Books 45-48

[lizzardgirl]

45: The Last Secret of the Temple, by Paul Sussman

This was marketed as Da Vinci Code, but better and you know how I love me some absurd conspiracies now and then. It was better than I expected. Yes, it was all a bit ridiculous with ancient artifacts etc, but the plot was woven very neatly, the characters were very interesting and the shocking twists, although they came out of the blue, were not completely random as with Dan Brown, but made sense in hindsight. It also avoided some of the traps that Dan Brown always falls into what with all the exposition monologues and such. Also I thought that all the current-day stuff with Israeli/Palestinian/Arab tensions was handled very delicately without undue vilifying of either side. There's quite a lot of swearing, I should warn you though, and of course it runs havoc with Jewish/Christian mythology, which may not be everyone's thing (but I thought it was decently enough handled, unlike some other stories I could mention.)

(As an aside: Should I read Dan Brown's latest (okay, a couple of years old by now) just to snark it? I kinda haven't really snarked anything in a long time, but then I wouldn't want to waste time reading crap ...)

46: Reaper Man, by Terry Pratchett
47: Soul Music, by Terry Pratchett
48: Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett

So worth it to read them in order! I loved them to bits. I get now why you all love this series and Susan so much. Okay, I'll admit it was a bit weird reading an essentially Christmas-themed book in hot June! (None of you mentioned that it was a Christmas book!) but other than that it was awesome.

Now reading the giant big French tome of French, so it'll be ages until I can make another update :)

Comments

[shemmelle.livejournal.com]

Yay I'm glad you found reading them in order good. I was afraid you were going to be like BAH I COULD HAVE READ THEM OUT OF ORDER BUT YOU MADE ME WAIT!

[katharhino.livejournal.com]

From my one experience reading Dan Brown, it's richly snarkable but so repetitive I'm not sure I'd put myself through it again just for fun...

<3 Susan <3

[swedepea.livejournal.com]

I know a small handful of people who seem to like Dan Brown (?????). And not in a "this is awesome to snark" sense, but in a "he's a fantastic writer!!" sense. And at least one or two of them are otherwise intelligent people with usually good taste. It puzzles me exceedingly.

(I briefly wondered if I was being too much of a snob when writing the above, and then I remember it was in regards to Dan Brown.)