Review: Legends & Lattes

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

There are probably hundreds of little things I can point to in what I didn't like in this book. It starts too early so the opening chapters read like a fantasy version of HDTV. There's nothing particularly original here outside the general premise. At about the 2/3rd mark, the story gets bored with its own idea and tries to become something else. It's broadly plotted for such a short book as if it's more interested in being a franchise than a story. Believe me, I can go on.

Here's the thing, I could forgive everything wrong with it. Every. Last. Thing. Only, if only, the book was at least fun. When you sit down to read something like L&L, you expect it to give you a Cheshire grin and a rocking belly laugh. Not everything has to be a Hemingway or Baldwin. Hell, Terry Pratchett built an entire career on the concept of being heavy on wordplay but light on plot. It can be done. But L&L isn't that fun, especially in the prose department. It's written rather conventionally for a short book about an orc opening a coffee shop.  There's a serve lack of tone, fun or otherwise, as if the author developed a marketable title and book cover first and revered engineered everything else. I rushed through reading it just so I could move on to something better.

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Review: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first three Potter books, so far, have been largely mysteries. But while the first two had a flavor of whimsy, this time it's far more in line with the tradition of the genre. So much so it starts with a murderer on the loose. It's even initially conveyed in the pompous manner that only the British are specially equipped to present. Point is, there is a noticeable tone shift in this book, as if shit started to get real.

While I could nitpick several things to death, there is one major problem I have with the book, so I'll focus on that. It's something you see a good deal in literature using third-person limited, particularly with British authors, and that's eavesdropping.  Potter can't know everything, and not just because he's a C+ student at best, but rather because the plot remains elusive from him. This is either done because the plot elements are posed against him, or because other characters keep it from him. This forces Potter, and as consequence the reader, to literally hide in a corner and listen to other characters grab their copy of the Daily Prophet to take their exposition dump. Personally, I've always found this method to be lazy, and typically means the author didn't have any other way to further the plot. But, even Shakespeare did it, so I guess even the best write themselves into a corner.

There are other problems of course. The pacing ramps up too quickly in favor of a more surprising resolution. Ron has nothing to do. Everyone is unjustly worried about a group of evil wizards who can't even kill a thirteen-year-old. Gryffindor is always favored even though Slytherin is clearly the best house. But I don't want people to think I didn't like this book. I did. It still has much of its charm, regardless if the murderous, more personal, tone subdues that somewhat. The ending is also bittersweet, which I appreciated considering it would have been too easy to go either a dark or happy ending route. While the overall structure feels more traditional, the ending left me satisfied the series kept true to itself.

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Review: Under Fortunate Stars

Under Fortunate Stars by Ren Hutchings
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

It's not often I alright say that a book isn't worth your time, but, just this once, I can't help it. It's not particularly bad in any real way, I just found myself regretting even reading it. Time is more than just a linear passage of space through the existence of the universe, it's also a limit. With that deathly constraint, I almost abandoned this book after the first few disappointing chapters. I don't like quitting books, even if I'm not enjoying it, but I have better things to read. Then this book commits the sin of getting interesting, so I stuck with it. Then it got boring again, then interesting, then boring once more until its putters around towards its unearned conclusion. Honestly, if this book had a better editor, I probably would have been singing its praises, but its bloated and its pacing is terrible. So yeah, don't waste your time.

So I don't feel like a complete jerk, I will say the prose are detailed. I'm not saying 'good', just 'detailed'. There are lots of shrugging of shoulders and dodgy eye movements. It makes the story come alive, but whatever it does right on the small scale doesn't make up for its larger issues. I will repeatedly die on the hill that small detail and large scope should be equally treated but you should always strive for both rather than just one.

Back to being a jerk, I will also say that's nothing particularly original here. The author doesn't outright rip anyone off, but the plot points are a massive blender of things we've seen before. The world building is well introduced. There's nothing that hasn't already been done in a decent episode of Star Trek: TNG. At least none of the crew members bone a ghost. That would be awkward.

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