Review: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While previous Potter books slide by with only mild infractions, Phoenix makes a large blunder that's much harder to avoid. There's no throughline. Or perhaps it's better to say nothing is driving the plot. In the previous books, the title would spell out what is the center of that particular volume. Here, the Order is more of something that is just introduced. Leaving the plot to be far more fragmented and about world-building than anything else.

Not to say the book is bad. It doesn't fly off the rails to become something completely different. I'm looking at you Frank Herbert and C.W. Lewis. It's just that the book sacrifices itself for the sake of the overarching plot of the series. Caring more about what has happened and what will happen instead of what is happening. Also, the most interesting plot points happen outside of Potter's purview. Or am I the only person who wants to see a break out from a magical prison?

Everything else I could say about it would be minor in comparison. Luna Lovegood is underutilized. Hagrid's 'adventures' could have been an email instead of a meeting. Despite a lack of a mysterious plot this time around, we still get a long explanation at the end.  One that just boils down to: all of this could have been avoided if Dumbledore would have just said something. While aspects like this give me pause, none of them are deal breakers. Though I will say that reading it today allows me to see one character is meant to be more of an aspect of society that leads me to one inescapable conclusion:

Professor Umbridge is just Ron DeSantis dressed like Jackie Onassis. Change my mind.

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Review: Meditations: A New Translation

Meditations: A New Translation by Marcus Aurelius
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There is a strange dichotomy to Meditations. There is great wisdom to be had while also containing rambling nonsense. The thing you have to understand is that this book is a series of entries some guy made of his, sometimes completely random, thoughts. Conceitedly, that's basically what philosophy is. Forced perspective in written form. And, as with the rest of the human race, not every thought is a winner.

I will also note that I have not read any other translations of Meditations. So I'm not qualified to note if this is a good one or not. Considering how many people a book like this has to go through before getting published, I would imagine that it is at least passable. People's opinion on this subject tends to depend on which translation they read first.

If you're looking to study Stoicism as a whole, I would like to recommend not starting with this. Most of Aurelius' words are built upon centuries of other stoic philosophers, and there are themes related to Stoicism that need a precursor. The idea of Logos being chief among them. I will say it's the pinnacle of Stoic thought, but that is what makes it a terrible starting point.

Petty grievance time: I read the Kindle version, and there are no links from the passages to the notes. Only from the notes to the passages. Making it a daunting task to go back and forth to further dive into some of the harder to understand passages. Only to find that some of the notes literally say "the latter part of this passage is unclear." Thanks for that.

Overall, there is a lot of here to take in. In only one read-through, I made a shit ton of highlights and notes. Yes, some of it doesn't make sense. Yes, some translation issues remain. Yes, Aurelius repeats himself on more than one occasion. But, once you filter everything down to it's core concepts, this book has wonderful things to say. Knowledge isn't a singular answer. It's a puzzle that you have to put together piece by annoyingly stubborn piece.

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Well, that happened.

 

I finally took the plunge and published my novel. Honestly, I should have done it years ago, but final edits and good old-fashioned fear kept me from doing so. And, to double down on the honesty, I don't think I'm the same person I was when I wrote this book. I'm still happy with it and all that, but I think if I started on it today it would come out differently. Not better or worse, it's just I've been through a great deal these past several years.

Recent events have stirred something in me. Made me take a second look at what's important and what I want to do with what's left of my life. Or it might be better to say that the incremental improvements I've made over these years have been accelerated by a return to focus. Making me far less tolerant of bullshit, including my own.

I won't bore you with any more details. I'll let my novel do that. All I can ask is that you give it a chance. I'm not very good at selling myself, or my work. Making the mistake that quality can speak for itself and people don't need to be tricked into buying stuff. But, let's face it, we do. So, hover your mouse over that buy button and close your eyes. Imagine the most beautiful desirable thing you can conjure, that hitting that button will make that dream come true. It won't, but just imagine. Then, just hit buy.

For those who do give it a chance, thanks and I hope you enjoy it.

Buy my book: The Variant War

Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

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

I'm just going to go ahead and say it. This book is slightly bloated. It's not a systemic problem were you can see the bloat everywhere. I've read books that just drone on and on without any real point (that still manage to get published) and GoF doesn't come close to any of those. But the issue is noticeable enough to point it out. This is particularly apparent as the villain(s) just stand around and give their dissertation on how they fooled a 14-year-old. Making special note on how they had to continuously help Potter with the puzzles because he wasn't smart enough to solve them himself. Which is fair.

Aside from the notably weaker pacing, this book is more of the same from the series. There's a magical concept introduced, a mystery surrounding it, and no questioning why students are taught defense against the dark arts instead of taking them to a gun range. If they somehow did, don't let Trelawney be the teacher.

Side note, the opening chapter is a prologue not an actual chapter. I know it's super petty, but, when you read as much as I do, shit like that annoys you.

Except for poking some fun at this book, I really don't have much to say about it. It still has much of the same charm as the previous volumes provided you make the same conceits. Even though it takes a dark turn towards the ends, it doesn't seem out of place from the rest of the book. Nothing is worse than a book starting as something and tries to become something else. Thankfully, GoF is able to change tone but still stays on brand. Which, honestly, is harder to do than most readers might realize.

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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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