Llamafodder

I enjoyed this one– and it vanished quickly. It’s much less… repulsively brutal than The Windup Girl was. Nailer is a great lead character; his relationships, good and bad, are great to empathize with. His luck, his relationship with Pima and later with “lucky girl” and his wife– they all work, and feel natural. His connection to lucky girl makes sense and follows only because of his other luck.

The world is familiar; the ship breaking experience is all too similar to news articles about modern day work going on in India today. The world is well built– it’s the same future as in The Windup Girl, a post oil collapse and runaway greenhouse gas disaster. The way the wealthy skim above the changes and continue to run everything runs all too true. I bought the boardroom/ship maneuvers too– politics, greed, and piracy all trudge along into the future.

After this one, I’m really looking forward to tracking down more books by Paolo Bacigalupi.

The last book– while it started off as I expected, the whole Rosenesme plot was entirely unexpected.

Bella gets her way, and thrives in the life she chose– it’s a good match for her. Her transition is impressive, and her superpowers are exactly what’s needed, just as the plot demands. Her relationship with Edward is handled well; enough is left to the imagination that it never feels gratuitous.

The looming threat of the Voluturi, the negotiations with the witnesses, and the final confrontation all deliver. It’s a clear end– a solid path to a new life, a new calm, and a new era for Bella.

An interesting direction to take it. I wanted to read it before the movie; it looks like it’ll adapt much better than the more internal story of New Moon.

A very fast read; I catapulted right through it and into Breaking Dawn.

Proofreading has slowed down my other reading, but we’re getting close– soon I’ll clutch it in hands. My precious…

An interesting sequel; turns the emo to 11. Bella’s heartbreak is well presented– it’s impossible to go three pages without a reminder of her pain and abandonment, even when she’s currently fighting off the loneliness.

I dread imagining how this one will be handled in a movie; so much of the motivation and struggle is internal even Edward’s voice and her quest for danger to provoke it. The book does a good job of showing how grinding depression and abandonment are…

The Voluturi and wolves are interesting– similar to White Wolf’s takes on their analogs, but the differences are significant enough to keep it from being a clone. I’m curious about the next book and hope to read it before I see the matching movie.

Well written and fast paced. I had no problem with the characters, since I saw the movie first– no conflict possible.

The story is straightforward, and while Bella is often overwrought, it feels authentic to her. Similarly, her immediate comfort with vampires comes across as reasonable. I liked it and noticed that the movie was a very faithful adaptation.

A fun book with an interesting cast of characters. John deBrun is the clear star of the book– many of the other chapters provide a little more context, but only Dihana, Haidan, and Oaxyctl have great POV chapters. Dihana and Haidan’s work is a nice parallel story, the city background to John’s travel story, and Oaxyctl’s chapters gives a good attacker’s perspective.

The world and technology are an interesting blend; an isolated colony with a collapsed industrial base, just now trying to recapture technology. It’s almost a steampunk level of tech (trains and airships), but it doesn’t have a steampunk feel.

The Aztecs are twisted, largely by their worship of their alien “gods”. The aliens, both loa and aztec, are strange and it’s clear that they’re an isolated part of a larger societies.

In the end, it doesn’t look like a sequel is planned. It was fun, and well written, but I’m not convinced that his books leap to the top of my list.