Category: Andy’s Corner

The Legend of Drizzt 25th Anniversary Edition, Book I

Review by Andy The first of the Drizzt Do’Urden trilogies is quite good. Parts of the plot are a bit slow but it is good overall. Drizzt’s and Zaknafein’s characters are very interesting in contrast to the rest of the drows, who find pleasure in killing, especially killing and not getting caught. Then when Drizzt moves to the surface and finds the prejudiced hatred of the surface people. The plot has exciting chases and battles, which fill up most of the book, as well as interesting parts about drow society, with Drizzt growing up in a world going against his principles. Getting into the book is confusing with the battle, since you have no idea what is going on or why, but soon enough it gets good. Also, the part when Drizzt first gets to the surface is not as good, as well as the part with the illithids. The… Read more »

Call of the Wild

Review by Andy Call of the Wild is one of the best classics I’ve ever read. That isn’t much considering I don’t like many classics and that I haven’t read many, but it’s up there with Sherlock Holmes. I even liked it better than Jules Verne which I thought was pretty good. The beginning is a bit boring, but it gets a lot better as the story progresses. The characters are good enough, and overall, it’s not a bad book. There aren’t really any strong characters except the main character Buck. Spitz is as well but other than those two there aren’t very many stand outs. The incident with Thornton’s bragging – Buck’s favorite master – was an interesting and shows of why you shouldn’t brag. Buck is odd since he strives to be leader, and to prove he’s better than everyone else, yet he is from the “soft” south… Read more »

Ripper

Review by Andy The book Ripper by Stefan Petrucha is one of the absolute best books I have ever read, and it definitely deserves any awards it has or might get. This mystery is about a young boy named Carver who wants to be a detective. This book has every element that makes a good mystery. It has some very surprising twists, shows good clues, has smart observations and a good deal of suspense. The plot progresses quickly with lots of exciting turns. This is obvious considering that at the beginning of the book Carver is in an orphanage and eventually ends up chasing Jack the Ripper. Along the way Carver meets future president Roosevelt, lives in an asylum and researches in a secret underground base. Stefan was able to take these great ideas and turn them into an amazing book with a fast-paced plot that keeps you wondering what… Read more »

Ender’s Game

Review by Andy Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card is science fiction with a realistic twist. It may not be the absolute best book I have read but nothing in it is terrible and it has few things are great. The big thing I found amazing was the plot. There are lots of surprises and peeks at the “omniscient” point of view that doesn’t make sense until later. I also found some of the characters pretty enjoyable although others may need some work. That being said it’s a pretty good book. The supporting characters are mostly fine, but the antagonists needs some work. I found Bonzo, one of Ender’s battle school enemies and ex-commander, interesting with his “Spanish honor” but Stilson and Peter are just strange. Peter even more so because of how he changes through the book and how he acts when he believes nobody is listening. Ender also… Read more »

The Boys’ War

Review by Andy The Boys’ War by Jim Murphy is an interesting book. Its perspective of the Civil War is different from any other book about the conflict. In most books, you’ll probably find some historian with lots of facts and statistics giving you a bystander’s point of view. The Boys’ War however will put you in the action and still have factual information you expect from a history book. More importantly it shows you the war from the perspective of boys who were involved. The reads almost like a historical fiction even though it is all true with firsthand accounts from letters, diaries, and other sources. It puts you in the war with boys’ giving the reader a sense of what they observed and felt. I definitely found it much more enjoyable than something like The Tigers Are Burning where you have a historian talking about how Hitler should… Read more »

The Magician

Review by Andy As young adult fiction goes The Magician is okay but needs some work. Even though it is fantasy the chances of a fifteen-year-old killing a millennia old giant lizard seems kind of slim. The weak plot is helped some by a subplot that is pretty good and characters that are interesting and funny. As a sequel it does not hold up to the first book in the series, The Alchemyst. What makes this series work is the setting of Earth where magic is very much alive. The series also brings legends, gods, and goddesses out of fiction and puts them beside famous people from history, who are themselves often immortal. For anyone interested in mythology this combination comes off as pretty clever. While the main plot is fairly weak it does pick up the story where the first book left off and continues the plot through well. … Read more »