5. Ice Fire

by Chris D'Lacey (421 pgs)
Scholastic 2003

Rating: 4

What do polar bears, hedgehogs, and dragons have in common? David Rain must find out because he's rolled up in the middle of it somehow. On the slightly more normal scale, David's girlfriend has gone away to Africa and a gothy new love interest named Zanna has appeared to confuse matters and a mysterious and sinister Aunt Gwyneth seems to be creating odd lapses in David's memory.

Ice Fire takes a slight sinister turn. While the reading level remains the same as the previous book, Fire Within, some of the concepts are much more complex. Despite being more convoluted, the plot remains easy to follow. The feel of the story is almost completely different, however. Fire Within was light-hearted and cute. Ice Fire is darker and more serious.

Recommended to mature middle schoolers and high school kids. This is a nice introduction to fantasy literature and appropriate for any school setting.

4. Eclipse

by Stephenie Meyer (640pgs)
Little, Brown Young Readers 2007

Rating: 4

Edward is back, much to Bella's relief. However, Edward's presence causes a rift between Bella and, her best friend, Jacob. For those just tuning in, Edward and Jacob, by virtue of their very natures, don't like each other and, on top of that, are both in love with the same girl.

Despite the supernatural elements, Eclipse is primarily a romance. Meyer's characters continue to be realistic and interesting. The love triangle between Edward, Bella, and Jacob is handled masterfully. Even though, as a reader, I was aware of where the story was headed, following the path of discovery with the characters was both fascinating and enjoyable instead of irritating. The one complaint I have is that it seems that this is likely the end of this series and I am loath to say good bye to these characters.

Recommened as a continuation of Twilight and New Moon. Appropriate for most school settings.

3. New Moon

by Stephenie Meyer (563 pgs)
Little, Brown, and Co. 2006

Rating: 4

Edward and Bella are the perfect couple. You know, the one that was so happy it made you want to gag. Everything is perfect for them, except Edward is a vampire and Bella's blood smells powerfully yummy. Beyond that though, despite best intentions, Edward's vampire family also is having a hard time with keeping their base instincts under control. Edward's protectiveness leads him to leave Bella for her own safety, and Bella falls apart.

Sequel to Twilight, Meyer lost none of her believability or characterization skill. The plot rambles a bit and probably could be condensed a little, but the New Moon was still, overall, a highly enjoyable read. Meyer's development of formerly minor characters was masterful.

Recommended to anyone who enjoyed Twilight. Appropriate for most school settings

1. The Fire Within

by Chris D'Lacey (340 pgs)

Scholastic Books, 2001

Rating: 4

David, a college student, rents a room from a single mother, Liz, and her daughter, Lucy. The only requirements are that he be neat and quiet. Oh! He must also 'not mind dragons.' The dragons, as it turns out, are actually a collection of clay figurines that Liz makes and sells at craft fairs. They are everywhere and she makes David a special dragon of his very own. Lucy draws David into her obsession with the local squirrels and David slowly begins to realize that there's something very strange about these clay dragons and their keepers.

The reading level is pretty simple with a few challenging words thrown in regularly. The overall tone is not particularly childish. This is an engaging story that is well written. The points that are confusing are obviously meant to be confusing. The fantasy elements are presented well and subtly.

Recommended to adults as a quick read and to most young adults.

21. The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing 2nd ed. (NF)

By Charles Papazian (398 pgs)



Rating: 4


Everything you need to get started brewing beer at home, well almost everything. You still need a huge brew pot and a great big bucket, as well as a number of other sundry items, but certainly everything you need to know to start brewing. The second edition is split into three sections: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. The beginner section runs the reader through the brewing of a very basic beer. The intermediate section gets into the 'whys' of how the process works and includes more involved recipes. The advanced section...is scary ;)

The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing is a reasonably well written manual. There are a couple of details that could use a bit more treatment but the information is all there if one looks for it. The third edition came out a couple of years ago and I suspect that many of the unclear details were resolved in that edition.

Recommended to beer lovers even if you'd never attempt to brew beer yourself.

19. The Big Over Easy: A Nursery Crime

by Jasper Fforde (400 pgs)

Rating: 4

Jack Spratt, leader of the Nursery Crimes Division, is called to investigate the death of one Mr. Humpty Dumpty. Humpty, found at the base of a wall, is in pieces and it is not immediately clear whether he fell or pushed. For DI Spratt, however, this would be routine case gets more and more complicated as department infighting threatens his career and a looming evaluation by the Guild of Detectives overshadows his every move.

This is not a children's book. This is an important thing to realize if one is to read this book. It's basically crime noir done over with nursery characters. I keep picturing Spratt as a very thin Humphry Bogart. It's pretty silly but the internal cohesiveness of the narrative makes up for it. All in all, I think it's a worthwhile, if somewhat quick, read.

Recommended for lovers of nursery rhymes and people jonesing for a quick read.

18. Little Myth Marker

by Robert Asprin (208 pgs)

Rating: 4

We open with Skeeve playing Dragon Poker, a game he has absolutely no understanding of. He should be losing his shirt but somehow he's winning. Not just winning. Beating the pants off of everyone else at the table. He's so good he ends up with Markie, one of his opponents kids and his promise to make good on his loses. Aahz will not be pleased. But Aahz is less pleased to find out there's a character assassin out after Skeeve.

Whatever problems there were with Myth-ing Persons, Little Myth Marker makes up for them. The plot is complicated without being inscrutable. There's marked growth in Skeeve's character and the character interactions become a bit more savvy.

16. Hit or Myth

By Robert Asprin (208 pg)

Rating: 4

In many ways Hit or Myth feels like two separate books. The first begins when Aahz leaves with his Nephew Rupert and the King of Possiltum asks Skeeve for a favor. Somehow with Aahz gone, Skeeve must figure out how to deal with an amorous/murderous would be royal bride and the Mob turning up looking for their missing army (Myth Conceptions). In the second book, Aahz is back and discovers Skeeve isn't nearly as dependent on him as he thought. They relocate to the bazaar at Deva only to discover the Mob has also opened shop there and the local business association would like the Great Skeeve to do something about it.

In many ways this is a transition book. The relationships between Skeeve and his friends all change. With the move to Deva, the entire tenor of the series changes. While it's still plenty lighthearted, Skeeve's voice takes on a pensive aspect. There is a great deal of character development in this book and despite its dichotomous nature.

Highly recommended as a book in the Myth series and as a fantasy book in general.

15. Myth Directions

by Robert Asprin

Rating: 4

Tananda, the Trollip, appears out of the blue and whisks Skeeve away to go dimension hopping on a mysterious shopping trip. Skeeve's ecstatic, not only does he get to spend time with the luscious Tananda, he also gets to see new dimensions. Things go a bit awry, though, since Tananda's idea of shopping doesn't necessarily include paying for things. Eventually, Aahz gets involved and that's when the really fun starts.

Myth Directions sees a real smoothing of Asprin's style. I think it is interesting how well he manages to juggle so many characters and still round them out. While the style improves, the plot line itself is weaker than the previous two. It's both disjointed and a little slow. The omnibus edition is so typographically flawed that it aggravates the problem.

Recommended to Myth fans but get a stand alone edition of the book.

14. Myth Conceptions

by Robert Asprin (217 pgs)

Rating: 4

Skeeve and Aahz have set up shop in abandoned inn. Aahz teaches in his surly manner and Skeeve learns. Every thing's going pretty smooth until a courier arrives from Possiltum to summon 'The Great Skeeve' to appear before the court as a potential court magician. This apparently qualifies as a cushy job according to Aahz so they pack up and head out with Buttercup, the war unicorn, and Gleep, the juvenile dragon, in tow. Of course, nothing is ever that simple and Skeeve finds himself fighting a war against a massive army...without Possiltum's military backing him up.

Myth Conceptions is every bit as light as Another Fine Myth but Skeeve starts to pop into three dimensions. Before both he and Aahz were more like paste board caricatures and with this book they've developed into more believable characters. The one major criticism I have is that the resolution of the conflict happens abruptly and feels a little like a cheat. I still enjoyed the book but I found that one point just a tad frustrating.

Recommended as part of the Myth Series and more generally as well.

13. Another Fine Myth

By Robert Asprin (208 pgs)

Rating: 4

Skeeve, native of the dimension Klah, is studying to be a magician...or a thief. He doesn't actually seem to be terribly sure which, but the point becomes moot when his teacher suffers an unexpected crossbow bolt to the chest while incidentally summoning a demon to impress his sneaky apprentice (that's Skeeve) with. Garkin (that's the teacher) manages to deal with the assassin before falling to the ground lifeless. That leaves Skeeve alone in the hut...with a demon. Lucky for him, demon is short for dimensional traveler so he survives although, as the story progresses, I think he sometimes wishes he hadn't.

Another Fine Myth is the opening book in Robert Asprin's Myth series. Aside from few typographical errors that have surfaced in the omnibus edition, this a beautiful quick read. I mean really quick. Like I read it in about two hours kinda quick. This is not serious fiction, but it's light and fun. Worth reading on a whim or just because a pick me up is required. I actually met both Rober Asprin and Phil Foglio(who does all the cover art and illustration inside) they are very interesting guys. Phil reminds me a little of Aahz.

Recommended to fantasy fans and teenagers (lighten up with the angst, yo)

11. Comfort Me With Apples: More Adventures At the Table (NF 3)

by Ruth Reichl (320 pgs)

Rating: 4

Comfort Me With Apples picks up where Tender At the Bone left off. Reichl is living in a Berkley commune with her husband when she gets her first gig as a paid restaurant reviewer. This is not, apparently, a suitable occupation for a commune living hippie. Ah well, life does go on and in Reichl's case it gets even more interesting. From this simple reviewing gig Reichl launches herself on a career where in she meets the stars and rising stars of the culinary world while travelling all over the world.

Reichl continues with her frank conversational style the story of her life including the break up of her first marriage and the reasons for the break up of her first marriage. Her honesty, at times, made me a little uncomfortable but I found in the end that I felt grateful for her ability to share that time of her life...even if it made me all soppy.

Recommended to foodies, cookbook fanatics, and people in tough relationships.

9. Heretics Of Dune

By Frank Herbert (480 pgs)

Rating: 4

The emperor is dead. Long live...the priesthood? Rakis is returning to desert and the great sand worms are slowly dying. The peoples of the scattering are returning and they bring with them strange warped versions of the familiar institutions. The Bene Gesserit play a dangerous game that might save them all.

Heretics of Dune is a bit of a break from the familiar patterns Herbert set up in the intervening three books between Dune and this one. Almost as convoluted as the first and dealing with much less powerful individuals, I think this book has almost single handedly convinced me to finish off reading the original series. I found the characters well drawn and highly believable and the plot was dense but compelling.

Recommended generally as a political science fiction. It's almost too bad you have to read 4 books to get to this one.

6. On Writing (NF 1)

By Stephen King

Rating: 4 (320 pgs)

On Writing is about two thirds memoir and one third instuctional text. The memoir is actually fascinating and I didn't go in thinking it would be. I've never been a huge King fan. I like his books just fine but I never put him on the 'god of horror' pedistal that so many seem to. That being said, I wasn't thinking of him as particularly human either. It was refreshing, to say the least, to discover he was really just a man like I'd always suspected and encouraging to know that he's struggled too. The instuctional third was interesting but nothing particularly new. As most of King's books, On Writing is well written.

Recommended to those who want to write and those who love King.

1. The Stand

by Stephen King (1141 pgs)

Rating: 4

The U.S. government screws up, illicit plague research leaks (literally), over 99% of the world population is dead within a month. Those left are troubled by vivid dreams of evil and good embodied by a scary dark man in old cowboy boots and an ancient black woman living in Nebraska. God and the devil are having a power struggle over the remains of humanity and the survivors have to pick sides.

The Stand is an incredibly long book. It's also pretty good. King uses several characters on both sides of the struggle to move the action forward. Because of the length, most of the characters have a wealth of depth and feel distinct. However, also because of the length there's a definite fatigue factor to consider when reading it. While the narrative drags only briefly in a couple of places, I found myself getting rather tired of reading it after about 600 pages. The supernatural aspects didn't always overlay the apocalypse themes. I was a little uncomfortable with the religious themes at times but didn't find them too overbearing. All and all, it was a good read.

Recommended to horror fans and anyone contemplating a long trip.

The Ratings

To make life easier for me I've also devised a rating system. Every book gets a rating of 1-5 and here's what it means. (adapted from it's original form from the beginning of last year.)

5 - I loved it, I'm going to own it, I am in fact going to buy multiple copies and promote this book by handing them out for free at church socials and company picnics.

4 - I liked it. I definitely want to have a copy in my library and recommend it to most people.

3 - I liked it well enough, if I see a cheap used copy of it I'll snag it for my collection. I would recommend this book to some people or for specific reasons.

2 - I didn't hate, didn't like it either. I wouldn't generally recommend it to most people.

1 - I hated it or severely disliked it. There has to be a serious problem with the writing or the subject matter for a book to get this rating. In the last 2 years I've only run across 2 or 3 of these. The likelyhood that one of these will appear on the blog is pretty low since...why waste time on something so bad?