Faintingviolet already did a great review of this glorious audio book, but I’ll try to give it justice as well. While abridged, this amazing full cast rendition of “The Hobbit” was a thoroughly enjoyable listen, and I highly recommend it. It’s complete with a musical score, sound effects, and Bilbo breaking the fourth wall to talk directly to the audience as if he’s recounting his tale right out of his “there and back again” memoir. I thought it was a neat artistic touch that Bilbo […]
The Foulest Fowl
A friend of mine has been trying to get me to read Artemis Fowl for literally years, and I finally conceded. Why did I wait so long to read this book? Why did I keep putting this off? Artemis Fowl is fantastic! Artemis Fowl is a twelve-year-old super genius and the son of a ne’er do well age-old Irish crime family called the Fowls. His father has gone missing after losing a large quantity of the family fortune and his mother has locked herself in […]
A Long Trip in a Zepplin
This is the first Terry Pratchett book that I’ve read not getting five stars, and there’s a part of me that feels bad about it, but this books just didn’t hit it for me. Maybe it was the fact that I listened to it on audio and it literally took me three weeks. Maybe it was too science fiction. Maybe it was just a little downright boring in some sections. Either way…. The Long Earth is a fantastic concept; there’s datem earth…our earth, but marching […]
Early Fantasy: Long Stories in Which Not Much Happens
Part of my Masters thesis is on the evolution of the fantasy novel. This means I had to delve into the pre-Tolkien works, which while important to the evolution of the fantasy process, is a scary place to go and, frankly they’re downright boring. I DNFed The Wood Beyond the World by William Morris at about the 20% mark since I could barely understand the sentence structure, never mind the plot, and slogged through The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany instead since it […]