The Woodcutter (25/09/14)

What would happen if you tried to put as many fairy-tale characters and plots into one book? Wouldn’t everything get a bit confusing? Wouldn’t you only be able to take snippets of these fairy-tale to try and work them into a bigger plot line? Well that’s pretty much what happens in The Woodcutter.

The Woodcutter, is a retelling of a number of fairy-tale through a many story line revealing around ’The Woodcutter’. A man, one with the trees and the wood in which he lives, setting off on a journey to protect and serve his forest. Along the way he discovers the fae are being captured, princesses are being murdered and generally happy ever afters are being ruined. He must use his wits and his Axes to fight off the evils and right the wrongs he comes across.

When I read the blurb for this book, it seemed like my cup of tea completely. I love retellings of fairy tales such as Fables and the TV series Once upon a time. So I go into these types of things knowing things are not going to be exactly like the fairy tales I knew as a child. That’s what I love about them. But with this book, well, I can’t say that I wasn’t disappoints to begin with. I felt like so much more could have been done with it. 

It does pick up and the last 40% of the book was really quite good and really came together and gave me some ‘wow’ type moments. But even then I felt I could put it down at any point to make a cup of tea, and in reality when I get to the last half of a book I should be glued to it, as if I can’t honestly wait a couple of minutes to make my tea and not be reading the book. Overall, a pretty average read, but mostly I felt it could have been given more depth and back story. There were so many times something was brought up and I would think, ‘wow that would be a brilliant place for a flash back’. Due to the lack of back story and depth it was difficult to really warm to the main character until pretty late in the book.

Oryx and Crake (19/09/14)

Oryx and Crake is a dystopian style post-apocalyptic novel which for the majority focuses on one character, Jimmy, otherwise known as Snowman. The book centres on his life before the fall of a modern civilisation as well as how he move through life afterwards. This world (before the fall) is a perverted but in my opinion not too farfetched realisation of our future. The rich live in compounds with access to all sorts of medications and rejuvenating procedures to lengthen youth and help them remain beautiful. The poor live in the pleeblands, which appears to be not to different from the world we live in now. Food production has been streamlined with scientists creating ‘chicken’ style life forms that have no head/legs as these are not necessary, they just exist in a basic form with no brain function other than to grow. Also in this would entertainment has taken a leap and reality style TV has been twisted so much that it is almost incomprehensible that anyone would watch these shows. It is on one of these shows that Jimmy and his friend Crake first come across Oryx as a young girl. Jimmy and Crake grow up, go to different Universities and begin very different careers. Crake is an enigma, never really part of the human race, although he really does seem to be Jimmy’s friend. He is a genius and begins to develop science in leaps and bounds that could be the end of everything.

This book really got my mind asking questions of myself and science. Often at times it also made me feel anxious and tense in a way not many books have. I don’t see this as a negative, on the contrary I believe it was a positive element to the book. I personally am not a fan of reality shows, and the way entertainment is shown in the book doesn’t seem like a far stretch from what we are currently doing anyway. How many people only watch these shows to see people come to blows? When something horrendous happens on the news, how many people go and try and watch the act online? I am not say in the next few years I expect to see live executions on the TV, but it doesn’t seem like it could never happen. Which is more than worrying. The animal/food production element also doesn’t seem too far off, we can already grow meat in a lab, so how long till we can produce a chicken style organism like in this book. How long till science tries to combine different genes from animals to create new ones.

This is one of the best books I have come across this year and I fully intend to carry on the series. Fully entertaining, fully engrossing, horrific in an addictive way. There is no way to read it without questioning it. I would highly recommend.

Manga: Okane Ga Nai & Crimson Spell (04/09/14)

So I was recommended a couple of series of books. I have been meaning to read more manga/graphic novels for a long time, and I’ll admit I’ve had a bit of a splurge. So I am going to do this a bit differently and review the series to the point I have read it too starting with Okane Ga Nai (No Money).

Books 36. - 43.

This series will definitely not be for everyone. This a fairly graphic and explicit yaoi. Yaoi deals with romance in general but tends to lean to the gay side of things. This doesn’t bother me in the slightest as a younger reader I read my share of fan fiction and this was no worse than that. Nor, in my opinion was it anymore graphic than the imagery I made when reading 50 Shades.

This series deals with the character of Ayase who is being sold at auction to pay of his cousins’ debt. He is bought by Kanou which is an act which both saves him and enslaves him. Havoc ensues as you would expect and there is a deeper story line involving Ayase and Kanou meeting previously but Ayase is unable to remember this. I really enjoyed reading this, there is more to this series than sex but I would imagine it is an acquired taste.

Book 44. - 47.

Now Crimson Spell, whilst also being an erotic yaoi, is also a fantasy series. I found this much superior to No Money story wise. Although it may be even more graphic, there is a real storyline and much better humour included. This series follows Vald, a prince who has been cursed by a magic sword which he used to save his kingdom from demons. In so doing he now turns into a wild demon beast at night. He seeks out a wizard, Halvi, who ‘tames the beast’ at night without Vald being aware of the night-time escapes. There is also a magic Rabbit and a traveling thief. I definitely enjoyed this series more than the first series I read and I plan to branch out and read more manga from now on, which means next year I will definitely need to up my challenge.