyday life, but he's done it better.

Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever. – Horace Mann

There can be no failure to a man who has not lost his courage, his character, his self-respect, or his self-confidence. He is still a King. – Orison Swett Marden

Jason Summer is what many of us want to be. A highly successful fantasy author. In his ‘position’ as “Undersecretary to Leetah, The Mage of the Rose”, Jason and his partner, Sonja Leto, enjoy a wonderful life together. Jason’s great love for Sonja inspires his work, and his life, allowing him to create a world of great beauty and creativity. A land of magic and beauty, life and death, magic and mystery. A land where Leetah, the Mage of the Rose, is right now in deep trouble. “She’s almost out of spells, down to a handful of loyal men, and the bad guys are closing in.”

Well, he can certainly write her out of her tight corner. But there is weirdness aplenty in the ‘real’ world. Jason’s brother Corey is acting very strangely. Of course, he has always despised Sonja for some reason beyond Jason’s comprehension. And of course Sonja hates him as well. But there are other things going on – such as mysterious e-mails addressed to Leetah, Mage of the Rose, from Muriel of the Melusines. Oddly phrased, archaic, her emails speak of magic, of invasions and magical flight. Flight which took her brother Zander, from her. Muriel needs Leetah’s help, desperately. Which is really strange, because magic doesn’t really work in this world, Muriel. How about you lay off the video games, Muriel?

Only, maybe Muriel isn’t as whacked as Jason and Sonja initially think. For something strange is certainly going on. And when Jason and Sonja actually end up on Muriel’s world, things go sideways. Saving Zander may get them back to their world – but there are, once again, deeper layers, larger stories, greater worlds. And what Jason finds out in this new, magical world will change not only his beliefs about reality, but will shake the very foundations of his soul.

Michael Angel is, without a doubt, one of my favorite authors. His character development when it comes to his mythical creatures truly pulls you into their lives, thoughts and hearts. His world building carries me into his realities, and his grasp of the human condition is alternately uplifting and heartbreaking.

I have written reviews of several of Michael’s other books, and this one is just as good, and in at least one way even better, than the other books I have reviewed. The heartbreak is heavy in this one – but the joy? The joy simply blew me away.

Enjoy!

I received this book from Michael as a gift. All thoughts are my own. Warrior Woman art by http://hb-design.blogspot.com/2010_11_01_archive.html

The Hidden Worlds - Kristin Landon 3 stars means "I Liked it":

MINOR SPOILERS

This book is well written but the major issue I take with it is the management of expectations. Writing is nicely done. But the tone of the story is sort of disorienting and if you're walking into this book expecting light and fluffy space romance DO NOT EVEN BOTHER. And now that I've perused some other reviews of this book I see that I did not suffer alone in my expectations about what kind of book I was getting into. As I commented while reading this- the cover art- the female model alone looks more Mass Effect/Shepard-ish vs the peasant village girl Linnea is. Repeatedly there are descriptions of how coarse her clothing is and how self conscious she feels vs the Pilot Masters she is surrounded by on Nexus. I know that often a book cover is misleading- sometimes fans will pitch a fit because the cover model has the wrong kind of hair, or the models are wearing clothing that doesn't work with the story or something but trust me, this cover does this story NO justice. It's a disservice to the work unfortunately.

I felt disoriented during this entire read because my expectations were not in line with what happened in the story at all. This is a grim dystopia. Sure there are planets within the "Hidden Worlds" that are living the high life, they have plenty of commerce, population and a hearty contract with the ruling Pilot Masters (that determine where wealth happens anyway). But when anyone can expect their planet to die a horrible zombie grey goo death without any protection or prevention it's a harsh world is it not? When your two main characters, the heroine and the hero are struggling through torture, rapes, absolute and complete subjugation, seriously authoritative governments and familial arrangements- it is even surprising that this book provides an HFN. I was amazed at that! I had a tough time finishing, I have a tough time when the protagonist is suffering and suffering and suffering and I do not see the possible light at the end of the tunnel. I feel like screaming to the author GIVE THEM A BREAK FFS!

I want to give this a higher rating because the writing has some truly beautiful moments but overall I have a hard time liking and enjoying an absolutely oppressive depressing book. I do. This is just part of my enjoyment when I read- I don't want to walk away depressed. I can handle violence, serious topics, wars, but there are different ways to handle tone, consequence and the readers ability to hope. I think so at least. I can say that within this universe, The Hidden Worlds universe, everything pretty much makes sense according to its internal logic and proceeds as it would and should given the circumstances. That doesn't make it anymore fun for me to read though :.

Bottom Line:
Some beautiful writing, I enjoyed that, far too dystopian and dark for me and it barely eked out an HFN. The cover should not look like pulpy fiction space opera action funz because it simply aint.