Tuesday 30 April 2019

Review: The Prodigal God

The Prodigal God The Prodigal God by Timothy J. Keller
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

To my shame, I've never really thought about the elder brother in the story of the prodigal son. I've thought about the younger son and, of course the father. But the older brother I've kind of ignored. If pushed, I think I would have said that the older brother, swayed by his father's argument, would probably have gone in and joined the party. I clearly wasn't paying attention to who it was Jesus was talking to!

The book is interesting and was worth reading but I got the point after the first chapter.

View all my reviews

Monday 29 April 2019

Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I think this is the book where J. K. Rowling lost the plot: literally and figuratively.

The book is way too long but either she was working to a deadline and felt she had to get it out there anyway even though it hadn't been edited down to a reasonable length or the Harry Potter hype machine had taken over and nobody felt they could tell her to cut out half the stuff in the book. For example, the whole Rita Skeeter thing appears to be a largely irrelevant rant from J.K. against tabloid journalism.

I'm still sticking with the series though because, despite my concerns, I am (essentially) enjoying the ride. What follows therefore should be taken as the rants and ramblings of a grumpy old man.

Extreme grumpiness alert
Harry and Ron were particularly annoying in this book and the resolution to their tiff was too trite.

Why were the school Quidditch matches cancelled? They only play three matches a year and the Triwizard thing (in theory) only involved one person from Hogwarts.

Mrs Weasley would not have believed Rita Skeeter's character assassination of Hermione.

Grumpy and spoiler-tastic alert
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
How useless is the Triwizard tournament as a spectator event? Apart from the first task, where there is an opportunity to see a child being eaten by a dragon, the audience are not able to see anything that happens during the tasks. Muggle sports have underwater cameras, night vision cameras and cameras on drones that can follow the action as well as large screens in the stadium so the audience can see what's going on. Wizard events have some old duffer that can make his voice loud who presumably says things like, "And the contestants are still under water. I wonder what's happening?".

View all my reviews

Sunday 28 April 2019

Review: Runaways Volume 1: Pride & Joy

Runaways Volume 1: Pride & Joy Runaways Volume 1: Pride & Joy by Brian K. Vaughan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Started off well ...at least, the introduction was good. I enjoyed it less and less though as it went along. Didn't particularly like the style of the artwork but I could have forgiven that if the story had kept me more engaged.

Some nice ideas (this time, the teens have good reason to hate their parents) but there were many things that were handled poorly. For example: the repeated, and unchallenged, use of "gay" as an insult; the use of what I assume is supposed to be teen-speak like "'rents" for "parents"; and the flip-flopping of Chase between dumb jock and the quick-thinking go-to guy who gets the team out of trouble. I think what annoyed me most though was the criminally underused genetically engineered dinosaur. To add insult to injury, I picked up five volumes and every one of them fell apart as I read it.

I'll mark the next section as containing spoilers since what follows are some comments on all five volumes and I'm not going to be particularly careful about what I say!

***SPOILER ALERT***
***Stop reading now to avoid spoilers***
*
*
*
*
*
As villains, the Gibborim were rubbish! Their motivation for setting up an earthly paradise is less then clear. Their choice of murdering criminals to populate this paradise is questionable. The decision to only let half of them progress to this "paradise" is bizarre. And they were stupidly easy to kill in an all too short showdown against the Runaways. (Assuming they are indeed dead - this is a comic book after all.)

Alex Wilder as group traitor? Why? I didn't buy it. And I especially thought that the secret messages to the Pride saying there was a traitor but not revealing himself were stupid. I didn't like this at all.

And am I the only one who finds the idea of a teenager using self-harm as a means of unleashing her powers, disturbing? More than disturbing. Deeply distasteful.


View all my reviews

Monday 22 April 2019

Review: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was kind of disappointed with this book. Most of the pictures are indeed peculiar but the writing doesn't rise to the weirdness of the photographs. The opening is promising but it kind of tails off fairly quickly thereafter. And the twists that (I think) were supposed to surprise... didn't. (I felt I had to add "I think" to the last sentence. That should tell you a lot about this book!)

By the end of the book, too much was left unresolved. It felt like it was setting up the next book rather than finishing this one. I won't be seeking out the rest of the series.

View all my reviews

Friday 5 April 2019

Review: Clockwork Angels: The Graphic Novel

Clockwork Angels: The Graphic Novel Clockwork Angels: The Graphic Novel by Kevin J. Anderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this.

I read the novel it is based on about six years ago. At the time, I described the book as being, "...not without merit" - practically the definition of praising with faint damns! I find myself similarly ambivalent about the graphic novel version.

I didn't particularly like the artwork; I found it too arty. I read one of the chapters as a digital comic when it first came out and it looked OK on the iPad where I could enlarge each panel to fill the screen. In printed form, however, I found the artwork cramped and fussy. I think it needs the space to breath. The story as been edited somewhat to make it fit the graphic novel format but, at times, it felt a bit too heavily edited and I suspect that if I hadn't known the story from the novel, I would have struggled to follow the flow at times.

Having said that, I think the comic format suited the episodic nature of the story. Also, the intrusive Rush references that so annoyed me in the novel didn't bother me so much here. The preface suggested that more Rush references had been added into the art but I didn't really notice them on first reading, so they are clearly placed with more subtlety than the sledgehammer and crowbar method that was used to insert lyrical references into the novel version.

More of a three and a half than a four star review but, overall, I liked the graphic novel better than the book.

View all my reviews

Featured post

Currently Reading...

There is a widget in the sidebar that gives a link to what I am currently reading. This post has the same widget embedded and will be automa...

Popular Posts