I was thinking this weekend about how blogging has changed my reading habits. Right now, the two books I am reading - The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia and The Tourist - are both ARCs (Advanced Review Copy). Just one way that this blog has impacted what I read.
I was thinking this weekend about how blogging has changed my reading habits. Right now, the two books I am reading - The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia and The Tourist - are both ARCs (Advanced Review Copy). Just one way that this blog has impacted what I read.
I am always on the lookout for interesting reading when the family visits Half-Price Books. And given my ever-growing TBR pile, most often shorter works. With that in mind, I picked up: The Ice Dragon by George R.R. Martin at recently. I thought it might be a good story to read to my daughter. Plus, I have always loved dragon stories; and I figured this would be an easy way to introduce myself to the writing of George R.R. Martin.
Last night I needed some bedside reading but didn’t feel up to starting some of the non-fiction that is next in the pile. So I grabbed this children’s story and read it in one sitting.
It turned out to be a rather simple story, but a creative and entertaining one. Here is the plot summary from School Library Journal:
Seven-year-old Adara was born during the coldest chill of the coldest year ever, a chill that killed her mother during the girl’s birth. Ever since then, she has been a remote and chilly child, living for winter when the ice lizards come out and forming a bond with a mysterious ice dragon. When war comes and dragon-riding invaders threaten her home and family, the ice dragon helps her to thwart them, leading to its own demise.
The writing is simple like the story, but it has the sort of depth well written stories always seem to have: the sense that there is a great deal more to the world that the author isn’t sharing. The medieval world that makes up the setting is recognizable but just mysterious enough. Dragon’s as battle vehicles are not unique obviously, but the ice dragon with a connection to the weather is a unique hook. The characters are not well developed but Adara’s past, and the resulting conflict with her family, adds enough tension and suspense that the minimalist storyline nevertheless pulls you forward.
All in all, I enjoyed TheIce Dragon. It has the feel of a legend passed down through the oral tradition - simple but poetic and touched by both beauty and tragedy. It is a quick sketch from a author who normally deals in the epic format.
I used to be one of those thorough types who always read a series in order and liked to read widely in an author’s work in order to judge their latest book. But these days I don’t have the time or energy for that sort of diligence. There are so many books I want to read in so many different styles and genres I tend to just read whatever book grabs my attention at the moment. Not very disciplined I know, but there it is.
I bring this up because in times past I would have read the first two books before picking up the latest H. Terrell Griffin Matt Royal mystery Blood Island. But I didn’t and so I can’t really comment on the series or any backstory I might have missed. But luckily the book functions as a stand alone story.
Enough discursive introduction then, what about the book? It was an entertaining mystery/action story with some unique plot lines.
The central character is obviously Matt Royal a semi-retired trial lawyer living in Longboat Key, Florida. Royals high pressure legal career burned him out and cost him his marriage, but he ended up with enough money to live in Longboat and do pro-bono legal and investigative work. He is also an ex-special forces Vietnam veteran.
Like so many mysteries the story kicks of with a dead body. This one found in local bird sanctuary. Royal doesn’t think much of it at first, but when his ex-wife Laura turns to him for help in find her step-daughter, Peggy, things get complicated. Soon Laura is missing too, the violence escalates and the body count grows. With far too many unexplained coincidences Royal finds himself in the center of a dangerous plot.
FYI, what follows includes plot spoilers for those of you who don’t want to read those sort of things.
UPDATE: Seems to be some technical difficulties with the poll. Do me a favor. Vote in the poll version on the right sidebar and see if that works. If it doesn’t please leave a comment to that effect here. Thanks.
No, this is not an election related post. Rather it is another lame site news announcement. If you look to your right you will see that you have anopportunity to vote thanks to a new fangled Polls plug-in.
As it happens, the question deals with a feature to your left - namely the Notes & Asides sideblog. Just to make it easy on you, I will include the poll in this post as well. As always, feedback welcomed and appreciated:
Russello argues that neither book quite captures the complexities involved. Flynn first:
Flynn has done a significant amount of research, and the text is readable and lively, even if one would wish for more explicit connecting threads. The same ideas—common ownership of property, say, or free love, and odd juxtapositions of science and social criticism—occur throughout Western history. To merely lump them all on “the Left” is as helpful as a different farrago of ideas—monarchy, say, joined with capitalism, hierarchical social classes, and table manners—is when defining the Right. The problem is not that such dichotomies do not have explanatory power; it is that they do not explain enough. Even according to Flynn’s taxonomy, the connections among these various radicals are unclear. The Puritans may have opposed free enterprise, but no one could say they opposed religion or the family. Similarly, one can find in Washington or New York many Republican stalwarts defending free trade, but whose devotion to traditional values of the kind Flynn wants associated with the Right leave something to be desired.
But Rightward Bound even more so:
By and large, however, the contributors are not really up to the task of explaining the Right. They stick too closely to the academic formula, where conservatism is somehow not an authentic cultural position for people who wish to preserve their traditions, but an ideological construct forced upon a supine electorate that is otherwise liberal except when manipulated by well-financed corporate cadres. The collection ignores the bigger stories of those years: why conservatism could not stop the leftist onslaught of the 1970s and later. Despite ferocious conservative opposition in the years following the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade in 1973, which legalized abortion, the decision still remains the law of the land. Where once mildly controversial television programs and movies would have spurred protest, young men and women from the South and Midwest (traditionally the most conservative parts of the nation) now compete on crass reality programs. What was it about the conservative strategies of the 1970s that, from the point of view of the cultural concerns that motivated conservatives to enter politics in the first place, have been largely failures?
Given Russello’s review, I think I will look to read A Conservative History of the American Left but avoid Rightward Bound for now.
and 
- are both ARCs (Advanced Review Copy). Just one way that this blog has impacted what I read.
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