The Color of Magic and The Light Fantastic

Two books by Terry Pratchet that I out together since they are two parts of the same story.

Here we read of the travels of a wizard called Rincewind as he guides a tourist called Twoflowers.

But it just happens that Rincewind is a wizard almost unable to do magic, and Twoflowers has a very optimistic and pacific view of things in a very dangerous world. That result in a lot of comedy moments on the book.

The books are also a good way to show how Discworld is, and the mithology in it, a world where magic, gods, heroes and fantasy exist.

Totally recomended.

Book reading

The book in english is Called “Heart shapped box” by Joe Hill

The book is regular, ok to read one afternoon when nothing more to do.

The reason I posted, is actually because the translation to spanish was the worst I have ever seen.

Kisses
Jessica

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest



The third book of the millenium series.

Finished reading it, its a good book to finish the stories began on the previous book.


The full review in spanish at http://jessica-sweet-tv-mx.blogspot.com/2011/08/la-reina-en-el-palacio-de-las.html

Foundation Series by Asimov

Went reading the Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov.

Its a history of a future when mankind rules the universe in a big empire, but the empire has already started to decay so on a planet at the edge of the empire a planet is founded to create the star point for a newer empire that can rise after the fall of the first one, minimizing the time of caos caused by the fall of such a empire.

I love how we can see the rise of a new empire, and by it get a little glimpse of the fall of another. I loved how the story is set by crisis at the begining. How the diferent stages of the new empire so different fit so good in the non-adyacent points in the whole timeline.

Also liked the introduction of "The Mule", and how it creates a bigger chaos, that breaks the succesion of crisis-solution-change of the first stages of the Foundation history.

Amazing novels, a 100/100.

The whole review in spanish here I am too lazy to traanslate all that.

Books

Second part

I liked it

Book “The supidest angel”

Judging by the book cover, whenever I saw this book at stores, I always tought it was a childrens book, a good feelings book, or a religíous book. I bought it after Redding another book by Chritopher Moore and discovering its another book by this author found in Spanish.

In the spanish edition the book at the first page has a warning tellina that “If you bought this book for a grandma OR a kid, be warned that it has swearing, canibalismo, sex acts, and manny other bad things.”

Just the warning makes you want to read the book.

The book begins with a kid seeing how Santa Claus is murdered, excet is not Santa, just a guy disguised. At the same Time an angel is sent to earth to fullfill a wish. The wish of “Resurrect Santa to save Xmas” rounds like a good one,so after all many movies have a similar line as the basic plot idea. Problem here is that by raising from the dead the guy disguised as Santa Claus, the angel actuáis brings him as a Zombie.

Zombie plague at Xmas, that is a good idea for a book, but in this case it became an amazing book since Cristpher Moore humorous writing style is so great, that makes you laugh every page.

Book reading: Los hombres que no amaban a las mujeres

The title in English is "the girl with the dragon tatoo"

Its an interesting book I read about the first mistery solved by Lisbath Salander and Mikael Blomkvist.

Full review at the spanish blog, too lazy to translate today

Vampire Books

Vampire Books

Since at the moment Vampires are fashionable all around, someone told me to read a series of books related to the subject. Those are part of a series of books (so far 10) wrote by Charlaine Harris.

In Mexico, only the first 3 ones are available, and so got to read them: Dead until Dark, Living Dead in Dallas, Club Dead.

In the book series, Vampires have told the world about themselves, and they drink a blood substitute called TruBlood to keep a nice image toward human, yet they still drink blood from living humans.

In the books, in a place called Bon Temps in Louisiana lives Sookie Stackhouse, a human capable of reading minds, and one night she meets a vampire (Bill) at the bar she works at as waitress. Something happens that she ends up saving him from being killed, and they end up becoming boyfriend and girlfriend.

Each book goes into this love relationship between a Vampire and a Human, but also tells about a mystery as an alternate plot to make things interesting.

On book one there is a murderer killing girls who have been related to vampires in an intimate way, and the main suspect is Sookie's brother, since he has been in a relation with each of the first two girls murdered. So Sookie has to find the real murderer before he kills her.

Second book, the chief vampire in Dallas that has gone missing, and apparently an anti-vampire church called "Sun Worshipers" are the ones that maybe kidnapped him. Sookie is recruited by the vampires to help them investigate the church and find there whereabouts of this missing vampire, in hopes of rescuing him.

Third book, in this case Vampire Bill has been kidnapped by vampires from another state, and those vampires received help from werewolves. Sookie has to go and rescue her boyfriend.

One can say that the books are entertaining, but I finished reading them maybe too fast.

Also the books promote the TV series based on them, called True Blood, so maybe I'll look into that to check it and see if it is fun to watch.

Kisses
Jessica

Reading is good, a mix of science fiction and comedy

Reading is good, a mix of science fiction and comedy

Recently read the book “The Warrior's Apprentice” by Lois McMaster Bujold.

I see is the second of a serial of books, but the first about its main character, “Miles Vorkorsigan”.

Located in a monarchy planet in a future filled with spaceships the story goes about Miles wanting to enter the Military, being a Vorkorsigan, the family of all famous Military Heroes. But Miles has a disability, so he ends failing the physical exam by getting his legs broken and unable to take the theory exam is rejected. So he then goes on a trip to the planet of his grandmother on his mother side, along with his bodyguard Bothari, and Bothari’s daughter Elena.

Once on that planet he gets involved with 3 people, a crazy pilot, a military fugitive, and a smuggler, and ends up travelling to a war zone between two planets. Being detained for a search contraband by the mercenaries hired by one of the planets (and Miles actually smuggling things for the other planet) he has to find a way to avoid being arrested and probably killed. Using imagination and a really weird strategy he manages to not only go safe, but with time to become Admiral Naismith from an imaginary mercenary organization, that grows powerful enough to become the balancing force in the local war, just before having to return to his home planet.

A plot of science fiction and space battles that is good on itself, but that becomes a totally genius comedy thanks to the main character Miles Vorkorsigan, and the strategies he uses, that go jumping in between the ridiculous and unbelievable, to the side on efficiency of a mastery of strategy. And is thank to that, the personality and actions of Miles and friend, that what makes this work wonderful appears, a comedy that will make you laugh like mad.

Definitively I need to look for the remaining books of the series, unfortunately in spanish apparently only another one was published in Mexico, so more than probably will need to go look for English language versions.


Kisses
Jessica