Series: The Reckoners
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Release Date: September 24, 2013
Book Number: #1
A little while ago, I joined a book cub at a library in my state. The first published book I read when I joined the group was a book called "Red Queen". This book was going to be the first part in a book trilogy. Naturally, this meant that a lot of world building would be included. However, I was less than satisfied with this book which I'll expand upon later. After the book club finished reading Red Queen, we voted for what book we wanted to read next. Since the theme of the library's summer reading program was superheroes, most of the book choices were superhero based. Which brings us to the reading of Steelheart. After finishing this book yesterday, how does the book fare? Does it beat up the bad guys or is it the the one getting beat up? Well, let's check out the story.
Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary people extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics. Epics are no friends of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man, you must crush his will. Now, in what was once Chicago, an astonishingly powerful Epic named Steelheart has installed himself as emperor. Steelheart possesses the strength of ten men and can control the elements. It is said that no bullet can harm him, no sword can split his skin, and no fire can burn him. He is invincible. Nobody fights back . . . nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, the Reckoners spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them. And David wants in.
When Steelheart came to Chicago, he killed David’s father. For years, like the Reckoners, David has been studying, and planning, and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.
He has seen Steelheart bleed and he wants revenge.
One thing about this book that surprised me was the pacing. From what I understand, world building books or the first book in a series tends to have an excruciatingly tedious pace. This is especially true for Red Queen because nothing really happens outside of the world building until you get to the second part of the book. Because of this, I became frustrated and put the book down to go do something else. With Steelheart, I never got that feeling! For a series starter, the pacing is pretty good for the most part. While there is world building going on, the book balances it out with plenty of action, character development, and suspense. The book also gave me a pretty good idea of what this world is like without the descriptions of the world overstaying their welcome. Which leads me to my next point.
Another thing I liked about the book was the world itself. In this book, the city of Newcago is described as a place of doom and gloom, where its emperor, Steelheart, rules the city with his powers that make most of the population cower in fear. It's also a place where the people with powers reign supreme while normal people are little more than slaves. What makes the world interesting is that it provides plenty of details about this world, which allows the reader to easily imagine what it would look like if it were adapted into a visual medium. Newcago seems to have a dangerously unpredictable atmosphere to it. The streets seem rather dark and quiet but you still need to be alert as you never know when you'll encounter a epic that may try and hurt you. The world also pays homage to comics like Batman and Dick Tracy without seeming like a complete rehash. Not only that, but it seems pretty expansive and made me want to just walk around and see what else it had to offer, much like an overworld in a video game.
The other thing I enjoyed about this book was the characters. While the characters were pretty basic and a bit cliché, especially the main character, they were still pretty engaging and likable, including Abraham and the Professor. I really enjoy how they all work off of each other and I love how they each have a distinct personality that makes them stand out. Each character seems to have a bit of a back story that makes the reader identify with them and want to learn more about them. There also seems like there's a sense of comradeship with these characters as they do their best to help each other out, even in the biggest of battles.
If I did have one issue with the book, I'd say that the ending fight with Steelheart, Nightweilder, and Firefight goes on for for a bit too long, spanning over 5 or so chapters, but to its credit, it does lead to a very satisfying and surprising conclusion.
On the whole, Steelheart is one of those books I enjoyed reading from beginning to end. Is it something that I'd read over and over again? No. But at the same time, I'm glad I read it because there's a lot to like about this book. Now would I recommend this book to you? Well it depends on what you're looking for. If you want a book that breaks new ground and really pushes the envelope, you might want to look elsewhere. However, if you're looking for a fun, entertaining, and straightforward superhero story, you'll get your fill.
Overall Grade: B
Series: Goosebumps
Author: R.L Stine
Release Date: September 1996 (Couldn't find the exact release day)
Book Number: # 47
Goosebumps! Now we're talking! This is the horror anthology series I remember growing up! When I was a kid, these books were awesome! It seemed to have every single type of monster you could possibly imagine. It had vampires, mummies, werewolves, blobs, swamp creatures, ghosts, evil gnomes, Jello... Monsters (Yeah that existed. Look at The Horror at Camp Jellyjam if you don't believe me). The only types of monsters I don't recall getting any representation from R.L Stine (the guy who is also responsible for the Fear Street series and The Haunting Hour which actually has a good TV series by the way) were Cyclops', Golems, and I think Grim Reapers. But when I looked at the series today, I started to notice something. While this series does have its "Stud" entries such as: Werewolf Skin, The Headless Ghost, The Haunted Mask, The Haunted School, and so on, There doesn't seem to be a shortage of mediocre, bad, and just down right god awful entries as well. In the words of Stop motion Shamaylan: "What a Twist!".The most well known blunder in the Goosebumps series seems to be #57 Chicken Chicken due to massive amounts of body horror, unlikable characters outside the main characters, undeserved and excessive child abuse (Which is usually a big pet peeve of mine). Not to mention the infamous ending in which the main characters write an apology letter in order to return to human form after being transformed into chicks.
Now while I also disliked the ending, here's the thing. This book at least TRIES to scare you with gory details about being gradually transformed into chickens. Is Chicken Chicken the best entry in the Goosebumps series? Hell no! But after going through my Goosebumps book collection (originally my brother's) I managed to find a book that's actually WORSE than Chicken Chicken... I'm going to repeat that again... This book is WORSE than Chicken Chicken! Now I hear you ask " Azu, what book are YOU talking about?" Well the book I'm referring to is none other than entry #47: Legend of The Lost Legend.
OK, this book does have ONE thing I actually like. And that is none other than the concept. Basically this book is about an author who travels to a far away country called Brovania with his two kids, Justin and Marrissa, in order to find a legend that has been lost for over 500 years. Not only will Justin's dad become famous for finding the lost legend, but he'll also get a lot of money from the discovery. The funny thing is, with a little bit of retooling, this book could've been awesome. In fact this concept makes for such a good horror story that I think someone should use it in a silent film about a female film collector going to find the Russian Dracula film that is said to be the first Dracula film ever made. So what are the problems with this book exactly?
Well let's start with the fact that its BORING! I mean the first part of the book when the father is telling a story about them in Antarctica looking for a blue sea lion was cool, but after that, almost nothing of interest happens. And keep in mind this is the same book that has Giant Cats, Wind up Viking Girls, Plastic forests, and Eggs! EGGS! Seriously, how do you make EGGS boring?! Shame on you Stine! But here's the thing, after the blue sea lion part, I would've stopped reading the book if not for the concept. You see, when I do these book reviews, I try to give the books I read a chance (As in I read them all the way through before doing the review) no matter how good or bad they may seem. However, as I was reading this book, I gradually lost interest as the story progressed and at times, I nearly fell asleep. And I was reading this book during the day! When someone goes to read a book of a genre that is SUPPOSED to trigger a specific emotion (i.e Comedy books trigger laughter, Drama books trigger sadness, etc) you expect that a book of that genre to at least TRY and trigger that emotion, especially when it comes to horror. But with this book, you don't get ANY of that. Oh and keep this in mind, its not like R.L Stine isn't capable of attempting scares in this series. If you look at books like Welcome to Dead House, The Haunted Mask and even I Live In Your Basement (though the story can be a bit difficult to follow at times). You know Stine, just because a book has an interesting concept, doesn't fully excuse you from doing nothing interesting with it. Which brings me to my next point.
The ending. Wow! Talk about a pathetic ending! Seriously, out of all of the Goosebumps books I've read, this has to be the most rushed, lazy, and overall tacked on endings I have read thus far. For those of you who haven't read the book, I'll explain. At the end of the book, the main characters find out that they have gotten the wrong prize for winning the challenge. Instead of getting The Lost Legend, they get The Egg of Truth. Justin informs Luka of this mistake and Luka tells Justin that The Lost Legend is in the hands of another party who Luka says won't be very happy to get rid of it. When the main characters find the people holding the Lost Legend, they give it to the main characters right away in a chest. When the main characters open up the chest, they find the Lost Legend and become ecstatic over the find. However, they become "Lost" in the forest due to the Lost Legend stating "Whoever Owns the Lost Legend Will Be Lost Forever." Ugh! When I read this I was disappointed. OK I will admit that some people MAY find it a little funny in terms of the irony and the context to back it up, but even then the punchline didn't really deliver for me. What do I mean by this? Well when you have a book that is unexciting 95% of the time, you expect the book to have a somewhat satisfying ending and I'm sorry, this just didn't do it for me. The only thing I found satisfying about the ending was that I was just glad to get the book done and over with!
Another problem I have with this book is that the characters, especially the main leads, are not very interesting. Granted we do spend a lot of time with them as the book progresses but Stine never really takes the time to establish their personalities. The only characters that actually got the most development are the father (whom isn't present through out most of the book except the beginning and ending) who is a storyteller, adventurer, and a heavy sleeper. And also, there's Luka (who only appears at the cabin the kids come across and when the kids complete a challenge) who is a mechanics genius, woodsman, and actor. OK, so what do we know about the main leads though? Well they like to tell stories and uh... Um... Err... That's basically it. It seems like the only time the kids are given any source of personality is in the story the father was telling at the beginning of the book, with Marrisa being whiny and Justin being adventurous. But even then, those personality traits are not permanent throughout the book so that really doesn't give us a whole lot for us to cling on to the main characters. I think if the main characters were given more development (i.e having great improv skills from their love of storytelling and later using said skills to beat the challenge later on) then the book may have been somewhat salvageable. I think if it were to go the route of "The Blob" starring Steve McQueen, where the film didn't have a whole lot of scares but had interesting and loveable characters, then I would've at least understood where Stine was coming from.
Overall, this is by far the WEAKEST entry in the Goosebumps series. In fact, after this book, I guess my brother stopped collecting Goosebumps books because this is the most recent book in the collection I own. (I have 24 Goosebumps books in the collection by the way). This book goes to show that concepts alone will not automatically make a book, movie, or TV show good. Now I'm not saying that you can't implement an interesting idea into any of these mediums but in order to do it right, you have to put in a great deal of thought, effort, and passion into the execution of the idea as you did the idea. You have to make sure that the story isn't boring and padded out. You have to make sure that your characters are interesting, likable, and identifiable. And most importantly, you need to take your time with executing the idea. A wise person once said "Nothing is sadder than wasted potential."
Series: Fear Street
Author: R.L Stine
Release Date: 3/1/1994
Book Number: 22
Ah yes, the Fear Street series. While I don't remember reading this particular book series when I was a little girl (I was more of a Goosebumps fan anyway) I did decide to check out a few books from this series and from what I've read, it's not that bad of a series. Basically, its a horror series like Goosebumps but it doesn't have as many monsters in it and it's geared towards an older audience (Mostly teens and maybe some adults). I did enjoy a few titles from this series. These include The Betrayal, Haunted, and The Burning. However like pretty much every book series, its going to have a dud. Unfortunately, Bad Dreams is one of those duds. Why do I consider this book to be a dud? Well let's take a look at the plot first. Our protagonist of this story is 17 year old Maggie Travers who lives with her 16 year old sister Andrea, her mother, and her dog Gus. Due to the fact that Maggie's father has passed away, they can no longer live in their upscale home in North Hills, a.k.a the rich part of Shadyside. Because of this, they are moving to a new home on Fear Street. When the family moves into their new home, Maggie discovers a canopy bed in her bedroom that, little does she know, induces horrible nightmares. Maggie decides to sleep in it and she ends up having a nightmare about a murder. To make things worse, this nightmare happens every time Maggie sleeps in the bed.
Alright, I'm just going to get into why I consider this book a dud. I hate the interactions between Maggie and Andrea! Look, I don't mind a little bit of sibling rivalry every once in awhile. But it seems that 95% of their dialogue consists of nothing but bothersome bickering. At first, it may not seem so bad but after awhile, its starts to REALLY get on my nerves. Basically, most of their dialogue can be summed up like this: " Ugh Maggie! You're such a face cuz you think you're SO much better than me!" "Well Andrea... You're a poopyhead AND a meanie pants you plerd! And also... No you!" Oh and Guess what? There's even a line in the book that points out this problem: "Right after she had dumped the cereal, Maggie felt ashamed. Her dad's face turned bright red. "I am so fed up with this bickering!" Yeah did i also forget to mention that when the Travers move to their new home, Maggie and Andrea sign up for the Swim team at their new school? Because this is going to be important for this point and especially my next point. So anyway, the swim team then holds a qualifying race for a prestigious swim meet. Maggie, Andrea, and a few other teammates compete in the race and Maggie wins the race, so therefore she can compete in the meet. Oh and guess how Andrea handles the fact that she lost? That's right! She turns into a ninja turtle and beats the hell out of an evil cheese grater while shouting out surfer lingo. I wish! Instead, we get this: "Andrea stabbed the air with her forefinger to stress her point. "I don't need tricks to beat you. Because I can swim faster and better than you. How do you like that?" Yeah there's a few times in the book where Andrea says something like this.
Speaking of Andrea, that's another thing I hate about this book! Basically she's one of those characters that makes you want to reach through the pages and give her a nice big SMACK! But here's the interesting thing. There is a way to do jerky characters right. You see you can have these types of characters do things such as scamming kids out of their money or even trying to hunt and harm an innocent creature. However, by doing something to that extent, they must either fail to achieve their goal throughout the book or if they do succeed in their endeavor, they must get their comeuppance one way or another. So does Andrea meet the criteria for "The Likable Jerk?" Well, from what I've read, she didn't fail to verbally abuse her sister because Maggie tries to get Andrea to listen to what she has to say and Andrea of course refuses to hear what she has to say by constantly cutting her off and putting words in her mouth as shown by this part here: " "No, but you could ease up a little. Not push yourself quite so hard," Andrea suggested. Maggie laughed scornfully. "Right. Take it easy. So you can swim the two hundred IM instead of me, right?" Instantly, Andrea's eyes became dark with anger. Uh-oh, Maggie thought. What did I say? "You really are disgusting!" Andrea cried, shaking her head bitterly. "No matter what I do, you always think the worst of me, don't you?" "Andrea, what are you talking about? I--" "You think I said that because I want to beat you in swimming? You think this was all some kind of trick?" "No, Andrea, I was just jok--" "Believe me, Maggie, swimming isn't all I think about. Get a life!" "I didn't say you did, I just--" So if she's succeeding in her verbal abuse endeavor, she'll get her comeuppance right? Well unfortunately, she does not. Yeah you heard me right! Throughout the course of this book, Andrea constantly abuses her sister verbally and yet, in the end, she comes out unscathed while Maggie is probably traumatized severely by not only the constant nightmares she had, but by the constant verbal abuse as well... Yeah I know I should dislike some of the other characters in this, like Maggie's boyfriend Justin for example who's basically there to be the token dude and nothing much else, but I'm sorry I really can't. You see compared to Andrea, he is an enjoyable character. You know, at least in Cyberbu//y, while Lindsay did verbally abuse Taylor, she at least got her comeuppance at the end of the film despite how unfittingly happy the ending was. Yeah... I just defended Cyberbu//y... Ugh!
If you thought constant bickering and an extremely unlikable character was enough for me to consider this book to be a dud, think again. Yeah believe it or not, there is actually another reason why this book is a dud. This reason is none other than the fact that there's WAY too much padding in this book. Look, if a dream is going to hop around every once in awhile, that's fine. However, in this book, whenever we are not in Maggie's dream, it feels like an eternity before we finally go back into the dream. But then, when we do enter back into the dream 9 times/10, they go by very quickly. Because of this, I feel like Stine was more interested in Maggie's home and school life rather than the dream itself. Personally, I don't get why he chose to do that. I mean in not like anything is really happening in Maggie's personal life that would warrant much interest or an in depth look at it for that matter. For god's sakes, there is LITERALLY a chapter in this book in which Maggie goes on a field trip to the local caverns, sits in a cavern, talks to Justin and then leaves the cavern to go on the bus. Now while Maggie does bring up the dream in the parts where we focus on Maggie's personal life, even then its not much of an excuse to excessively pad out these parts of the chapters. This also escalates the other problems I mentioned earlier because the longer I have to put up with those issues, the worse the book is going to get. Its basically like eating really spicy food. The more you eat, the more your mouth is going to feel like its on fire and the more your mouth is going to hurt.
So those were my thoughts on Fear Street's "Bad Dreams". Now in all fairness, is this the worst book I've read thus far? Well while it did come close, I wouldn't consider it to be the WORST book I've EVER read. However, if we're strictly going by R.L Stine books, then yes I would consider this to be the worst R.L Stine book I've read thus far. However, I felt like this book could've been better if Stine were to focus on the dream a lot more or if Stine is going to focus more on Maggie's personal life, he needs to make it interesting for the reader. Or here's another thing that Mr.Stine can do: What if this book took place ENTIRELY in someone's dream rather than breaking the dream up into segments? I don't know about you guys, but to me that seems like an interesting idea for a horror novel.
