BOOKWORM

Spring Break Reading 2007

Okay, so Spring Break is here and that means another round of Vacation Reading. Being that Spring Break is only a week, I’m actually attempting to read some pure entertainment for once. Brief bits on my two reads follow:

Rage of a Demon King, by Raymond E. Feist
Back in my junior high and early highschool days I used to love reading Raymond E. Feist’s fantasy novels. One might say this was because I hadn’t yet developed any literary taste, but at the time I found the books endlessly entertaining. I had finished all the Riftwar books, as well as the intermediary books before the Serpent War saga, but once I began Rise of a Merchant Prince I found myself slogging through endless amounts of tedium. Being a fan, I figured that Prince must have been a fluke. In 1998 I started Rage of a Demon King. Today, I’m still working on finishing it. The story certainly has its good points. I mean, it’s nice to see magicians Pug and Macross back in action, and there’s quite a few surprises and harrowing situations to be found. It’s just that there’s so….much….filler. Every situation is absolutely dire. Every character speaks in soliloquy. Things are explained again and again, ad nauseum.Seriously, I don’t know how many times Feist has told me that “even though Luis only had use of one arm, he was skilled with a dagger.” Each time I pick up the book and try to complete it I only make it another thirty to fifty pages before throwing it down in disgust. With a competent editor Feist’s doorstop could be trimmed by a good 300 pages. Gah. Terrible terrible stuff, but I am resolved to see it through. Wish me luck.

Update January 2008 So I actually finished Rage of a Demon Kingover the Christmas break. And you know what? It actually became really good in the final 100 pages. This may have been due to the absence of Rupert Avery and his boring business storyline, but the story really really picked up. Conflicts with demons, magicians, more main characters being offed, more battles raging. It was all very exciting, and enough to get me started on Shards of a Broken Crown. Here’s hoping the return to quality continues.

Nephilim: Genesis of Evil, by Renee Pawlish
This was a reader recommendation, and it’s actually turning out surprisingly good. Nephilim is a sort of twist on the vampire novel, a sort of supernatural detective novel set in a lakeside Colorado town, focusing on an ancient evil described in Genesis. Now, admittedly this premise seems to scream “Christian Lit,” but from what I’ve read so far I would be more pressed to associate it with the works of Stephen King (Bag of Bones, in particular) than lump it with the Left Behind books and all that jazz. Pawlish’s writing is apt and efficient, keeping the story moving along steadily and swiftly. Characters are well realized, and the evil presence sufficiently creepy. Furthermore, having lived in Colorado for a few years, it’s nice to see some of the towns I’m familiar with referenced in the book. I’ll be sure to write a full review once I finish, but so far it’s getting a thumbs up.

-Chris