Firefight by Brandon Sanderson is the second in his YA contemporary fantasy trilogy Reckoners about ordinary humans turned megalomanic villains when they received superpowers. It continues the story – begun in Steelheart – of David and the Reckoners who aim to bring down the despotic Epics. If you enjoyed Steelheart, you’ll likely have fun with Firefight – it’s more of the same. It continues on the theme of power corrupting and strength of spirit perhaps overcoming this. What I liked Expanded world and character set. In this instalment David and the Reckoners leave Newcago, the location of the first book, to go take on a new Epic, Regalia, in Babylar, in other words, New York. It’s always fun when an author takes you new places, and Sanderson’s world building is excellent. His take on New York is unique and adds to the whole scope of the novel. As well as new locations we also meet new characters. They are a lot of fun and and are reasonably fleshed out. New layers in the whole origin of the Epics plot. In this book, David learns more about the cause of the Epics’ superpowers and their weaknesses. I imagine we’ll learn even…
Good morning, welcome to another reading roundup. The biggest item of note this week is that I am now Bluetoothed up to my hearing aids so I can listen to my audiobooks directly throughly hearing aids. Yay!! It’s lovely to have the audio directly in my ears without having to wear headphones which are painful with my hearing aid. I tested it with Firefight, the Brandon Sanderson novel I had been enjoying – it works really well and I can enjoy my audiobooks again. On the TBR list for this week is Jim Butcher’s Death Masks – the fourth in his Dresden Files series narrated by James Marsters. Good stuff. In a previous entry I have mentioned the web series Green Gables Fables, a modern retelling in transmedia format of the classic Anne of Green Gables series. Those of you familiar with the source material will know there is a truly heart wrenching moment towards the end of the first book. The series reached that point this week, and I have to say I found the last video a real tearjerker to watch. I’ve not been so emotionally engaged in a web series since Lydiagate broke in The Lizzie Bennet…
So welcome to my first reading roundup of 2015! Yay! The first thing I want to talk about this week is my GoodReads reading challenge for 2015. I failed to achieve my goal of 100 books last year – I read 91 – and I noticed that because I was listening to more audiobooks, books were taking me longer to finish. This year I have set my goal for 75 books. That’s still just under a book and a half a week. My family was also very generous to me over the festive season. I was showered with Amazon and iTunes vouchers – thanks everyone, you know me well! I also received the gift of Amy Poehler’s Yes, Please! book in my Christmas stocking. I look forward to reading that. This week I did something I don’t often do – I accepted I was never going to finish a book and removed it from my currently reading list. The book in question was Endgame by James Frey and Nils Johnson-Shelton. I’m sorry, but life is too short to stick with a book that really isn’t doing anything for me. You can check out my review to see why I dumped…