The Godborn by Paul S Kemp – Review
Book Reviews , eBook reviews / September 30, 2013

I received a copy of The Godborn by Paul S Kemp free to review via Netgalley.  I should preface my thoughts by noting that I am not very familiar with Kemp’s The Twilight War trilogy and when reading this book I often felt as if I were a new reader to the Wheel of Time who had picked the series up at book four.  I had the impression that a lot of assumptions of previous knowledge about the world have been made and I often found it difficult to keep up.  I suspect that if you are already up to speed, you will have quite a different experience reading this book than mine.  This is reflected in the low rating I gave this book. The Godborn tells of Vasen Cale’s quest to reunite the shards of Mask’s divinity which had been split among three people and to prevent Shar’s reincarnation which would lead to world destruction.  At least that’s what I think it was about.  I wasn’t very clear. What I liked The premise.  I felt the idea of pieces of divinity having to be collected and reassembled interesting and well done. What I disliked Lack of focus.  The Godborn…

The Godborn by Paul S Kemp – Review
Book Reviews , eBook reviews / September 30, 2013

I received a copy of The Godborn by Paul S Kemp free to review via Netgalley.  I should preface my thoughts by noting that I am not very familiar with Kemp’s The Twilight War trilogy and when reading this book I often felt as if I were a new reader to the Wheel of Time who had picked the series up at book four.  I had the impression that a lot of assumptions of previous knowledge about the world have been made and I often found it difficult to keep up.  I suspect that if you are already up to speed, you will have quite a different experience reading this book than mine.  This is reflected in the low rating I gave this book. The Godborn tells of Vasen Cale’s quest to reunite the shards of Mask’s divinity which had been split among three people and to prevent Shar’s reincarnation which would lead to world destruction.  At least that’s what I think it was about.  I wasn’t very clear. What I liked The premise.  I felt the idea of pieces of divinity having to be collected and reassembled interesting and well done. What I disliked Lack of focus.  The Godborn…

Update on my Kobo Aura 2013 Six inch edition
e-Reader Reviews / September 29, 2013

I’ve had my Kobo Aura for about a week and a half now, and while there has been a lot I have loved about it, it hasn’t been a 100% positive experience. The industrial design is great – I love the bezel flush with the screen and the device is very light and thin.  The new UI looks good and the Pocket integration is fantastic.  Tor.com often has great snippets of upcoming books on its website and I find it awesome to be able to click a button and have those on my Kobo. Kobo often touts its handling of PDFs, and in all fairness it’s probably better than that on the Kindle.  However, I tried to read a PDF book I have and gave up after a few pages.  I found manoeuvring around the document very cumbersome even with Kobo’s navigation tool.  For PDFs, tablets rather than eReaders are definitely the way to go. Searching on the Kobo reader – or the website for that matter – is completely hit or miss.  For more common books or authors there is no problem.  However trying to search for Anne Robillard for example brought up every Anne under the sun except Robillard….

Update on my Kobo Aura 2013 Six inch edition
e-Reader Reviews / September 29, 2013

I’ve had my Kobo Aura for about a week and a half now, and while there has been a lot I have loved about it, it hasn’t been a 100% positive experience. The industrial design is great – I love the bezel flush with the screen and the device is very light and thin.  The new UI looks good and the Pocket integration is fantastic.  Tor.com often has great snippets of upcoming books on its website and I find it awesome to be able to click a button and have those on my Kobo. Kobo often touts its handling of PDFs, and in all fairness it’s probably better than that on the Kindle.  However, I tried to read a PDF book I have and gave up after a few pages.  I found manoeuvring around the document very cumbersome even with Kobo’s navigation tool.  For PDFs, tablets rather than eReaders are definitely the way to go. Searching on the Kobo reader – or the website for that matter – is completely hit or miss.  For more common books or authors there is no problem.  However trying to search for Anne Robillard for example brought up every Anne under the sun except Robillard….

Amazon announces new Kindle Fire HDX
e-Reader Reviews / September 28, 2013

A few days ago, Amazon announced the updates to its Kindle Fire line of tablets.  Here is the page with the details. Naturally, it has an improved screen, and processor.  No surprises there.  What’s more interesting is that they announced a major update to the Kindle Fire OS, to called Mojito.   Some of the new features in Mojito include: Mayday button.  This is the most innovative of the inventions and allows you to be connected to a video chat with an Amazon tech support person.  Your tech will have the ability to view and control your screen to assist you.  This could be a godsend for the novice user.  Amazon is at pains to stress that the agent can only see your screen, not you to alleviate privacy concerns.  This is a very interesting feature and one I think could really differentiate Amazon tablets from the others in a saturated marketplace. On the other end of the scale, Amazon is touting better enterprise support.  This includes support for data encryption, Kerberos integration so that users can browse corporate intranets and VPN clients.  This is interesting. So far, Amazon has placed itself securely in the consumer market – I’m really…

Amazon announces new Kindle Fire HDX
e-Reader Reviews / September 28, 2013

A few days ago, Amazon announced the updates to its Kindle Fire line of tablets.  Here is the page with the details. Naturally, it has an improved screen, and processor.  No surprises there.  What’s more interesting is that they announced a major update to the Kindle Fire OS, to called Mojito.   Some of the new features in Mojito include: Mayday button.  This is the most innovative of the inventions and allows you to be connected to a video chat with an Amazon tech support person.  Your tech will have the ability to view and control your screen to assist you.  This could be a godsend for the novice user.  Amazon is at pains to stress that the agent can only see your screen, not you to alleviate privacy concerns.  This is a very interesting feature and one I think could really differentiate Amazon tablets from the others in a saturated marketplace. On the other end of the scale, Amazon is touting better enterprise support.  This includes support for data encryption, Kerberos integration so that users can browse corporate intranets and VPN clients.  This is interesting. So far, Amazon has placed itself securely in the consumer market – I’m really…

Reading Roundup – 27th September 2013
Reading Roundup / September 27, 2013

I hope you enjoyed last week’s guest post from Azrael, but now it’s back to regular programming.  The books I have read in the last few weeks have all been worthy of full reviews, so expect to see them in the next few weeks.  This week I started listening to Steelheart of which I have heard the first few chapters a few weeks ago when Audible released them early, free of charge.  I do enjoy Sanderson’s writing so I’m really looking forward to this one. I’m also reading an ARC of Paul S. Kemp’s The Godborn.  Expect reviews of these two soon.   Added to my library this week One series I love listening to on Audible is the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher.  I used an Audible credit to add book 5, Death Masks, to my library.  I’m looking forward to this, but it will likely be a few weeks before I get the chance to listen to it. One of the books on Audible’s daily deals this week was The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.  This is a very interesting tale, and I was happy to add it to my library for the couple of dollars that…

Reading Roundup – 27th September 2013
Reading Roundup / September 27, 2013

I hope you enjoyed last week’s guest post from Azrael, but now it’s back to regular programming.  The books I have read in the last few weeks have all been worthy of full reviews, so expect to see them in the next few weeks.  This week I started listening to Steelheart of which I have heard the first few chapters a few weeks ago when Audible released them early, free of charge.  I do enjoy Sanderson’s writing so I’m really looking forward to this one. I’m also reading an ARC of Paul S. Kemp’s The Godborn.  Expect reviews of these two soon.   Added to my library this week One series I love listening to on Audible is the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher.  I used an Audible credit to add book 5, Death Masks, to my library.  I’m looking forward to this, but it will likely be a few weeks before I get the chance to listen to it. One of the books on Audible’s daily deals this week was The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.  This is a very interesting tale, and I was happy to add it to my library for the couple of dollars that…

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor – Review
Audiobook reviews , Book Reviews / September 25, 2013

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor tells the story of Karou, a young woman with a double life.  By day she is a student in modern day Prague, but at night she runs errands for her chimaera foster father, usually involving collecting teeth.  It also tells of her love for an angel, Akiva, and of the war between angels and chimaera.   What I liked Romeo and Juliet.  Daughter of Smoke and Bone borrows a lot from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.  We have the star-crossed lovers on either side of opposing factions, betrayal, discovery, faked death and its fallout.  Hey, I don’t mind – there’s a reason why Shakespeare and his themes have lasted so long – the idea of star-crossed lovers torn apart by war and death still resonates. Multiple threads woven together.  We see the story from multiple points of view.  At first, I found this confusing – who is Madrigal and why am I hearing from her when I want to hear from Karou? However as the book went on, these multiple points of view came together beautifully to create a wonderful story. The humour.  Karou and her friend Zuzanna are just so funny together…

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor – Review
Audiobook reviews , Book Reviews / September 25, 2013

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor tells the story of Karou, a young woman with a double life.  By day she is a student in modern day Prague, but at night she runs errands for her chimaera foster father, usually involving collecting teeth.  It also tells of her love for an angel, Akiva, and of the war between angels and chimaera.   What I liked Romeo and Juliet.  Daughter of Smoke and Bone borrows a lot from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.  We have the star-crossed lovers on either side of opposing factions, betrayal, discovery, faked death and its fallout.  Hey, I don’t mind – there’s a reason why Shakespeare and his themes have lasted so long – the idea of star-crossed lovers torn apart by war and death still resonates. Multiple threads woven together.  We see the story from multiple points of view.  At first, I found this confusing – who is Madrigal and why am I hearing from her when I want to hear from Karou? However as the book went on, these multiple points of view came together beautifully to create a wonderful story. The humour.  Karou and her friend Zuzanna are just so funny together…