As you probably all know by now, I loved the first two volumes of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy and I’m very anxiously awaiting my ARC of the third, The Hero of Ages. This is one of the few instances that I regret being in the UK, because otherwise I’d have read it a week ago!
Anyway, in lieu of my review, which will be here directly after the book I expect, here’s a new book trailer for the series featuring Brandon talking about why his fantasy series is different and what’s next for him:
Interested? You can also hear Brandon talk and have him sign your book on his book tour! Here is a list of the tour dates and locations.
Today’s question: Series. Do you collect any series? Do you read series books? Fantasy? Mystery? Science fiction? Religious? Other genre? Do you use the series feature in LT to help you find new books or figure out what you might be missing from a series?
I love a good series. According to LibraryThing, I have at least one book from 296 series, covering 544 books in total. That’s nearly half my library. I think that this is probably due to my somewhat large collection of fantasy – almost all fantasy books come in series and I quite like it that way. I also have a fair number of historical romance novels, most of which come in series form too, although each can normally stand alone. I’m impressed by the amount of knowledge people have contributed to the series feature on LibraryThing; there are many books that I own that I didn’t even realize were part of any series, like Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy. Who knew?
I like to read series because they allow me to form a greater attachment to characters I can revisit over and over again. In fantasy novels, I like that the complexity of the story can grow with each book, but I only like that if the series is going to end someday. I have one in particular that has left me hanging for a while now, which is George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. He’s still alive, which is nice, but he still hasn’t finished the fifth book of the series, which was supposed to be imminently published after number four. At the rate he’s going, it’s easy to worry that he won’t finish it and even more so that the final books will never live up to our expectations. He hasn’t got it all planned out for the wondrous Brandon Sanderson (or someone like him) to take over like Robert Jordan did. This is a shame because the first three books of the series were probably the best I’ve ever read in fantasy.
So I guess that’s the only pitfall. I want a conclusion! Otherwise, series are a yes for me.
When Mike Borden, the headmaster of a prestigious private school in Vermont, is handed a tape by his secretary, he isn’t sure what to expect. He certainly doesn’t expect to see two highly respected students and a third post-graduate student engaging in sexual intercourse with a 14 year old girl, but that’s precisely what he does see. The last thing he anticipates is the explosive effect that this single tape – that this single evening – will have on so many lives, both in and out of the small town in which the private school is located.
This is quite an overwhelming book. The story is immensely more complex than I’ve just described, but it’s very difficult not to give away any details and still write a summary. The author rotates viewpoints, featuring the girl, the boys, the headmaster, some of the parents, and other related people. It really reads like a collection of testimonies from all the players in the very serious events of those few days that determined many futures. At times this is disorienting. Each person’s narrative is written in a distinct style so that they’re easily distinguished, but it’s very easy to lose track of where you are in the story, particularly when a person’s chapter is only two or three pages long. They also skip around in the book’s timeline, and as I read quickly, occasionally I’d wonder just what was happening with the other people at the time because it didn’t seem clear to me. Perhaps if I had spent more time on each perspective, this wouldn’t have mattered, but I also really wanted to work out just what happened.
On the other hand, the emotional power of this book is not to be missed. Anita Shreve carefully gathers in all the threads of her tale and brings it to a startling climax that you don’t expect until only a page or two before it happens; looking back, however, you can see how the rest of the day’s events led to it. It feels carefully crafted to evoke this particular outcome and to minutely examine how everyone felt about the tape.
In the end, I’d call this a very good book. It has compelling characters, a riveting plotline, and terrific attention to detail. The rotating viewpoints are a minor problem, but one that I could get past to enjoy the book. And I’m now compelled to add Anita Shreve to my “authors whose work I should read” list. Check this book out on Amazon. It’s released today!
Finally, many thanks to Miriam Parker at Hachette for sending me this review copy!
When Mike Borden, the headmaster of a prestigious private school in Vermont, is handed a tape by his secretary, he isn’t sure what to expect. He certainly doesn’t expect to see two highly respected students and a third post-graduate student engaging in sexual intercourse with a 14 year old girl, but that’s precisely what he does see. The last thing he anticipates is the explosive effect that this single tape – that this single evening – will have on so many lives, both in and out of the small town in which the private school is located.
It’s released today!
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