Conservative Book Talk

Plot: The third installment to the Inheritance cycle, originally a trilogy, begins a few days after where the last one left off.

Eragon, Roran and Saphira are hiding near Helgrind, a evil looking mountain that hides the Ra’zac, their hated enemies. They are watching a procession of people walking toward Helgrind. As they find out, the people are their to sacrifice to the Ra’zac, whom they consider gods. After a gruesome ceremony, the people leave and Eragon and Roran leave to wait until dawn for their attack on the evil fortress to rescue Katrina, Roran’s betrothed. Morning comes quickly and our two cousins set off on Saphira to find an entrance into the seemingly impenetrable mountain. As it turns out, the dark face of the mountain is a mere illusion. Finding this, the threesome fly inside; it is quiet, but soon the Ra’zac parents, large and ugly winged creatures, attack Saphira together, while their two children attack Eragon and Roran.

After a long fight, they rescue Katrina and Roran and Saphira leave Eragon, unwillingly, to stay and kill the last Ra’zac. He remains for his secret reasons, of course, he kills the Ra’zac and rescues Sloan, the man who betrayed Roran and his entire village to the Ra’zac months before. After learning Sloan’s ‘true’ name and sending him to the elves, Eragon heads back to the Varden on foot. He meets Arya along the way, finding out that she came to find him. Less than a week passes and Eragon and Arya arrive back at the Varden.

They have not too long to recuperate, for not a week passes before Galdaborix sends three hundred soldiers, (who cannot feel pain) to attack the Varden. Along with Thorn and Murtagh. Eragon and Saphira fly out to meet their long time foes in the air, and defeat them with the help of thirteen spell-casters below. Thorn and Murtagh, however defeated, get away. Thus ends the first battle of the book. Nasuada has ever increasing problems with the dwarfs and sends Eragon to encourage the dwarfs to pick a new king, before Galdaborix finds out that Eragon is not in the camp and tries to send Thorn and Murtagh back to attack the Varden.

Positive: Our liking of Eragon increases somewhat in this sequel to the sequel. Though he still could use a bit of help. He is learning to control his temper and tongue, which relieves us greatly. Galdaborix is shown to be even more evil in this book than in the last, and we come to wish him dead and gone long before the end. The author’s writing style is pleasant and detailed, if somewhat long winded. I must admit the book kept my attention most of the time.

Negative: There is a rather gruesome ceremony in the beginning, involving men cutting off their limbs in worship to the Ra’zac, and two slaves are left to be eaten by the Ra’zac. There is a contest between two leaders to see who is braver, which includes cutting ones arms repeatedly (namely eight times) until one of the two gives way and can’t take anymore. Gods are mentioned and one briefly seen. There’s the blood of battles, but not much else. (I think he spends two too many chapters on Roran, Eragon’s cousin.) A man is flogged with fifty lashes.

Overall: The author has a hugely complicated plot, one which is rather creative. I think he has bit too much detail at times. The author is, for the most part, very good at keeping ones attention engaged. I think I have enjoyed the first book best. I mostly enjoyed this book and would recommend it, if the forth makes up for the second and third.

Tags: Brisingr, Christopher Paolini, fiction, Hannassus

Plot: Our first introduction to our main character, Griffin, is when he is ten years old. We come to find that Griffin can jump, or teleport himself anyway in the world, assuming he has already seen it and remembers it clearly. As Griffin and his father fire paintball guns at each other in the desert, Griffin practices jumping. As they play, Griffins father reminds him of four rules: Never jump in front of anyone. Never jump to the same place twice. Never jump unless instructed to do so by his parents. Never jump near home.

Well, as you can probably imagine, Griffin breaks one of those rules, by accident. Late at night in the dojo he goes to, a bully attempts to punch him, frightened he jumps, leaving the bully completely confused. He thinks it will be all right not to tell his parents, because he does not want to get in trouble. Through the day, his conscious makes him feel guiltier, by the time he decides to tell his parents, it is too late. Several people come to their home and ask for Griffin, his parents deny them entrance, but the bad people shoot them for their efforts. Grief-stricken and frightened, Griffin shoots the people with paintballs before jumping away to the desert where he and his dad had been earlier.

Two Mexican people find him later in the day, and they care for him until he is better from the wounds he received. Deciding these people were trustworthy, Griffin tells them of his jumping abilities, they then resolve to protect Griffin and let him live with their niece away from them. He changes his name and gets a dark tan, and learns Spanish fluently enough to help the niece at her work.

Good times never last for Griffin, his enemies discover his presence, and this time, a few months following his escape, the bad people murder his two Mexican friends. Feeling guilty over the death of his friends, Griffin takes the niece and jumps her to his underground home, only accessible by jumping. He then gives her fifty-thousand dollars to help her start again in Paris. (All the money he gave her, he stole) Griffin then goes traveling, being more careful than ever to avoid the people attempting to kill him. With all this tragedy, being unable to stay at one place for long, and never ending attempts on your life, what would you do?

Positive: The author’s style of writing was very engaging, I had my nose in the book until the end, excited to learn more. The author did a great job at letting us into the main character’s mind and feeling for him when things went horribly wrong. The storyline is very catching and it never slows. We like our hero’s character, until the part where he sleeps with a girl, that I did not care for, but overall he was a likeable character.

Negative: There is lots of swearing, our main character and his friends enjoy using those four letter words whenever something goes wrong. Our main character steals money. That and several sex scenes do not help this book. (I ended up skipping over the paragraphs with that in it.) A little torture at the end, our main character wants something from one of the bad people and so zaps him with this electric thing, and kicks him in the groin. I will say this for our main character’s actions at the end; he has been through a lot, though that does not excuse him. Before his eyes, Griffin’s parents are murdered, he is hunted without relief, and two of his friends are killed because of him. The final straw comes when he is estranged from three other good friends because of the Paladins. (Paladins are the bad people; we find this out in the end)

Overall: I enjoyed the fast moving pace of the story, but as tragic as it was, and all the objectionable content, I could not read it again if I wanted to. I do not recommend this book unless you like the jumper books; there are three. I read the third because I won it at the library for reading many books. I do not plan to read the others.

Tags: fiction, Hannassus

Plot: I found this book in our car; I have no idea to whom this belongs. I know two things for sure though: It was in our car for weeks, and I was bored so I started reading it.

As it turns out, (of course I found out at the end of the book) this book is four in a series about the O’Malley family. Thankfully, as far as I can tell, you do not need to read the first to read the forth; each book is about one of the seven different children in the O’Malley family.

This book happens to be about Jack O’Malley, a firefighter with Ladder 81, a fire station that also investigates arson fires. His boss, Cole, and he are very concerned about one arsonist that keeps setting fires at the edge of the district and leaving popcorn behind as a sign. It takes them longer to reach each fire as the arsonist sets them at the edge of the district, where there are closed fire stations. Oddly enough, Cole figures out that each arson fire is set whenever Jack is on duty. Fighting fires does not bother Jack, but being a target does.

The story also revolves around Cassie, a fire woman burned badly in a retirement home fire, and is now unable to fight fires. Jack visits Cassie often, he is determined to make her laugh and come away from the grief of her accident.

A romance sparks between Jack and Cassie, but Cassie is a Christian and Jack is not. The subject of religion is a sore area for conversation; Jack listens willingly, yet cannot bring himself to believe in the resurrection of Christ. This causes Cassie much stress, knowing that Jack could die at the arson fires and not be in heaven.

Jack has this and his sister, Jennifer’s cancer weighing on his shoulders, not to mention the arsonist who persists in setting fires and writing notes on walls. In one fire, Cassie happens to catch a glimpse of the arsonist, before he fades from sight. Sure that she could recognize him on sight again, Cassie takes Cole’s offer to join the fire fighters once more. She is only allowed to watch and help clean up, but Cassie still enjoys being back on the job.

Following the arsonist sighting, Cassie also seems to become a target, leaving Jack to become a protector, willing to risk all to save her.

Positive: This book had great Christian content, our hero and heroine were lovable characters and the plot kept moving with no slow. Well written, this book kept me guessing until the end, and it was very surprising then. No swear words that I recall. The author’s style is very engaging, and she draws you into the characters and helps you feel their pain and joy.

Negative: Nothing really, this one man committed suicide, and another keeps setting fires.

Overall: I hardly dared put this book down I enjoyed it so much. The mystery, storyline and character kept me in the book. I recommend this book to all, it is very clean and a wonderful read.

Tags: fiction, Hannassus, Modern, Romance