Book: Hood by Stephen Lawhead

I am a bit of a Stephen Lawhead fan so when his latest book, Hood appeared on the shelves I grabbed it. I didn't read it straight away, with so many books on my bookshelf still to be read and me being such a slow reader, it's taken me all year to get to this one.

Hood, as the name suggests relates to his take on the Robin Hood myth and is the first book of the King Raven trilogy.

The link above will give you the blurb on the storyline so I won't bother with that but I will say this; In a lot of ways (well most in fact) this story does not follow the typical well known idea about Robin Hood and his band of merry men. In my view this is a good thing, it's makes it interesting and maybe (without having any knowledge of the true history of the times) more realistic and believable.

This first book deals mainly with setting the scene and introducing the characters, so if you have not read any of Lawhead's other stuff then you might find this a tad on the boring side, simply because the story doesn't go anywhere fast. I admit to feeling like this a few times whilst reading it (and as I said, I'm a fan) but he writes beautifully and by then end the story starts to really get going which suggests the following books will be worth reading.

The next book in the trilogy, Scarlet is also now available (and is on my Christmas wish list!)

Books: The Axis Trilogy by Sara Douglass

I finally finished these books a little over a week ago and have been willing myself ever since to write about them.

I was given this trilogy by a friend of my MIL who was moving interstate and didn't want to take them with her now that she'd finished them. I can never say no to a book and was thrilled to find that this girl has similar reading tastes to my own.

I don't really know what to say other than I loved them. I love fantasy fiction and this was a story that was quite refreshing in its ideas and characters.

You can read what the books are about here so that saves me the trouble of going into it.

All I will say is the story is intricate, well structured and very cleverly written. It kept my interest right the way through and I'm looking forward to reading more of Sara Douglass' work.

As an aside: 2 inconsequential things that stuck with me in this trilogy, please note they are not meant to be criticisms though they will sound like it and they would never have stopped me from reading these books

1. the repetitive use of the word myriad in the books. I guess people have favourite words and this was one of hers, it kind of shit me a little bit after a while, isn't there some alternative way of describing these things??? *myriad* ways I should have thought hehehe

2. new word: ensorcelled, I got the gist of what it meant, pretty obvious really but I'd never come across it before. weird choice of phrasing

Too funny not to post

A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore

I love Christopher Moore. My favourite book of his that I've read (I've still got three to go) is Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal. While A Dirty Job doesn't rate that high (third on the Moore oeuvre if you must know - behind The Stupidest Angel), it is still damn good.

If you like Terry Pratchett, you'll like Chris Moore.

A Dirty Job is a story about Charlie Asher, Beta Male. Charlie's life changes for the twisted when his daughter is born. That same night his wife dies and Charlie becomes a Death Merchant.

Not Death, you understand. Charlie likes to use the Salvation Army Santas as part of his analogy. He's like a Santa's helper. But for Death.

The cast of characters include his daughter Sophie, her two hellhounds - Mohammed and Alvin - his sister Jane, his staff Ray and Lily, and his tenants Mrs Korjev and Mrs Ling.

"Don't fuck with me Asher. If you keep talking like that I'll get another piercing, take X until I'm dehydrated like a mummy, talk on my cell phone until the battery is dead, then find some skinny, pale guy and suck him until he cries."

"So, it will be like a Friday?"

Six years down the track and he's come to grips with his second "job". But Death is a very temperamental thing and suddenly, things seem to be taking a turn for the worse. Not just for him, but for San Francisco. And it seems Charlie is smack-bang in the middle of the whole mess.

I would have liked to have seen more Sophie in the book. One of the funniest bits was when she was staying at Jane's place and Cassie (Jane's partner) wouldn't let her take the dogs into the bath. She declared that Cassie was an "anti-Semite sympathiser" and that "you can't trust the goyim". Her response when Charlie pointed out he was a goyim? "Oh my God, they're everywhere, like pod people!" She's six.

If you do choose to read Moore's books, when you read the ones set in Pine Cove, it may be an idea to read them in order. I didn't, and it didn't totally spoil it for me, but knowing how some things are going to end up, reduced some of the humour for me. Overall though, I highly recommend Moore's books.

Crossposted here