Reading Update!

Ok so it's finals week this week and I've been studying and working on finals papers and a whole bunch of other stuff that has completely eaten away at my reading time. I'm about 1/4 of the way into Darkest Hour and i'll have it read within the next week (i promise) and i'll have a review up for it then.

I realize that I missed Friday Finds this week and I appologize for that also for the same reasons.

Reviews will be coming soon my loyal followers, so fear not!

Cornucopic Contemplation: Why Vampires? They Suck.

I hate Twilight, I dislike Stephanie Meyer, and I can't say that the movies strike any chords within me, and any that it does strike are dissonant at best. Most vehemently of all though: I hate the recent vampire craze that has hit the country thanks to the success of Twilight.

Now, I'm not going to go on a rant about how Twilight is the worst heap of vomit ever to be regurgitated by the mass market YA crowd, and about how much I want it to die and for the world to forget it ever existed. Instead I'm going to talk about how silly and annoying it is that authors all over the country are cashing in on the "vampire craze".

It's amazing how many vampire books have popped up (and become popular) because of the success of just one. I'm trying to decide which is more annoying: the fact that authors are trying to cash in on the success of Twilight and Ms. Meyer by producing something that will please the hoards of vampire hungry preteen girls because they can't get enough out of those poorly played out, badly acted, badly written series of books and movies, or the fact that the authors are succeeding.

I understand the alure of vampires and the thought of vampires has always been enjoyable to me, especially in books like Night Watch, where they are simply there and not an intigral part of the story line. But what I can't understand is how authors have turned something that is supposed to be terrifing into sparkly and idiotic love interests. The only exception that I can give for the case of falling in love with a vampire is for the Sookie Stackhouse series because vampires still retain an ounce or two of their frightening nature in those books (and show).

Hopefully this shameful market craze will end once all of the twilight movies have come out. Zeus forbid that Meyer writes a spinoff on the last book.

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Review: Age of Misrule

If five people were chosen from birth to save the human race from extinction at the hands of an evil race of gods from another age, then this is exactly how it would happen. Filled with humor,  romance, betrayal, infighting, and argumentative hilarity; this book is exactly the kind of urban/contemporary fantasy that I love to read. The characters even address the fact that the whole idea of them saving the world is cliche! The plot and the characters are presented in a way that make them real, and I feel sufficiently attached to each of them, despite their obvious and sometimes glaring faults.

Synopsis

World's End, as I said, is about five normal (for the most part) people, who discover, along with the rest of the world, that their world is falling apart by the seams. Ancient gods are being unleashed upon the world as an evil race of god like beings called the Fomorii break an ancient pact to stay out of our world. The five "Brothers and Sisters of Dragons" are called forth to release the Danaan, the antithetical race of beings that are to oppose the Fomorii, by collecting five talismans and bringing them together to summon the Danaan.

My Thoughts

The good

I didn't really like this book when I first started it, because the beginning of the book is in such stark contrast with the end of the book. I see now that it makes sense that this dichotomy would exist because the world as the Brothers and Sisters know it is being torn asunder as the ancient gods return and magic is restored to the land. I thought that the direction that the book was taking was very different from what I had read on the back, and that I had judged this book incorrectly. I put this book down for several months and only continued to read it this past week. When I picked it up again and read on I saw it in a whole new light.

Like I said World's End seems like it is exactly how these events would pan out in real life if they were to happen. The book is gritty and descriptive and is not ashamed to describe some of the more unpleasant parts of saving the world, which are often only glimpsed in other books. I often find  that other books describe the process of saving humanity from the apocalypse in a rather feel good way, and the ending of this book makes you feel anything but good. I loved it.

Mark Chadbourn has his own unique style of writing that combines an omniscient and very descriptive point of view with a feeling of personalization for each of the characters. The characters have their own personalities, their own lives, their own stories, and each of them feels like a seperate entity and I had no difficulty with keeping track of who was who like I have in other books. Mr. Chadbourn is good at descriptive language and he inserts it into the story in a way that makes descriptions (which I usually skim over) easy to read without sacrificing the descriptive ability of said description (redundancy!).

The Bad

A few of the plot elements and twists were not executed in a way that I found eye catching or sufficiently devastating to the characters. The plot twists were done in a way that did not make them feel like twists at all, they were simply developments that the characters rolled with despite their impact on the course of events.

I could also have done with a little more of the "magical" aspects of the new world that the characters find themselves in. We catch glimpses here and there but I feel like there is still much to be desired in that department, and as you know what really makes the mechanics of a book tick are what keep me at the edge of my seat wanting more. I think that is one of the reasons that I will enjoy reading the rest of the series, I'm excited to see exactly how this new world of their is going to work.

My Conclusion

I would certainly recommend World's End (and the whole Age of Misrule Series) to anybody who likes gritty, down to earth, dark and virtually real fantasy books, but for those of you who are expecting a world filled with fireballs, devastating spells, flashy effects, or witches on broomsticks you're not going to find your fix here.

Check out my reviews of Books Two and Three!

Store!

Hey everybody! Just wanted to let you know that my store is up. Using the store you can buy any of the books that you see me talk about or review here on Cornucopia of Fantasy. The store is powered by Amazon so any purchases you make can be made with your Amazon account if you have one or through their secure server using a credit card if you don't.

I make a commission for every book that you buy through my store and you don't have to go through the process of searching through Amazon's extensive collection of books to find the ones you see here! It's a win - win situation for everybody, and with the holiday season coming up "winning" is paramount to making your family and friends happy with those oh so special things we call books.

So if you're making the decision to buy a few books for people on your christmas shopping list, and you've read a review about said book here on Cornucopia of Fantasy, just go ahead and click on "Book Store" on the navigation bar up at the top of the page and get ready to do some shopping!

Friday Finds - 2

Friday Finds is a weekly meme hosted by MizB over at Should Be Reading. You post books that you've found during the week and have added to your TBR shelf.


Ok so I realize that I missed last week's Friday Finds because it was the day after thanksgiving, but who can blame me? I mean It's THANKSGIVING for heaven's sake. 

This week I've not so much found "New" books per say, but I've discovered the wonders of 2 new fabulous series that I plan on reading all the way through.

 

• Age of Misrule: A fantastic contemporary fantasy series set in a modern day UK, the series tells the story of 5 strangers who discover that, however cliche it is, they are the "5 Brothers and Sisters of Dragons" who are destined to save humanity from the evil Night Walkers called Fomorii.

• Devices and Desires: While this series leaves much to be desired in the "fantasy" section, it is still a gripping tale of politics, automatons, and warfare that was highly entertaining. I feel obligated to finish this series.

Reviews on the first books in both of these series are soon to come!

Vacation

Hey guys and gals! I'm just posting an update explaining why I haven't posted in almost a week. The obvious answer is, of course, that I've been on Thanksgiving vacation. I assure every one of my readers (all 3 of you) that I am still reading and I am still writing reviews, I just got out of the swing of things when I went on vacation. I plan on reading this post on problogger to help me get back into the swing of things, just so everybody knows.


You're welcome.