be the story

Night Echoes by Holly Lisle Book Review

I just read Holly Lisle’s novel Night Echoes. I put up a quick video review of the book, which is below. (Read more…)

The Speed of Dark (Review)

I recently finished The Speed of Dark, by Elizabeth Moon. This is a futuristic science fiction story with a twist I like: a sympathetic character who is nothing like me.

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Spotlight: Holly Lisle’s Website

Do you love good writing? Do you want to learn to write? Check out fantasy author Holly Lisle’s website.

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Inexcusable (Review)

Beautiful does not mean wishy-washy.

Today, I’m posting a rant. I don’t usually rant, but this is a story rant. And I’m fired up enough that I can’t concentrate on anything else until I get this out of my system.

On the adbooks list, we’re discussing Chris Lynch’s novel Inexcusable. It’s a literary novel, with one feature that literary novels are allowed to have: You can’t figure out what it means.

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Spotlight: A Certain Slant of Light (Review)

“Someone was looking at me, a disturbing sensation if you’re dead.”

If I tried really hard, I might be able to find something wrong with this story. But why would I want to work that hard? After just finishing A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb, already I want to start over again from the beginning. So seldom do I run across a story this well put together, I can’t help but gush a little. I even emailed Laura Whitcomb to tell her how much I enjoyed it.

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Spotlight: Walk Two Moons (Review)

A review of Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech.

When I first read the first chapter of Walk Two Moons, the Newbery Medal award-winning juvenile novel by Sharon Creech, I didn’t quite realize what I was getting into. You can read it yourself, preview the first chapter at Amazon.com. Now after having read the whole book, reading these first few pages makes me tear up a little.

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Ender vs. Anakin

Orson Scott Card’s classic award-winning novel Ender’s Game features Ender Wiggin, a six-year old boy genius who saves the world. Ender has superhuman talents that enable him to accomplish great feats, just like Anakin Skywalker from George Lucas’s Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. But unlike Ender, Anakin Skywalker is more cutesy than heroic and more annoying than inspiring. What did Orson Scott Card do right that George Lucas didn’t?

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Spotlight: Ender’s Game (Review)

A review of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.

Andrew Wiggin prefers to be called Ender. He’s a six-year-old genius destined to save the world. He’s also a Third, that is the third child in a world in which it’s against the law to have more than two. The government made an exception with Ender, because he’s going to become the General who will win Earth’s war with an alien race called the Buggers. Why Ender is the one quickly becomes obvious. Yes, he’s only a little boy, but Ender thinks and acts like a great leader. And that’s why he leaves his family for battle school, to become a great military leader. But the challenges he faces in military school are more than even Ender expected, and yet he faces them with both dignity and cunning.

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The Minister’s Daughter (Review)

I just read The Minister’s Daughter by Julie Hearn, one of the better novels I’ve read recently, though it didn’t make me swoon.

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Sin and Vengeance (Review)

I just finished Sin and Vengeance by C.J. West. It was gripping, but not perfect. I did not finish that last, short chapters, and I would not read it again.

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