Books, Books, Books

If you ever look at the sidebar on my blog you'll notice I am tracking the books I've been reading. I'm in the middle of some of them (and have been for a while), and others are ones I read quickly because I couldn't put them down. I just finished Divergent by Veronica Roth. The tension in this rightly-called dystopian thriller starts early and keeps going through to the end. The main character, Tris, has grown up in a society in which five factions maintain uneasy working relations. The children go to school together, but once they turn sixteen they have to chose, once and for all, which faction they will join. Leaving the faction of one's birth is usually viewed as betrayal. Tris chooses to leave the quiet lifestyle of her family and join with the Dauntless, known for their bravery and daring (or thrill-seeking suicidal idiots, depending on your perspective). In some ways the story reminded me of The Hunger Games.  Maybe because I Divergent just yesterday, but I think I like this story better. Maybe I had better go reread Hunger Games to find out. Wink. But not until after I have read the sequel to Divergent, called Insurgent. The final novel in the trilogy is due out this coming fall. Squee!!


I also recently finished re-reading Edgar Rice Burroughs Warlord of Mars (book 3 in the John Carter Martian series). I grew up a nerd, reading science fiction and fantasy from a pretty early age. And this series, centered around the tall, dark-haired, honorable John Carter, captured my heart. He is a daring, brave, selfless, virtuous hero. He brings out the best (if there is best to be found) in those around him. Of course, he also encounters a stroke of luck almost every time he needs one. If you've seen the movie John Carter, then you're familiar with some of the characters and a few of the events in the first novel, A Princess of Mars, but there the similarities end. As a fan of the novel am I angry the scriptwriters and director didn't follow the novel more closely? Nope. To me, they are two entirely different animals with vastly different means of conveying a story. The movie was almost like fan fiction to me. Enjoyable on its own terms. The language of the novels is much more flowery than anything in use today. You might need a dictionary here and there to double check the meaning of a word we just don't use any more, but your vocabulary could always use a boost, right? One word of warning: as I was searching online for a book cover to share, most of the fan art for the books is pretty nasty stuff, which is not anything like the content. I downloaded the ebooks from iTunes or iBooks for my iPad, and they came with plain covers. Looks like most bookstore copies have much better covers, though. Stick to the booksellers and you should avoid the nasty stuff.

Two thumbs up for both books.