Ashen Winter

Ashen Winter
Ashfall
Mike Mullin
Post-Apocoliptic

Summary
After a brutal attack on his uncles farm Alex find his fathers shotgun in the hands of the bandits that attacked them. Fearing for his Mother's and father's life Alex and Darla head back out in to the gray to find them and bring them back.

After chasing one of the bandits that attacked his farm. Alex finds out that his parents are being held in one of the mercenary internment camps, or at least he was a few months ago.

Sadly trouble finds the couple quickly and before to long Darla is taken captive by a gang of cannibal rapists. Now not only does Alex need to find and save his parents he also needs to save Darla before anything happens to her.

But first he needs to survive himself.

Review
I loved this book. Ashen Winter is the sequel to the bangorang book Ashfall. This book is really well done and does justice to the book before it. Mike Mullin has taken a great idea and built on it. I really feel that this book it leading to an amazing serious.

The one down side to this book I had is that at a few points the book gets overly descriptive. This led to it being a little harder to get in to this book over Ashfall. In Ashfall It took three pages to hook me in Ashen Winter I took more like Two chapters to really grab me.

That being sad I think the writer Is trying to improve his work and that is always a really good thing. Also this book does exactly want you want from a second book it leads you to want to read more. The book also developed the characters and added new people and new problems.

Finally the last thing I really liked about this book was that it did not simple retell the first store again in a slightly different way. Ashen Winter builds the world and the store this increases the power of this book.

Over all I would give this book a 9.5 out of 10.

Clan of the Cave Bear

Clan of the Cave Bear
Earth's Children
Jean M. Auel
Historical Fiction

Summary
Back before recorded time there was two kinds of humans the Neanderthal and modern Cro-Magnon.

After a large earthquake that rips through the earth a young Cro-magnon girl named Ayla loses her whole family. After wondering through the forest for a few days, being attacked by animals without food and suffering desiese. She is found by a tribe of Neanderthals, the Clan of the Cave Bear, and she is taken in.

Even though she is different and cannot speak there language the clan makes her one of there people. They give her a totem of the Cave Lion, which is usually only given to men.

As time goes on and she grows up Ayla cannot seem to be what the clan expects her to be. Even though the Clan is the only family she can remember she is just different from them. She thinks differently and acts differently from the Clan but she must learn to be Clan.

With the wild animals everywhere, enemies in the clan and her difficult adapting to her role in the clan Ayla will have to do everything she can to stay alive.

Review
I really liked this book. The writer really does a good job at pulling the reader through the book. The realistic feel of the store and the interesting facts about our distant relatives helps to build a world the reader can relate to.

The story can be hard on the reader because the people in the book are a lot like us but they do not follow the same social rules that we find important. This can create unconformable feelings for the reader.

I got uncomfortable at some points in the book but over all I really liked it. The one thing I did not like about the book was that at the end I really had no drive to read the next books.

It was interesting because I loved this book but i left me with a foreboding feeling that has made it difficult to read the next one.

I would give this book an 8 out of 10.

Note
This was the first book I have ever read on a electronic reading tablet and I always thought I would miss the feel of a book, the smell of the pages, and the weight in my hands but after the first 10 minutes I loved it and it was hard to go back.

Dragon Champion

Dragon Champion
The Age of Fire
E. E. Knight
High Fantasy

Summary
Dragons are dying. In a cave deep underground one of the last clutches of dragon eggs are born. One of these dragons is the rare scaleless gray dragon. Winning the ledge and becoming champion of the nest Auron begins his life but happiness is short lived.

Within a few months the nest is attacked by a bandit group comprised of elves and dwarves. Auron is the only one to survive the attack. Now he most find his way in the world without his family.

In his travels Auron makes many unlikely friends and must use his brain to win out over his enemies because, unlike other dragons with think armored scales, a single lucky arrow will kill him.

Will Auron be able to find the the last of his kind and will he be able to find who is responsible for the hunting of his people?

Review
I loved this book. Firstly the book is well written. Second the plot is interesting and keeps the reader moving through the book at a good speed. Third the characters are easy to connect too. Lots of books have these so even with all of that what makes this book different? Well, its from the dragons point of view.

Now I read E. E. Knights other books and after the first two I got really bored and dropped the whole thing. So when I saw this book at the used book store I was a little nerves but after reading the first chapter I was hooked.

Dragon Champion is want I have always wanted in a book about dragons it gives the reader a new perspective and helps us to see through there eyes in this way I would relate it to "Watership Down" we see the world through the dragon's eyes the culture and believes are revealed, this is really cool.

For me this was a book I did not know I was looking for until I found it. I finished it in one day and got the second book right away.

I would give this book a 8.75 out of 10

Partials

Partials
Dan Wells
Post-Apocalyptic

Summery
In a not so distant future, man kind creates the Partials, beings who were human in almost every way but were created to fight our wars for us. After the war was over many Partials came back but they were not treated as people only as things.

After a few years the Partial declared war on the humanity and in the coarse of that war released a deadly vireos on us which killed millions. Now only a small group of humans are left living in what was once New York.

The few humans left created a town and started to live again but the vireos keeps killing the new born babies and without children humanity will soon no longer exist.

In an attempt to find a way to stop the death of the children the government has ordered that all women over the age of 18 get pregnant as much as possible so that the chance of finding a cure can be found.

With this and other problems the government is not very popular with the people and if a way to save the children is not found soon it will not be the partials of the vireos that will kill humanity off. It will be ourselves.

Review
Partials is an interesting book with an original concept and powerful writing. but that being said I did not really like it. The story follows this girl who is a little annoying and seems to have trouble being happy.

Also this book falls in the common pattern seen today in books like The Hunger Games and Twilight of a girl who can not make up her mind. the book also gets in to a love triangle that I am so tired of in young adult books today.

My final problem with the book is also something I have been seeing more of in young adult books for girls and that is the main female character doe s not want to get married. The feeling to me is that in these books strong female characters can only be strong with they are not married and I think that is wrong.

Most of the strongest women I have ever known have been happily married and for writers to put that negative thought about married, that to get married means to are weak is not only inappropriate but bad for our youth today.

Over all I liked the book it was well written, but I will not be offering it to anyone anytime soon.

I give it a 6 out of 10.

Heartless

Heartless
Tales of Goldstone Woods
Anne Elisabeth Stengl
Fairy Tale Fantasy

Summery
The princess Una has just turned 16 and under the laws of her fathers country she is eligible to marry and every prince in the area is looking for her hand in marriage, but who will get it.

The prince with the charming smile but large money problems, the fairy prince who no one knows and who came out of no where, or the prince who has lost his country to an evil dragon.

At the same time the evil dragon hunts for her, and only her love of the people around her can keep her safe.

Review
This book was not very good. The beginning and the end were really enjoyable but for the majority of the book, over 200 pages, the book was boring and whinny.

Una is the main character but for me I would have liked anyone else. She complained the who time and over all acted like a moron. She needed to shut up and do something, anything, plaese!!!

I didn't like the writing and i didn't like the story everything about this book was a disappointing. Maybe a girl would like this book better but for me it was a worthless book.

I would give it a 5 out of 10.