Day of the Predator | Alex Scarrow

Sometimes, a nice light read as a break from something heavier can work wonders. This was only about four hundred and fifty pages, I think, the text was large, and the themes simple; at the time I was trying to plow through this mammoth of a book series that unfortunate fans know as The Wheel of Time, so this book was a relief, of sorts.

I read the first in the series a few years ago. The vibe the series gives off is less science fiction than a set of fast-paced action novels; rather than exploring in detail an aspect of technology that could bring hope and trouble to a futuristic world, the technology- of time travel- is more of a setting, a setting for the dangerous and desperate adventures the three agency recruits journey through, particularly Liam, as they jump back and forth through time putting history right when it's pushed from its original course by the use of time travel. Perhaps it does set the Time Riders series firmly in the children and young teenage fiction section; I think I've grown out of this kind of story somewhat- a few years since, I thought the first book was utterly riveting- but the plots are still suspenseful and exciting and the characters intensely likable, leading the reader to share their ups and downs.

Perhaps it's because nothing truly new was introduced in this, only a different undertaking through history and an extension of what the first book begun, but I think this book has lost some of the original's sparkle, as is often the case with adventure series like these. There are plot holes, as there almost always are with this sort of story, but the background and the development of the fictional world and the technology that shapes the story is appealing and engaging, if not overwhelmingly convincing. The intended readership age is a little queer to try and perceive; clearly, the story was designed for younger readers, but I get a vague feeling that Scarrow is maturing as an author: not yet delivering the complex themes and intrigue of adult literature, but there are some elements that don't quite belong, somehow. Perhaps the next six-something books show a continuation of this budding trend; I wouldn't know.

All in all, the prose isn't seamless, the development isn't perfect, but I think it would be a wonderful and engaging series for someone a little younger than I am now. As for me, I think I've outgrown these books by now, which is something of a shame considering I only ever read two of them, but I would definitely still recommend them. Great reads.

Me Before You | Jojo Moyes

You know that feeling that a particular book is haunting you and begging to be read? One that seems to follow you into every bookshop display and library shelf? Well, I got that feeling with this book. I first spotted it in a Whitcoulls Top 50 display last year, on FPS camp; the next Whitcoulls I set foot in, it was there, and on the 'recommended reads' display in the school library, too. The latter event was when I finally gave in and borrowed it. I'm not precisely one for romance, and this book neither took me in with its plot, nor touched me in some deeper sense, but I thought it was a valid reflection on life and purpose and spoke eloquently on a prominent contentious issue featuring today: euthanasia.

Lou Clark, the principal narrator of this story, is immature, somewhat shallow and perfectly content in her purposeless life, in whichever job she can find and stuck in a loveless relationship, at least in the beginning; Will Traynor was self-centered and insufferable. Will's accident confined him to a wheelchair with dead legs, limited use of his arms and hands, pain and a hopeless life that he wants ended; Lou loses her job, and is hired as a caretaker to Will. The characters here were never extremely likeable, for me, as you can probably tell; the storyline was a little too shallow. However, I appreciate the depiction of the way they both grow and develop with the interaction with each other, Lou learning to dream in Will's company and step out of her comfort zone and Will learning to love and care for people other than himself. The steely undercurrent that traverses the fluff on the surface is the most intriguing thing about the book: does someone have the right to end their own life instead of suffering pain? Should they, considering all those who love them and would give anything for them to live? Is there anything that can replace what they've lost, that can make life worth living again? What if there isn't?

This book has been enormously well received by the general population; I can't set foot in Goodreads without seeing rave review after rave review. Personally, this book somehow missed the target by a few hairs for me, but I can still agree that it was deeply moving and carried a surprising profundity that is so rarely found with romance novels (Twilight, I am looking at you), which made the whole story more meaningful. Euthanasia is an issue on which people are extremely divided, not without reason; this book delivers a truly relatable and touching message about euthanasia without seeming an opinion. That still takes skill, however much I dislike the protagonists.

Deception Point | Dan Brown

In my opinion, this one is a far cry better than the Da Vinci Code, and probably deserved the hype more. I've always had a soft spot for science fiction, and the blend of that genre with underhanded politics in this book makes it quite riveting.

Deception Point begins with a nearing presidential election, set in the USA; the main female protagonist, Rachel Sexton, is the daughter of the favoured narcissistic challenger to the incumbent President, Senator Sedgewick Sexton. With the tip-off of his pretty advisor and mistress Gabrielle Ashe, Senator Sexton gains popularity through focusing his campaign on NASA's failures as an example of government overspending. Unknown to him, though, NASA's new Polar Orbiting Density Scanner has supposedly uncovered a meteorite bearing insect fossils, proving the existence of extraterrestial life, a discovery that could unravel his entire campaign- that is, if the entire thing isn't a fraud.

The book weaves manipulation, romance, science, politics and scandal intricately into a masterful plotline; particularly the science, being the person I am. Rachel Sexton, Gabrielle Ashe, Mike Tolland, Corky Marlinson, William Pickering and Sedgewick Sexton are all very interesting characters in their own respects, the protagonists characteristically irresistible if a little unusual, with Rachel's clever and witty beauty, Mike's endearing charm and Corky's perpetual awkwardness, the clown personality. And, after all, we all like to see the antagonist get their thorough and unmitigated comeuppance in the end; it's a satisfaction like no other, which Deception Point certainly provides.

I found it a wonderful read. It was a little simplistic, in retrospect, and lacked a more profound thematic undercurrent despite all the plotwork on the surface, but the mash of genres, coupled with the adventure-thriller storytelling, made it a very satisfying book indeed for me.

The Casual Vacancy | J.K. Rowling

You will forgive me for doubting J.K. Rowling; whatever her fame, there was sort of a general opinion among her critics that she only became so renowned through some mysterious stroke of luck, and even those of us who had a little more faith in her literary ability were skeptical that she could make the transition from children's to adult fiction where so many failed before- half the million-plus presales were probably more due to curiosity than genuine anticipation for another masterpiece. She must have known that producing another book would immediately mean that the world's critical eye was on her, but she met the challenge and surprised everyone; although The Casual Vacancy was no second Harry Potter, and yes, if it had come from a less famous author it probably would  have received less attention, it certainly proved her worthy of her reputation as a master storyteller.

The Casual Vacancy, for starters, is nothing like our beloved HP series; it is very real, and very down-to-earth, and yet just as fascinating and somehow structured to a perfection and elegance only J.K. Rowling can achieve. Set in the tiny town of Pagford, somewhere close to London in England, The Casual Vacancy describes a small, isolated world that thinks it is much bigger than it is; the book tells of the complexly interwoven, intertwining lives of the citizens in this pint-sized city, full of small-town politics, wars, disputes, families, teenagers, manipulation, gossip, infidelity, pride and tragedy. And through the center of it all runs the recurring theme around which the whole book is built, a tiny event in a man's brain one night with huge consequences; the death of the Parish Councillor Barry Fairbrother, the casual vacancy on the council and what it means for the tiny township. It turns out to have more consequences than could have been expected.

It's a difficult novel to summarize in a few words; very unique, very intriguing, and with that spark of ingenuity particular to this master raconteur. The characters are unique, constructed with care, entirely believable and interwoven into one town-wide tapestry with an aptitude that's difficult to believe; perspectives are delivered extremely convincingly, reflecting the life and point of view of all ages, genders, races, and they all fit together like a sculpture. It reminds me of another book, The Swimming Pool Season, which I enjoyed very much a few years previously and which I also recommend; all in all, J.K. Rowling is definitely not one of your average authors, and no doubt it gave her her claim to fame in the first place.

The Da Vinci Code | Dan Brown

Okay, so that was the book I was looking for when I accidentally picked up Earth; I'd heard two of my friends raving about it, which was enough to convince me to go looking for it. To be honest, I didn't seem to enjoy it as much as they did, but hey, it was more reading material.

The Da Vinci Code has become quite acclaimed recently, not without reason, I suppose. It tells of an adventure mystery story that begins with a murder of a prominent museum curator and goddess theologist Jacques Saunière in the Louvre, Paris, that brings together two unlikely people: Robert Langdon, a Harvard professor in symbology, and Sophie Neveu, a codebreaker for the French Judicial Police and the granddaughter of Saunière. Together, they work to crack the mysterious clues Saunière left them in his dying moments, locate and protect the Holy Grail and discover the truth regarding Sophie's mysterious family, while being mistakenly pursued by the Judicial Police for Saunière's murder. It's quite full of action and excitement, and not a bad read, although the plot was a little linear and the story too predictable for me; it, in my opinion, lacked some depth.

Overall, it was a cool book, and it brought out some very interesting things to contemplate about the Holy Grail, Mary Magdalene and Jesus's remarkable life. Maybe it wasn't exactly to my taste; nevertheless, this led me to borrow Deception Point, which I thought was much better, even if it was only because that was a sci-fi novel and the plot was way more exciting. I would recommend it; perhaps not overly so, but it was still a nice read.

Earth | David Brin

Another of my random-book-grabbing expeditions; maybe it's that I can read almost any book, or that libraries only have good books, or maybe I have psychic powers, but I always seem to end up with nice reads even if I just pull a random book down. I actually found this one when I was looking for the Da Vinci Code, but I like sci-fi and this looked massive and juicy so I took it. (I borrowed three books on this day, to keep me sane while I hunched in a corner of Swimming Sports with the smell of chlorine in my nostrils and a backache.) This was a particularly interesting read, and it left me with a lot to think about.

Earth is a science fiction novel, set in the future; but unlike most futuristic novels I've read, somehow despite all the things gone wrong in this world it doesn't register as a dystopia. As Brin puts it: 'As writers go, I suppose I'm known as an optimist. So it seems only natural that this novel projects a future, (now less than forty years from now), where there's been just a little more wisdom than folly... perhaps a bit more hope than despair. In fact, this is just about the most encouraging tomorrow I can imagine right now. What a sobering thought.'

Earth paints a picture of the world of 2038, fifty years onwards from when the book was first written; a world where technology and the Internet is more immersive and critical than ever before, a world where a human population of ten billion struggle to extract the last out of the mother planet's dwindling resources and save the last of the wildlife from extinction, mostly futilely, a world where the demographics are aging fast and young people's freedom is crushed by the increasing numbers of the old, a world where people try to claw back desperately from their sinking homes as the rising sea levels swallow the land city by city, and a world where a new religion has risen- a religion that worships the mother, Gaia, as a subconscious reflection of the pressure being put on Earth that will soon become unbearable if something isn't done. And amidst it all, a young British physicist, an old physics professor and a Maori billionaire discover something terrible within the Earth's very core that threatens to destroy everything... and only they can save the world from annihilation.

Earth is less of an fiction story than a projection, a prediction of a future for humankind. Brin uses many different characters' perspectives to bring together a vivid vision of the world in forty years' time, from a group of three young people with big dreams and small hope of realizing them to a female astronaut who loses her husband to the mysterious forces threatening to destroy the planet. The book forces us to take a step back and take a long, hard look at ourselves, and ask ourselves some fundamental and troubling questions: who are we really? What gives us the right to exploit the resources and the planet so generously given to us like we do? And most hauntingly: standing in the face of extinction, would we be able to put our problems past us and make a better future? Or are we only ever going to die out, riddled with our own flaws and poisoned by our own carelessness?

It's not perfect; the plot is a little bumpy and the prose sometimes not so elegant, but it's a compelling read, especially for those of us (like me) who are deeply interested in the future, and I admire both the author's hindsight and foresight; only with excellent use of both could one construct such a book.

Tales of the Otori | Lian Hearn

I first found the Tales of the Otori series in a teacher's bookshelf last year. I have a habit of going into bookshelves and grabbing random books, so when I saw the cover I decided it was interesting and took it for reading. The book I read then was Across the Nightingale Floor- the original Tale of the Otori, although since then the author seems to have written a prequel as well as three sequels. This year, long after I completed the first book, I again saw the rather alluring cover design featuring the closeup of the eye, and so borrowed the two next books in the original trilogy to read. And after I finished, I decided to do a post on both books rather than one, because it seems like the books were written to be read together; the second book reads stupidly incomplete without the third.

The story of the Tales of the Otori trilogy is set in a fantasy, historical Japan, told by a boy in his late teens named Takeo. This is a tale of love, loyalty, beliefs and, above all, conflict- Takeo's own struggles with his life and beliefs, Kaede, his lover's struggle to be respected in her own right in a world that worships men and devalues women, and the ultimate struggles of the Japanese clans to dominate the Three Countries of the island. It's an adventure story, very much action-based, but all the same, the story illustrates compellingly the brutality and inequality in those days, and what the pair of young lovers had to face to overcome it.

Takeo is torn between three identities: that of his birth, a wild boy among the peaceful, loving Hidden (rather like a variation of Christianity), which was all he knew until he was sixteen; the heir to the warrior class of the Otori, a position into which he was adopted, but later found out he also laid legitimate blood claim to, full of honor and pride and bringing with it the burdens of a soldier and a leader of his people; and finally, the dark, shadowy Tribe, a secret society with immense magical powers that makes money by using these to spy and assassinate for whoever pays them, and that lays claim to Takeo because of his unmatched skill in these gifts, given to him from his father who he never knew. He wants none of these, but he has to face all three, no matter how he tries to escape; he must choose his true loyalty, overcome the impossible challenges that face him and unite his people in order to bring peace to the Three Countries, a destiny which he eventually fulfils to rule from sea to sea.

Meanwhile, his lover that he met at his adopted Otori father's betrothal ceremony, the beautiful Shirakawa Kaede, struggles to prove herself in her own right and to play the game, not just be a pawn for powerful men to manipulate as they please. She falls in love with Takeo at first sight, but seemingly unsurmountable obstacles lie between them; she wants, above all, to prove that women can be just as ruthless and influential as men can, that she can wield power just like men can, in a society which places the value of men far higher than that of women. She learns to be a leader, and forces herself to take up brutality to match her male counterparts; eventually, together with Takeo, they conquer all of the Three Countries and she is finally respected in her own right, rather than just as a beautiful plaything for men to do with and discard as they please.

Together, they accomplish what seems infeasible, and their story is a fast-paced, exciting and courageous journey that spans far and wide and stops at nothing but death.