fantasy

Audiobook Review: The Hobbit

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The Hobbit
by J.R.R. Tolkien
Read by Andy Serkis

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Classic fantasy

I read The Hobbit for the first time 2 1/2 years ago and reviewed it then. I have not listened to the audiobook narrated by Rob Inglis, but I did listen to his narration of the LotR books. As I prepared to go through the series a 2nd time, I decided to try out Andy Serkis’s version, and I am so glad I did!

There are a couple of points that I want to make. It’s no surprise that Andy Serkis does a great job with the different voices for different characters. Though I’ve only seen the movies based on this book a small handful of times, it seemed to me that some of his characters sounded similar to how they did in those movies. It may have been a coincidence (excepting, of course, for his portrayal of Gollum, which is just how you would expect), but Thorin sure did sound like Richard Armitage. Considering that this audiobook came out several years after the movies, I did go into it wondering how much from the movies might seep into it, and since my favorite thing about the movies (which were otherwise just kinda okay, to me) is the music, I was thrilled to hear a few familiar melodies in Serkis’s narration.

I know Inglis’s version has long been a classic narration for some, and I don’t feel qualified to compare them, but I will say that Andy Serkis has done this book justice. It’s well worth listening to, whether you’re an old fan of Tolkein or a newcomer (or somewhere in between).

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Book Review: Runaway Ralph

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Runaway Ralph
Ralph S. Mouse #2
by Beverly Cleary
Read by B.D. Wong

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Children’s classic, fantasy

I didn’t enjoy this book quite as much as the first, I think because Ralph starts with the motorcycle and spends the first little bit of the book just trying to keep it from his family. Then he begins to yearn for freedom, so he doesn’t have to share his motorcycle. I mean…I get it, kinda, but mostly I just feel like he’s being selfish and spoiled. Granted, he has dozens of siblings and cousins and would easily spend all night giving them rides and not have time to ride it himself, and it’s clear that his mom and uncle, who forced this on him, don’t get him at all. But I still didn’t care for his attitude.

It was interesting to watch poor Garf, a kid who isn’t happy with his circumstances either and acts out in different ways, from Ralph’s perspective. I liked how the camp leader lady is portrayed—that she clearly cared about Garf and trying to help him come out of his shell and not hate being at camp so much. It’s a nice change from kids’ books where adults are so often terrible people at worst or apathetic at best. Overall, not as charming as the first, but not bad.

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Book Review: Death Masks

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Death Masks
The Dresden Files #5
by Jim Butcher
read by James Marsters

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Paranormal mystery

Professional wizard Harry Dresden is still dealing with the backlash of his crimes against the Red Court and now has to try to track down the missing Shroud of Turin.

I’ll be honest—I never really cared about Harry’s relationship with Susan. She was just kind of there, and suddenly they were a couple. Then she was gone, and he was devastated in a way I didn’t really understand, given what we’d seen of their relationship. So when she comes back in this book…I still don’t really care. Besides, the sex scene was far more graphic when I prefer, so it just made me all the more glad she’s not around more.

The rest of the book was sufficiently interesting. The duel hanging over Harry’s head while he tries to solve the mystery of the missing shroud makes it all the more intense, though of course we know he’s going to make it out okay somehow, since he’s the start of the series and by now we know several more have been written after this. So the outcome of the duel wasn’t a huge surprise, but I didn’t know how it would come about, and it all comes together pretty well. I was super excited in general to see Michael again in this book, though his wife, while I can understand how she feels, is starting to annoy me. I really hope that at some point, Butcher will include female characters for more than sex appeal (though Murphy is the exception to that), but so far, I plan to continue the series. If you’re interested in these books, I highly recommend the narration by James Marsters.

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Book Review: Summer Knight

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Summer Knight
The Dresden Files #4
by Jim Butcher
read by James Marsters

My rating: 4.5 / 5
Genre: Paranormal mystery

Professional wizard Harry Dresden is recruited by the Winter Queen of Faerie to solve a murder, which ends up having bigger consequences than he originally imagined.

This book had all of the good of the previous ones in the series with almost none of the not-so-good. The stakes are high, Harry seems stronger and less generally unlucky, and the side characters are interesting and different. I like the way Billy and the werewolves sort of act as disciples of Harry’s, but also come in really handy when he needs help. And the humor…it was one of the things that first interested me in this series, and it seemed doubled in this installment. I chuckled quite a few times, and there was one particular moment during the climax that I had to back up and hear again. It’s one moment that I can say for certain would not have been as funny if I’d read it, rather than listening to it. James Marsters is a great narrator, and that moment in particular was brilliant.

There was a lot less sexual content in this book than previous ones, which I appreciated, though it still seems like most of the women characters, large or small, are just there to be leered at in text. If you’re interested in the series, I highly recommend the narration by James Marsters.

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Book Review: The Last Battle

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The Last Battle
The Chronicles of Narnia #7 (original order)
by C.S. Lewis

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Children’s classic fantasy

From the creation of Narnia to the destruction of it. This book seems to be pretty polarizing, and it’s the same in my mind. I appreciate Lewis’s vision of the afterlife, eternity for the world he’s created and the characters in it. I’m a little uncertain about why everyone had to die at the same time to get there. But that’s Lewis’s choice to make. I also like Lewis’s view of God, shown through his writing of Aslan—His love, mercy, and righteousness. I noted that the dwarves that couldn’t see the beauty around them is a pretty clear representation of casting pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6). I don’t fully agree with all of the theology presented within the story, but since it’s allegorical, it’s difficult to say for sure what Lewis is saying with certain aspects.

This wraps up my first reading of this series. I wish I could say I liked some of the books more than I did, but others I really enjoyed. I am certain there’s more to get out of the books than I did, though, so I do plan to re-read the series someday.

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Book Review: The Mouse and the Motorcycle

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The Mouse and the Motorcycle
Ralph S. Mouse #1
by Beverly Cleary

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Children’s classic, fantasy

Ralph is full of adventure, and I am full of nostalgia for my younger days. I don’t actually remember if I read this book, but I definitely saw the ABC Weekend Special episode based on the book, probably a few times. This book is fun and exciting, and while it is full of things that modern kids wouldn’t necessarily understand, I think that just makes it all the more of a classic. It’s a great chance to explain about how things used to be, though this book even predates parents of the kids that are the right age for the story. It’s a book I wish I’d read to my kids when they were younger; they would have loved hearing me make the sounds of the motorcycle and ambulance and maybe even an attempted mouse voice. There’s nothing profound here, but it’s a fun adventure for kids.

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Book Review: Grave Peril

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Grave Peril
The Dresden Files #3
by Jim Butcher
read by James Marsters

My rating: 3.5 / 5
Genre: Paranormal mystery

Professional wizard Harry Dresden teams up with a knight named Michael to attempt to figure out what has the spirit world so worked up. But they may get more than they bargained for, and Harry stands to lose more than his life in the end.

My favorite thing about this book is definitely Harry and Michael—their friendship, how they work together, and how they contrast each other. Some really funny moments came out of their interactions. The mystery of the Nightmare is engaging, as is the introduction of Harry’s godmother, which is sort of just dropped in like we should have already known about it, Butcher’s signature way of world-building.

I did like this book more than the previous, though I still hope for some improvement as the series continues. The formula I was concerned about becoming part of the series after the first two books was all but shattered in this one, which is good. Though I can’t say I’m a big fan of the super long-battle scenes that seem to be part of every book. I found it strange that every vampire seems to purr when they talk—actually, not just the vampire, but all of the bad guys. Dresden seems to use that verb a bit too heavily.  And if you ask me, there was too much Susan and not enough Murphy in this book. I still wish there was less content of a sexual nature, but it wasn’t as bad in this book as it was in the previous. And I definitely recommend the narration by James Marsters.

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Book Review: Son

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Son
The Giver series #4
by Lois Lowry

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Children’s dystopian, fantasy

As a teenage Birthmother, Claire produces her first child of the three that are expected of her. But there are complications, and she is unceremoniously ejected from the job she’d been assigned. She begins to long for her son and will stop at nothing to find him again after he is taken from the community by Jonas, the recently appointed Receiver.

Well…what a strange, uncertain journey it has been through this series. In some ways, it seems like Son decently ties up the three books that come before it. In other ways, it seems like Lowry had no idea where she was going and took a rambling route to the end. I tend to assume that Lowry wrote The Giver without intending any follow-up. Then, considering how many years passed between each successive sequel that came out, I wonder if she had an ultimate plan in mind for this series, or if she just wrote each book as it came to her and tried to build on the previous. It would make more sense to me if the latter were true. Either way, though, I do appreciate being able to see more of the escapees from the first book. On the other hand, the existence of innate magical powers in quite a few people, in a series that started more as sci-fi than fantasy, is rather confusing.

I felt there were some weak areas in the book, even outside of the broader questions of simply what on earth is going on in this world. For example, I have a difficult time believing that Einar could really memorize so well the climb up the cliff that he had done only once, and an even more difficult time believing that the path up had not changed since the years before that Einar climbed it (plants should have grown, rocks might have crumbled, etc.). For that matter, since Claire’s reason for not leaving the seaside town by boat was her fear of the water, what was Einar’s? Why would he not just sail away, rather than attempt such a long, arduous, dangerous climb?

While I appreciate the storylines that Lowry does tie up in this book, I really wonder if we would have been better off left with The Giver as a standalone novel. On the other hand, many people like the series overall. It seems like the kind of thing you either love or hate. Though I’m personally in the middle somewhere, so maybe not. My final recommendation, though, is to read The Giver, if you haven’t already, and maybe just leave it at that, unless you’re really curious.

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Book Review: The Librarians and the Pot of Gold

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The Librarians and the Pot of Gold
The Librarians #3
by Greg Cox
read by Therese Plummer

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Fantasy adventure

The Librarians and their guardian are put on the trail of a member of the Serpent Brotherhood, who is trying to track down a pot of gold that went missing in Ireland in the 5th century, right about the time that St. Patrick banished all of the snakes from Ireland. Can they outwit a serpent, a banshee, and some leprechauns to save a life and solve a centuries-old mystery?

Let me start by saying again, as I did for the previous books in the series, that I love The Librarians. I think the show is better than it has any right to be, and a large part of that is due to the great casting. The movies were good as well, but I think the show really took the overall story world to a new level. I’m glad to be able to read these books, though I wish they were a little more clear about where they fit into the series. This one pretty clearly happens after the end of season 3, though beyond that, I can’t say for sure. And while the book does attempt to give some basic understanding of the overall setting and backstory of the Library and the Librarians, I think this book is best read by someone who has seen at least the TV show. Knowledge of the movies isn’t really necessary for this book.

Now to the story itself. I liked that the Librarians mostly worked together in this book; the way they play off each other is a big part of why the show is so good. I didn’t care for the first chunk of the book that dealt with the end of an ongoing case. While that kind of thing is common in an episodic format like this, it seemed to drag on way too long. I just wanted to get onto the main story. Something I noticed more in this book is that the characters aren’t coming through all that well. I think the reason I thought they were before was simply because I’d watched the show recently and could apply the recent memories of their personalities to the book. But the further I get from watching the show, the more I realize that, absent of knowledge of the show, the characters are fairly 2-dimensional. Add to that the way that the audiobook narrator tends to make everyone sound like they’re almost always scared or unhappy in some way, and it just wasn’t a very enjoyable read. In the end, the next time I go back through the Librarians movies and series, I’ll probably read through these books again along the way; however, I’ll most likely read them myself, instead of listening to the audiobooks. Though the books aren’t as good as the show overall, I do think that fans of the show who are sad it’s over might enjoy having the extra “episodes” from these books.

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Book Review: Fool Moon

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Fool Moon
The Dresden Files #2
by Jim Butcher
read by James Marsters

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Paranormal mystery

Harry Dresden is the only professional wizard available for hire in Chicago and is sometimes called on by the police to help solve crimes where magic is involved. So when a series of murders that happen around the full moon show other signs of involving werewolves, Harry is on the case. But will it prove to be too much for him to handle?

I was not as big a fan of this second book as I was the first in the series. I’ve read that the series gets better after you get into it (though how far into it varies widely), but while this one started off similarly enough to the first, it did not have as much of interest to me. It wasn’t so much a mystery as it was police procedural, and even after the case was basically solved, there was a lot of book left, which turned out to be mostly fighting. It doesn’t help that I usually find werewolves boring in any iteration. I did appreciate that there were various types of werewolves, but since I was listening to the audiobook and couldn’t easily go back to remind myself of which was which, it mostly confused me.

I’m finding some formula in the series that I really hope Butcher steers away from soon enough—like how Murphy keeps believing Dresden to be a bad guy (not that he helps the situation by not telling her the full truth, but she can’t manage to be understanding of how his hands are tied) or how Harry just gets beat up…so…much. Still, I enjoyed some humorous moments and lines, and there was a bit of a twist at the end involving one of the werewolves. Overall, the book just felt like it dragged on, but I’m still looking forward to continuing the series. I can’t pretend that I’d recommend this book in general, but it shouldn’t be enough to dissuade anyone from trying the series, especially if you’re a fan of mystery and detective noir novels, and enjoy or at least can tolerate the addition of supernatural elements (and the content warning below). In particular, if you like to listen to audiobooks, I recommend the narration by James Marsters.

One final note, something that was worse in this book than in the previous—there is quite a bit of sexual content. After my husband finished the audiobook, he commented on how, with the couple of female werewolves, every time they were in a scene, whether they were fully clothed or not (one of them was naked in at least 75% of her human-form page time), the narrator felt the need to remind us that they had certain female parts. And he was right…they were referenced often. I really hope this doesn’t remain at this level. There’s also some language, but not actually as much as I anticipated. And there’s certainly some violence, much more than the previous book (werewolves are beasts). My tolerance on things like these is fairly low, especially compared to the average reader, and while I do plan to continue, I really hope the level of sexual content, at least, doesn’t stay this high.

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