Author Focus: Sergei Lukyanenko (My favorite)

Author Biography(courtesy of Wikipedia):

Lukyanenko was born in Karatau, then a part of Soviet Union, to Russian-Ukrainian father and Tatar mother. After school he moved to Alma-Ata, entering Alma-Ata State Medical Institute in 1986 as a therapist. After graduation in 1992 he joined one of the Alma-Ata hospitals, specializing in child psychiatry, but soon abandoned practice, as already poor wages for physicians in Soviet times plummeted with the fall of the Soviet Union, making it virtually impossible to support a family. His writing, which he started while still a student, had just started producing funds. During this time he became an active member in Russian fandom, visiting conventions and attending seminars all around the Soviet Union.

In 1993 he was appointed deputy editor in a local Science Fiction magazine, where he worked until 1996. This was one of the hardest periods of Sergei's life, as his family struggled to make ends meet. He often attributes the rather grim tones of his works at that period to those financial and personal hardships. However, by the mid-90's the situation improved drastically, and soon his growing popularity as a writer made frequent trips to now-foreign Russia increasingly difficult. Thus in 1996 Lukyanenko moved to Moscow, where he currently resides.


Now, truthfully, I cannot say that Sergei is my favorite author, as I've only read one of his series and have yet to pick up any of his other works, but he has written what have turned out to be my favorite books on this planet earth The "Watch" series (Night Watch, Day Watch, Twilight Watch, and Last Watch)
Some of his other works include the Genome Series, and the russian cult fiction book Labyrinth of Reflections

I encourage everybody on the face of this planet (really) to read the Watch series, it changed the way I look at fiction/fantasy books forever. Yeah, it's THAT good.

Review: City of Ashes

 City of Ashes (Mortal Instruments Book 2)

The second book in Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series brings quite a bit to the series that I though it severely lacking in with the first book. Her use of descriptive language has increased (as did her vocabulary apparently) and her characters have taken on much more of a “real” feeling, that is, they’ve become more three dimensional. She creates a background story in this book, and her concern with expanding on the important elements of the book that make it unique has risen considerably.

In the first mortal instruments book Clary Fray discovers that everything she knows about the world she lives in is false, well ok that’s not exactly true, she just can’t remember anything about the world she sees. A warlock named Magnus Bane was commissioned by Clary’s mother Jocelyn Fray to force clary to forget everything she sees involving the magical world. Well when Clary’s mother goes missing and Clary is absent for a “refreshing” of the forgetful spell, she begins to regain her sight, and with this comes the knowledge of her heritage as a Niphilim, or a shadowhunter, a race of humans said to have originated from the angels themselves. Clary’s life would never be the same when she finds out that her father (Valentine) is a bigoted mastermind bent on destroying the government of the Niphilim and anybody who gets in his way.

City of Ashes begins precisely where City of Bones left off, in the second book of the series Clary and her new friends Isabelle, Jace, Alec, and Magnus Bane continue their fight against Valentine, and in this book things get a lot more climactic than in City of Bones.

One of the things I was disappointed in when it came to the first book was Clare’s almost complete lack of a back story or any expanding on one of the most original things about the book: The Marks. In this sequel to City of Bones it seems Clare is more concerned with the background role that the marks played. One of the things I love about magic related books, is hearing about HOW the magic works, I love reading about the development of the practices and the applications it can be used for. In short, I love having background information about an idea in a book, it just makes a story seem so much more real and alive, and while it is still a little lacking in my opinion Cassandra Clare seems to do a much better job of elaborating on an element of her book that I simply adore.

Because of the interesting nature of the magic element of Clare’s book, her plot takes a lot of twists and turns and actually turns out to be extremely entertaining (again I managed to read this book in one day, it was that good). Plot twists are one of the things that I look for in a good book, and City of Ashes while a little on the mild side, has some excellent turnouts that make the book that much more enjoyable to read.

For those of you who haven’t read City of Bones I highly recommend this series, and for those of you who have read City of Bones, you will find that Clare’s second book is nothing if not an improvement on her first, you’ll definitely enjoy it.