loopyker's #CBR7 Review #04: The Martian by Andy Weir

I can't believe it has taken me a month to get to writing this review.  I was telling everyone about it when I finished it, but just didn't get it written down.  I had managed not to hear much about this book beforehand.  I can't even remember where it was recommended so that I put it on my library hold list...and then waited months for it to come up since it was so popular.

I will start with what a lot of other people say because it is so obvious - this feels a lot like the movie Apollo 13, but with one person.  Some people say it is like Cast Away, but it doesn't have that crazy edge.  While reading it, I kept thinking that it would make a good movie and when I looked, they were in fact already making the movie. It is scheduled to be out in November 2015.

The "Martian" is astronaut, Mark Watney, from Earth who accidentally gets abandoned on Mars after a failed mission.  A little food and a lot of equipment is left there with him.  But can he figure out how to survive all alone for the years it will take until the next mission arrives?

It moves from one problem-solving, crisis moment to the next.  I did not want to put this book down!  I also don't want to write spoilers.  I really didn't know what was going to happen from one minute to the next.

loopyker’s #CBR4 Review #22: War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

I'm sure I'm not the only one whose only previous experience with H.G. Wells was the 2005 War of the Worlds movie  starring Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning and the character on Warehouse 13 .  While the movie was entertaining, it had the usual Hollywood dramatic scenes with the hero fighting to protect their family, where everything is frantic and full special effects.

With that in mind, I found the audiobook refreshing.  It has a much slower start than the movie.  The aliens don't just pop up out of the ground.  Strange objects, apparently from Mars, land on the earth and are later reveled to contain aliens - Martians.  We don't know at first if they are friendly or malicious.  They construct their tripod killing machines while people watch and wonder.

When the machines are operable, their destruction of humanity and civilization begins.  Of course, this is a time before cars, so people are fleeing by foot and horse and buggy and they don't have access to instant news or telephones like we do which makes for even more confusion.  Everyone is on their own.

One of the best parts is that the main character has no children and is not looking after any children.  I found this a nice surprise after so many of today's movies are made to manipulate our heart strings by making it all about the children.  Instead, the man has a wife, who he gets separated from in the early stages and spends most of the book not knowing if she is dead or alive.  The story is about his survival and the random people he encounters and how everyone is dealing with this stress of attack and survival differently.

I am very glad to have finally heard the original.  There is a reason why there are many adaptations of The War of the Worlds - it is just fundamentally a good and compelling story.  Some things are understandably dated, with the idea of "Martians" probably the most jarring to today's readers.  But other elements from its time period make it even better.  The 2005 movie gave us a very good visualization of how horrible the alien machines were which heightens the contrast between the alien technology and the simpler human resources.   When people are fleeing by horses, it makes their plight even more staggering than those experienced in the movie version.

I forget what the "enhanced" part of the audiobook was.  I assume there was music or sound effects at some point, but I can't remember if I felt they added or detracted from the story.  I just remember that I very much enjoyed the audiobook and story overall. 

The War of the Worlds [ENHANCED] Audiobook
Author:  H. G. Wells
Narrator: Simon Vance
Duration: 5 hours, 56 minutes
ISBN: 9781400192847
Release date: Jun 30, 2009  (original printed publishing 1898)

loopyker's #CBR4 Review #15-#18: His Dark Materials, Books 1-4 by Philip Pullman

I really wish I had gotten to this review when His Dark Materials was fresh in my mind, but some major things happened in my life right then so here it goes almost a year later!   I can't really separate the books well in my head now, so the review will be very general.  

I had reviewed The Lighthouse Land by Adrian McKinty shortly before listening to The Golden Compass, which was also my introduction to Philip Pullman  .  I take back what I said about wanting to continue The Lighhouse Trilogy.  The Golden Compass reminded me what a really good book was!  There is no comparison and I will not waste my time listening to the rest of The Lighthouse Trilogy.  Since then I've listened to several Philip Pullman audiobooks and have enjoyed every one. 

His Dark Materials is about a young girl named Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon or "Pan" for short.  Pan acts like a pet, but you will learn in the book that it is much more than that.


In the The Golden Compass (note: in some countries it is titled Northern Lights), Lyra and Pan overhear some dark plans that begin them on a journey to discover the truth behind the disappearance of children throughout the land. Of course, there are many dangers for herself and others along the way.   With a heartbreaking, cliffhanger ending, I immediately went on to the next book.



The Subtle Knife follows Lyra and Pan as they travel to another world with a new friend, Will.  Here it is the adults who are in danger from forces that can attack at puberty.  Lyra and Will are all too close in age to that for comfort.  They find a tool that helps them travel through worlds to continue the quest to find the truth about the missing children and the dark things happening in multiple worlds.  Again I wanted to continue immediately to the next book which is the conclusion of the trilogy.


Lyra and Will's adventure continues with The Amber Spyglass.  They are learning a lot about life and love with all they've had to go through.  There is a war with the Kingdom of Heaven and they still have to find the the final pieces to the puzzle.   The conclusion is satisfying, but heartbreaking.   I was very emotional at this point in my own life, so I cried a whole lot with this. 

Overall, His Dark Materials is so good because it treats its readers like intelligent and curious individuals.  It doesn't dumb things down like so many things do nowadays for readers - and not just for children.  Philip Pullman questions authority and organized religion and the corruptions of power.  He wants his characters and readers to have a critical mind and to find the truth behind appearances.  His characters also learn a lot about the different kinds of love and sacrifice for the greater good.  I didn't really agree with the jealous love shown by the witches - I don't think we are supposed to, but it is still called "love" in the series, which is what I question.  But the themes of the other types: self-love, friendship and romantic love are more important and treated well.  And all of this is portrayed through unique worlds and characters.

I was very sorry for the Trilogy to end.  I wanted to hear more about the characters.  I looked forward to Lyra's Oxford, but it is only a short story about an adventure Lyra has two years after the end of The Amber Spyglass and didn't offer much.

The first three books are now amongst my favourite fantasy books.   I will certainly be rereading them and adding them to my permanent library.  The audiobooks were very well done with a terrific cast of narrators.   One of the best I've heard.

The series is recommended for ages 12 and up.  Each book has received several awards in both the print and audio versions.

His Dark Materials
Author: Philip Pullman
Narrated by Philip Pullman and a full cast
Publisher:  Listening Library

Book 1:  The Golden Compass
Duration: 10 hours, 33 minutes
ISBN: 9780739345122
Release date: Jun 27, 2006

Book 2:The Subtle Knife
Duration:  8 hours, 55 minutes
ISBN:      9780739350355
Release date: Aug 15, 2006

Book 3:The Amber Spyglass
Duration: 14 hours, 53 minutes
ISBN: 9780739345054
Release date: Jun 27, 2006

Book 4: Lyra's Oxford
Duration: 48 minutes
ISBN: 9780739353288
Release date: Oct 31, 2006

loopyker's #CBR4 Review #11: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I had this review ready to publish last week, but after the recent tragic news about the Newtown shootings in the US I took some time to rethink it.  I don't think that event changes my feelings about about my review below.  I feel that despite the violence in the book, The Hunger Games is more relevant to our current-day reality TV and our culture of competition and voyeurism than to school shootings or violence against children specifically.  But the media attention around such events has haunting similarities. 

- - -

I finally got on the bandwagon and had my first experience with The Hunger Games. I listened to Book 1 as an audiobook. Prior to that I had managed to avoid most of the hype. I didn't want to ruin it for myself if I ever did read the book or watch the movie. I hadn't heard of the book until the movie came out, but several friends had, and loved both the books and the movie, so I was curious but the general description of children having to fight to the death just created Lord of the Flies flashbacks, so I wasn't seriously interested. I absolutely hated Lord of the Flies reading it in class in early high school. I reread it once later to see if I had a different opinion as an adult. I didn't. 

I'm very happy to say that The Hunger Games was a completely different experience. I'm not sure if it was because the viewpoint for The Hunger Games was a girl vs the boys in The Lord of the Flies, or maybe it was because there was a much better back story for the characters leading up to the fighting so that you cared about them a lot more. I have no intention of re-reading The Lord of the Flies for a more direct comparison. Although, now that I'm thinking about it, I think that what stuck with me in The Lord of the Flies was the cruelness of the children, whereas in The Hunger Games is it is the compassionate moments that stay with you afterwards. I much prefer the latter. 

The Hunger Games is told from the point of view of a 17 year old girl, Katnis. She has been the head of her family since her father died when she was 11 years old and her mother went into a depression. They live in a poor, post-apocalyptic North American, coal mining community called District 12. Districts 1 thru 12 each specialize in a different industry and are controlled by The Capitol, mainly through keeping them in extreme poverty. 

As punishment for a rebellion by the Districts many years before, each year a boy and a girl from each District are chosen as Tributes to fight each other to the death. The victor earns much needed food and fuel for their own District for the following year. This is all great entertainment for the sadistic Capitol and its inhabitants, but understandably a source of terror each year for many in the Districts. 

The Hunger Games does a good job of contrasting these two viewpoints. I really felt for Katnis as she tries to understand this and navigate through all the Game preparations surrounded by excited Capitol helpers. I liked that they weren't just thrown into the fighting right away. It was much more subtly horrible to see the parallels of our own reality TV turned into this terrible form of entertainment with the superficial fashion shows and interviews actually becoming potentially life-saving events if they encouraged the audience to sponsor a Tribute with aid during the Games. 

Katnis is a very likeable character and I enjoyed learning about her life. She had already lost much of her childhood and continues to grow up more through this terrible experience. She constantly reminds us about how horrible the situation is without being whiny or preachy - she just reacts with her gut much of the time. She is strong and intelligent and admirable. I cried at a couple of points in the book - balling freely at one point. An audiobook makes that much easier, since the story continues even when your eyes are blurry with tears. 

However, this book is about children being forced to kill children, so you do have to be in mindset to be able to handle that. But, I didn't feel like the violence was really gratuitous or glorified. The ending was satisfying, but certainly left me wanting to go right on to the next audiobook in the series...although, I have to now wait for 62 people ahead of me on the online library waiting list to get through it first. 

I wrote the above right after finishing the audiobook.  I am now eleventh on the waiting list, so that is some idea of how long ago I listened to this.  I can't now recall anything about the audiobook quality, so I must have enjoyed the narrator.  In my opinion the best ones are the ones you don't really notice - it just feels natural to be listening to it.

The Hunger Games (Book 1) by Suzanne Collins  

Reading level: Ages 12 and up 

Audiobook : 

Narrator Carolyn McCormick 

Publisher: Scholastic Audio (Mar 01, 2011) 

Duration: 8 hours, 24 minutes 

ISBN: 9781445834207 

Hardcover: 384 pages (also available in paperback and ebook versions) 

Publisher: Scholastic Press (Oct 1, 2008) 

ISBN-10: 0439023483 

ISBN-13: 978-0439023481

loopyker's #CBR4 Review #05: The Lighthouse Land by Adrian McKinty

The Lighthouse Land introduces us to a 13 year old boy in New York City, who has survived cancer via an arm amputation which has left him mute from the shock.  His life changes for the better after he and his mother inherit their own small island and home off of the coast of Ireland.   There he becomes friends with a boy-genius his own age and they discover a portal to another world.  After becoming friends with a girl on the alien planet, they help to fight the pirate-type race who are attacking her people.

Again, I chose to listen to the audiobook version for this review.  At the beginning of The Lighthouse Land, I did not like the use of the future tense "you will".  Maybe it was a little more confusing hearing it, rather than reading it, since it is unexpected.   Fortunately, this does not continue for very long, and I stopped myself from giving up on it too soon. 

I also thought that the narrator, Gerard Doyle, sounded amateurish, by tending to end his sentences on a high note.  I was shocked to discover that he has won numerous narrating awards, including Best Voice in Young Adult Fiction in 2008.  So, I'm very curious now to listen to something else he has narrated to compare.  I did feel that his voice was better suited to the characters later in the book, rather than the ones in the New York setting.  I'm not sure if this was the writing or his voice, but Gerard was almost certainly chosen as narrator because of the Irish setting after New York.

Overall, I thought this was just an OK book.  It was certainly not one of my favourite science fiction/fantasy books.  I didn't find the plot very original and the boys at times seem very young and other times overly mature for  their age, making it seem very inconsistent and forced.  I have not read McKinty's adult books, although I understand, they have a lot of graphic violence (so I probably won't be listening to them).  My guess is that he does not translate his skills as well to Young Adult as authors such as Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman do.  Both of them masterfully translate their dark sides to be suitable for younger readers without over-simplifying and feeling unnatural.

However, this wasn't a completely terrible book either.  After having invested the time in getting to know the boys a bit, I did like it enough to want to continue to the next book to see what happens to them.  But I'm not in a rush to do that and have already both listened to and read books since this one, so I better get to those reviews soon too!  :)

The Lighthouse Land
The Lighthouse Trilogy, Book 1
Author: Adrian McKinty

Audiobook version
Narrator: Gerard Doyle
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Duration: 9 hours, 59 minutes (unabridged)
ISBN-13: 978-1441771537
Release date:  January 4, 2011

Hardcover Version
Pages: 372
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (October 1, 2006)
ISBN-13: 978-0810954809