100 Books in 2010: 17

Posted by Adrienne on February 28, 2010 under Books | Be the First to Comment

February is over, and I “only” read 7 books – well, February is the shortest month, so I think that’s understandable. What matters is that I enjoyed the books, right? And for the most part, I did. Here are some more reviews!

The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson

My rating: 2 of 5 stars
In 2021, a gigantic memorial appears out of nowhere in the middle of Thailand. The text on the memorial refers to a great battle fought there and a victorious general “Kuin” and gives a date: December 21, 2041 – 20 years in the future. How did the memorial get there? Who is this Kuin? Can he really send objects through time?

Robert Charles Wilson’s The Chronoliths is a dystopian fiction with elements of time travel (heavily) thrown in. It’s a fascinating premise, and the picture Wilson paints of the future is an interesting one, full of new, plausible technologies and terrible environmental disasters. Wilson’s characters, particularly Scotty Warden, the protagonist, didn’t catch my attention as much as the setting and premise did. Wilson handled the science of the book fairly well, but the characters, not so much. However, this story would probably make an excellent movie.

One note: the book was published in 2001. In the post-9/11 world, this story would probably be told differently. It was just obvious enough for me to look for the copyright date part-way through the third chapter.

 

The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
It’s always hard to write a review for a book that is a sequel; I don’t want to give anything away about the first book, and that leaves me with little to write about regarding the sequel.

That said, Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy continues bringing the fast-paced action, mysterious happenings, and Allomancy (metal magic) with a few new exotic creatures thrown in. The Well of Ascension picks up about a year after the events of Mistborn and continues to follow the life of Vin, a street girl who found she had strong Allomantic powers (and the protagonist of the first book). Sanderson gives the reader more information about Allomancy in the form of some discoveries Vin makes, but these are all consistent with the rules he laid down in the first book. Many of Vin’s friends show up in the book as well, including one of my favorites, Sazed the scholar. He gets a bit more time to shine in The Well of Ascension which was nice.

Like book one, I found that this volume was tough to put down; I stayed up too late on several occasions to read it, as the tension mounted and events flew thick and fast. I didn’t enjoy this book quite as much, but that’s generally the case for sequels. And it didn’t keep me from wanting to read book three, which I will definitely be starting soon – I want to know what happens to Vin, Sazed and all their friends!

View all my reviews >>