In Theory, there is no Practice.

Finished Listening To: The Host, Stephenie Meyer (Audio). 3.5 of 5 stars. It was good. The secret was directly along the line of what I expected. The reason for revealing it surprised me slightly, thought the characters involved didn’t. The very ending was interesting, kind of a tweak for fans of this generic story.

I’ve now read 5 of Stephenie Meyer’s books, and I have to say I do like the main characters. I think she does a good job of developing them and giving me a reason to care about them. I am not sure about her plotting / stories though. The first 2 Twilight books, Twilight and New Moon, were realy good at both character development and story (though I have never really gotten the whole Edward thing, so he’s pretty, why does she love him)? Jacob was maybe the best character in the series, and certainly the one I cared about most. Eclipse was okay, but none of the characters really did much in the was of changing. Breaking Dawn was all about change, but even then, Jacob was the best and most satisifying. I really liked the overall story in Twilight Series, but I really wanted a happy ending, so that is not to say I thought it was great literature. 

In The Host, again the main character(s) are in love, but why?

The Host actually had a better story than Twilight Series, but it dropped off toward the fairly predictable end. To be fair, there were only a few possible facts to be permuted for the ending:

Note: these are not all orthogonal
• Melanie Alive/Dead
• Wanderer Alive/Dead
• Humans Free/Caught
• Wanderer Free/Caught

Doubt I will listen to this one again, but I really enijoyed it once through. Do you want to know what I will/have listened to multiple time?

Have
• The Hobbit (>2 times heard, no idea how many times read)
• The Lord of the Rings (>2 times heard, no idea how many times read)
• The Dark Tower Series (2x heard for all seven, more than that for a couple of the others)
• The Sharing Knife series (2x heard for all seven, more than that for a couple of the others)
• Pilgrim’s Progress (>2 times hearda)

Probably Will
• Old Man’s War Series
• Rachel Morgan Series (planning to just before next book comes out at the latest)

Finished:
Gale Force, Rachel Caine. 4 of 5 stars. Pretty much a cliff hanger ending. So dark, with a hint of hope. Not as much humor, but given that this story is only 1/2 way told atm, perhaps I will withold judgement. The story is interesting, but I am afraid it is the beginning of the end of the series (either no more books, or they will really start sucking). Sadly, most of the supporting characters seemed to have regressed from Ill Wind.

Reading / Studying:
Pro Football Prospectus 2008: The Essential Guide to the 2008 Pro Football Season,  Aaron Shatz, et al.  It’s a guy thing.

Listening To:
The Host, Stephenie Meyer (Audio). About 2.5 hours in. I am interested to see what will happen, so I guess it is pretty good so far (still ~17.5 hours to go).

Audio: Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer (Audio) 4.5 of 5 stars. I am impressed that that Stephenie Meyer can keep the quality of the books so high. This was a harder, somewhat darker book to take, but still very satisfying. I really felt sad for Jacob. In a lot of ways, he and Alice are the most memorable and interesting characters.

Read: Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer. Outstanding. 4.5 of 5 stars. This one had a bit more humor than the others, and the danger never really seemed as dire as the first 3 books, but that really fits my preferences better anyway.

Firestorm , Rachel Caine. 4 of 5 stars. In contrast, this one was quite a bit darker. The death of one character really made me sad. The danger / loss is much higher in these books, though the humor was still there. Were Joanne not as easy to like, or the humor less successful, I would probably find this series too dark. Pushing Charlaine Harris Sookie Stackhouse dark. I want to be happy when a book is done (not happy that the book is done, if you take my meaning…)

New Moon, Stephenie Meyer (Audio) Really like it. 4.5 of 5 stars. I was surprised how good this second book was. Normally there is a drop off, but this was an exception. Jacob was a great character, and Isabella did many interesting things. The last third didn’t seem as integrated as the first 2/3. That first part was great, and really tugged at a lot of emotions for me. I was worried at the beginning that Bella would get to whiny / dependent, but the story got off to a bang from her birthday on, and really never slowed down. Not so much in action, but I really wanted to see what happened next.

A damn fine book.

Listening To: Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer (Audio) (Twilight Series, book three) About 1 hour into it. Still getting started.

Reading: Chill Factor, Rachel Caine. About 40 pages in. Still getting started.

Just finished Ill Wind by Rachel Caine. I give this one 4 of 5 stars. I did enjoy the unique magic  system and problems created / addressed by that magic system. Joanne Baldwin was a fun heroine, and there was quite a bit of humor, which for me is a plus. However, only Joanne was a memorable character to me. The rest were just not that interesting or well developed. The ending was an interesting and daring twist.

This is the first book in the Weather Warden series. Since, I will read at least one more book in the series, the book has been successful. There are a number of series, such as The Sword of Truth, that I have abandoned, so any book that keeps me reading the next can’t be too bad.

I finished The Touch of Twilight by Vicki Petterson. I like it, say 4 of 5 stars. 

I often have troubles with books like this after a while. There is a lot of sorrow, and not a lot of happiness, even during the ‘Happy’ ending. 

It makes me wonder why so many of the comic books, series, epics work the way they do. I mean, for the Good/Light, even success has a cost in life, sorrow, blood, loss. But you never really see the Evil/Dark pay a cost, unless it is the final battle where they are well and truly defeated. I can take it for a bit, but really, after a while I can only wonder why the heroes don’t despair.

I do see in this case that several of the Shadows pay both physical and emotional costs (Regan kills someone she cares about while thinking she is killing someone else, and is also hurt badly physically), but most just go about their business. Joanna pays at least as high a cost, and she wins. 

EDIT:
Upon further review, most of the Shadows that paid a price did so because The Archer did things the Shadow way (in particular, Regan got pwned). But still, I can’t shake the feeling that somehow in trying to make the odds the good had to overcome look so high, we make the evil seem omnipotent. It can make for a good yarn, but it only works for so long. Then it just gets tiresome.

The real world doesn’t work that way. Rarely is the Dark 1-dimensional evil. There are people of honor on both sides, and people on both side makes errors in judgement based on character fales, bad intel or just bad luck. I think that Glenn Cook’s Black Company series is a wonderful attempt to show how minions of a Shadow can live and work without being blind.

My employer has implemented new web site filtering content and my personal sites have been blocked. Bah.

Here is my attempt at bypassing the blocks.