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.

The Ruins of Gorlan

The Ruins of Gorlan
John Flanagan
Ranger's Apprentice
Marshal fiction

Summery
The Ruins of Gorlan fallows the story of will a young Orfien who can't find his way in the world. Will is small for his age, he's fast and smart but but just does not have the strangth to do what he really wants to do, be a solder.

In the 13th year of his life Will has his name day were the local crafts men pick children to train. Problem is that if know one picks you then you must leave the city and become a farmer.

On his name day everyone finds somewhere to go but Will has no one, but just as Despair is about it set in the local Ranger takes Will to be his apprentice. So Will starts his life as The Ranger's Apprentice.

A great evil is once again on the rise can Will and his master Halt stop it? or will death fall on the people of the land?

Review
This is the first book of the 11 book series Ranger's Apprentice. The first book is not the best one I have ever read but the series is amazing. Each book is only about 200-250 pages long and often it takes the writer a few books to tell one story ark. So stick with it and you will not be disappointed.

I love these books. There great for kids but adults can get a lot from them too. The Story telling is superb and you will fall in love with all the characters. Although the first book is all about Will and Halt the later books focus on his two best friends as well. this brings in some really strong female characters which i liked a lot.

The only problem this is book is that it feels like only part of a story so then you have to keep reading because you want to know what happens, but the books are so good that its really not much of a problem.

Over all I would give this book a 7 out of 10 but the series as a whole would get more.

Ashfall

Ashfall
Mike Mullin
Apocalyptic

Summary
Alex was a normal 15 year old boy medium height, medium weight, likes video games and martial arts. Not so good with girls but has a few close friends. Every thing changed on that Friday. The Friday when the volcano under Yellowstone erupts and starts covering the world in ash.

On that Friday Alex's parents had taken his little sister to there uncles farm and had left him home alone for the weekend. Now with he world falling apart Adam must find his family and a way to outlast the horrors of the volcanic winter.

On his trip Adam finds many people who hurt others to get what they want but he also found many who, even in these darkest times, were willing to help others in need. One of these people is Darla. Darla is a smart girl living on a farm with her mother. After meeting Alex Darla and him travel together to find his family, but on the way they find more then they bargained for.

Review

Ashfall is one of the best books I have ever read. Within the first 5 pages I was hooked and wanted nothing more then to read the rest of it. It only took me two days to finish it and I worked full shifts both days.

The book has a good amount of hope and despair which makes reading this book a roller coaster of emotion. The book also feels real, it feels like what people see on the news after a disaster and what people really are like when in the middle of one.

The hard part about this book is that the writer does not pull any punches. Meaning that there is death and violence, sex and pain. For that reason I would recommend this book for 16 years old and older. Yes this is a young adult book but in this case I would stress the ADULT part of that more then the young.

But I want you to understand this book is not dirty of profane, but it is real and it is harsh younger children would not be able to handle it but for adults it is an amazing book. This is not just some fun fantasy where everything will be okay. This is a scary world that could really happen to us.

This novel will make you laugh, cry, scream and hope for a better world. This book will be an experience you will want to share with everyone. It will become an old friend you fear for.

The writing is amazing, the characters are real and likable, and the plot is full of hopes and fears that we all have.

I would give this book a 10 out of 10.