Calamity by Brandon Sanderson

Calamity by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I will be brief. The winner in Calamity, was... well, the identity of Calamity. That was a great twist (I'm trying to avoid spoilers here.) I had several theories about how the books would culminate, and they were all wrong, and I honestly prefer it that way. I WANT the author to be one step ahead of me as the reader.

On the flip side, I think that Megan's powers were kind of muddled. I mean, in hindsight, I think I see where he was going with the whole alternate dimension thing, but as with time travel, I think it brings up more questions than it answers. Through this book David builds an affinity with one such dimension, but what of the others? Is there a true dimension? Does success in one equal success in all of them?

I'm not saying that those questions necessarily detract from the plot in Calamity, but to me they are distracting. Sanderson has a gift for writing great action scenes, but alternate dimensions require too much attention when there are bullets flying around.

This book is an almost 5 stars (which still equals 4) due to the overall story. He remains a master at his craft, and while I might not appreciate every choice he makes, I do appreciate how he continues to push the envelope with his immense creative ability.

Firefight by Brandon Sanderson

Firefight by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really like this series. The action is intense, the danger real, and the setting is both familiar and foreign at the same time. The weakness, for me, is in the characters. Especially David. He seems like an immature, hot-headed weakling a lot of the time, and yet somehow he lives through scenes where everyone else is being wiped out. It is like an action movie where the hero runs across open ground while an entire army of bad guys is shooting machine guns at him and somehow he never goes down. His planning isn't as good as the Reckoners, yet he still kills Epics. Don't get me wrong, I loved the book and I don't think of David as a flaw, rather that he has flaws...

Overall this is another solid read. If you took my advice and read Steelheart, I don't have to tell you to read this one, because you probably already have.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

One of the benefits of a book club is that you are introduced to a wide range of books that you might not ordinarily encounter. You often implicitly agree to read a book selected by someone else, a situation that many of us have not encountered outside of our formal education. I encountered this book in such a situation. Finishing this books was a challenge. On the positive side, I can honestly say that it got inside my head and made me think--about history, about medicine, about cultures, and about life. For that it gets the second star. Other than that, there are so many downsides. I will just briefly list a few:

- There is a plot within a plot and I don't feel they meshed well. Tell the story of Japan, or of the Dutch. Trying to tell a Japanese story inside of a Dutch story stranded characters for the middle third of the book.
- Love in the 1700's came with different cultural baggage to be sure, but love is love and people are people. Jacob fell for Orito too quickly for me and it turned to obsession without any provocation. I'm calling a foul.
- The side agenda to share intimate details of the medical practices of the period did not really add to the plot or characters. It was distracting and gruesome, much the way excessive violence is used in bad movies to make up for poor writing.
- The mysticism of Enomoto was never explained. His dealings with "life forces" left the book on the brink of the fantasy genre, and I think I would have liked it more if the author would have pushed it over the edge. Mitchell was already trying to add too many editorials (medicine, slavery, caste societies, etc.) that he might as well thrown in this for fun... or left the whole thing out.
-Finally, the crappy ending. Jacob doesn't get either of his love interests. He does get a son, but is separated from him and then the son dies before they can have a late-in-life reunion. On his deathbed he is still pining for Orito. Boo!

So, to sum up, this book could have been half the length with fewer editorials, more direct ties to the various plot elements, and an ending that made me glad I read it. But it didn't do any of those things. So I recommend you pass on this one unless you are the type of person who likes to watch long, drawn out drama movies where everyone dies in the end and you are left crying, wondering why life sucks. In other words, unless you are the complete opposite of me (not saying that is a bad thing, just trying to aid in your literary decisions....)