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Apex is the final book in the trilogy that began with Nexus.  It begins at pretty much the same instant that the previous book left off.  I thought it wrapped up the trilogy well, although there was one thing near the end that I wish hadn’t happened.  By the end, the author had addressed all of the many little plot threads and character arcs.  He didn’t necessarily tie everything up into a neat little package, which can sometimes feel unrealistic anyway, but he provided a good idea of where things would go next and left me with a sense of hopefulness.

I did have more trouble staying focused while reading this book than I did with the previous one.  The structure is similar, with short chapters that jump around between characters, but not all the plot threads in this book held my interest even though I think they were necessary to the greater story.  I wasn’t bored, really; I just sometimes had to rein my attention back in when we moved away from the characters and storylines that I was more interested in.

The trilogy brought up a lot of interesting ideas about what would happen in a world where you could take a drug (of sorts) and have the ability to share thoughts and feelings.  Throughout the course of this trilogy, we see a variety of ways in which it could be used -- both good and bad.  Considering the implications, and whether the good outweighs the bad or vice versa, was one of the most interesting aspects of the trilogy.  There were a few things I was skeptical about but, in general, I could easily picture real people reacting in the various ways that people reacted throughout the trilogy.

This is the second book in the trilogy that started with Nexus.  I won’t talk about the plot, because doing so would spoil the story from the first book.  I’ll just say that the story picks up about three months after the end of the first book and progresses more or less along the lines you might expect.

I think I enjoyed this as much as, if not slightly more than, the first book.  It felt more consistently fast-paced.  One thing that helped is that, while there’s still quite a bit of moral ambiguity, the characters don’t debate it as much.  The format was also somewhat different with shorter chapters, a larger cast of point-of-view characters, and rapid changes between characters.  I know some people don’t like books that have a lot of characters, but for me it depends on how distinctive those characters are and how interesting their stories are.  In the case of this book, each character’s story was interesting to me.  The characters were also distinctive enough that I never mixed them up, although I can’t say the same for the author.

I was surprised to see several editing issues, because I don’t remember any glaring errors in the first book.  There were large sections that seemed perfectly fine, but then I’d start noticing several errors.  Poor Claire, a minor character, had a particularly rough time.  Not only did her name get misspelled, but she had to stand in for another guy’s wife at one point.  They were in bed at the time, so I’m sure that was awkward.  (No, it definitely wasn’t intended to be that way in the story.)  I enjoyed the story too much to be terribly annoyed about the errors, but they were a little distracting so I hope there are fewer in the third book.

I find myself really on the fence in regard to what I think about where things are going in the story, even in terms of potential consequences that the good guys seem to consider a good thing.  The bad things are really, really bad, but the “good things” are a bit horrifying to me also, or maybe it’s just that they’re portrayed idealistically and I think the reality would be very different.  I’m going to reserve judgment until I finish the trilogy and then I might discuss it more within spoiler tags, depending on what I think by the time I make it to the end.  Either way, I’m pretty absorbed by the story and I look forward to seeing how the author concludes it.

Nexus is the first book in a science fiction trilogy. The term “Nexus” refers to an illegal drug of sorts that contains nanotechnology. After being ingested, Nexus creates a network that allows people with the drug in their system to share thoughts and emotions with each other. College students have secret parties where they all take Nexus and then they glory in the empathy and the oneness of it all. Evil people use it for mind control.

There are two main point-of-view characters. Kade is a brilliant college student who, along with a friend, has significantly enhanced what Nexus can do. He has idealistic visions of sharing it freely with the world so it can be used to improve society. Sam is an agent for a U.S. military organization. She works to prevent the distribution, development, and use of the drug so that it can’t be misused.

It was really an interesting story. It did lag in spots, mostly in the first half, but I didn’t have much trouble staying interested. The main parts that lagged for me were the discussions and arguments about the morality of suppressing or sharing something like Nexus. The arguments were written well enough, and would have been interesting in a smaller dose, but anybody who reads a lot of science fiction has probably seen similar arguments before in various contexts. I felt like they came up a few times too often.

In the second half, things got quite intense, and pretty violent. It's definitely not the most graphic book I've read but, if there are any particular types of content warnings that will make you avoid a book, I think it’s safe to say that those warnings apply here to at least some extent. If you don’t mind a brutal book, this one has an interesting story and is written well. I also liked and empathized with the characters, and the moral dilemmas were real enough that I often wasn’t sure what I wanted to happen or who to root for.

This book doesn’t really end in a cliff hanger; it would stand alone if you don’t mind not having all of your threads wrapped up at the end. There’s clearly much more story to tell, and I plan to move directly on to the second book to find out what happens next.

Ramblings about the Book

People who follow me may have seen me mention my intent to fit one non-SF&F classic per quarter into my heavily SF&F-based reading diet.  A Tale of Two Cities was my classic reading selection for the second quarter.  Last time, I chose an author and book that was completely new to me.  This time, I chose a book that I had been assigned to read in tenth grade but that I didn’t enjoy at the time and in fact didn’t remember at all about 25 years later.

My interest in this story fluctuated a little bit, especially in the first half, but I enjoyed it quite a bit by the end.  The first chapter starts in 1775, and the book was written by Dickens in 1859, so I guess that makes this historical fiction squared. :)  It’s set just before and during the French Revolution, which is a period of time I knew little about.  No doubt we discussed it in my tenth grade class, but those were the types of lessons that usually had me sneaking to read my own book if I was well-positioned to do so without getting caught, or nodding off in boredom if I wasn’t…

The characters never really grabbed me, except maybe toward the end.  Lucie in particular was hard for me to appreciate.  Dickens tells us about her impact on others but, for the most part, she just seemed to sit around and act distressed or sympathetic or on the verge of fainting without actually doing or saying much.  It's an interesting contrast with the more vivacious female characters in my previous classic selection, Pride and Prejudice.  Of all the characters, I think Lorry was the one who felt the most genuine to me, and he was the one I liked best.  Carton did grow on me quite a bit too, though.  I didn’t dislike the others; I just didn’t feel too invested in them.

Everything is very heavily foreshadowed.  This story didn’t hold many surprises, except for a few small ones, because the author telegraphed everything well in advance.  I was a little over halfway through the book when I finally put two and two together and predicted (correctly) how the book was going to end.  In fact, I felt a little silly for not realizing it at least a couple chapters sooner.  It’s possible that I subconsciously remembered it from 25 years ago, but the book never felt at all familiar to me as I read it.  Well, aside from the opening words anyway.  Despite knowing how things were going to end, I did get really caught up in the story and the emotion of what was happening in the later chapters. 

Ramblings about Annotations

Knowing I didn’t like this book as a teen, I was more nervous about reading it than I otherwise would have been, so I decided to get an annotated version.  I think this was the first time I’ve read anything annotated, and I had trouble finding the right balance.  I don’t normally skim when I read books.  If the words are there, I’m going to read them.  If my eyes glaze over and I don’t absorb them, I’ll probably go back and read them again.  So you might be able to imagine how I tackled the annotations at first.  I read every single one of them within the segment where they were presented.  In some of the introductory chapters, there were so many that I lost the flow of the story and had to go back and re-read the chapter afterward.  This may have contributed to my trouble getting into the story, but many of the annotations were very interesting, and I think more historically informative than the story itself, so I did want to read them.

On the other hand, the annotations were sometimes repetitive, and many of the terms that were explained were very obvious within the context and didn’t, in my opinion, need explaining. I guess younger teens and/or people who don’t read as much would appreciate them more.  Also, people with holes in their head.  The ones that gave historical context were the ones I enjoyed the most, when they weren’t repetitive.  For example, I got really, really tired of reading reminders that Dickens was using the title “Monseigneur” in a historically inappropriate manner.  I understood it the first time, really!

About halfway through the book, I started feeling really bogged down by annotations and I started to lose interest in them.  I finally managed to talk myself into skipping them, and I was glad I did.  I’m sure I missed out on other things of interest, but I had reached my limit.  I wasn’t even tempted to go back and skim through the ones I skipped after finishing the book.  If I read other annotated works, I’ll have to try different tactics to figure out what works best for me.  I think, as people have suggested, reading the story by itself and then going back to the annotations afterward will be the best course of action, with the occasional pause to read an annotation during my initial read if I see one tied to something that confused me.

Rambling Summary

Wow, that was a lot of rambling even for me!  I tend to have a rating in mind as I read a book, mentally adjusting it as my opinions change.  This book was no more than 3 stars for quite a while, but it grew on me and I mentally adjusted it to 3.5.  It wasn’t until I finished the book and reflected on how much I enjoyed the last few chapters and the way everything tied together that I realized I couldn’t give it less than 4.  Maybe I didn’t love it as much as many other people do, but I did appreciate it and I hope to give more of Dickens’ work a try someday.

Last year, some people friended each other on Goodreads to avoid losing touch if BL vanished unexpectedly.  I know a lot of people have duplicate friends and aren’t bothered by it, but it bothers me.  When I see duplicate posts on my feeds, I start scrolling faster and skimming more.  Sometimes I miss new posts that I really do want to see.  There was a time when I read every post on my feed, possibly skimming some if they didn’t interest me, but never skipping posts entirely.  These days, I often scroll past several posts without reading them or even expanding them.  To me, that’s pointless.  If I’m following somebody, it should be because I want to see their posts.

When BL staff returned on December 9, my intent was to allow a few months for things to stabilize, then clean up the duplicates based on where people had decided to settle.  I’ve put it off for longer than I’ve intended, but I hate tedious tasks and, like most people, my spare time is very valuable to me.  I’ve decided to allocate a (hopefully small!) portion of my three-day weekend toward cleaning up the duplicates. 

My plan is this: If somebody I'm following in both places is still active on BL, I’ll unfriend them on GR and keep following them on BL.  Otherwise, I’ll do the opposite.  If anybody sees this, cares, and wishes I had maintained the relationship on the opposite site, just let me know and I’ll happily switch it.  I’ll leave things alone on LibraryThing for now.  I have a couple duplicates there, but my activity on LT is mostly in the groups and I tend to ignore my feed, so I don’t feel any annoyance about it.   

I know I could just take people off my “Top Friends” list on Goodreads and limit my feed to Top Friends, but that feels like a numbers game to me.  It’s like saying, “I don’t actually want to see anything these people post, but I’m going to maintain my friendship with them so my friend count doesn’t decrease.”  I hate that.  Also, I’ve seen messages in the Goodreads Feedback forum indicating there are known algorithm issues causing reviews to be excluded from your feed if you have a lot of friends.  I’ve never seen “a lot” quantified, and it might not be affected by people you're filtering out of your feed, but I want to minimize that risk and keep my friend list manageable.

Sorry for writing such a long post about something that will be of absolutely no interest to most people!  This should go without saying, but I want to emphasize that I won’t be the slightest bit offended if other people decide to do the same to me.  For that matter, I won’t be offended even if some people want to unfollow me altogether.  I completely understand what it’s like to find yourself following people and realizing you really don’t have much in common.  I also know all too well what it’s like to have a busy life and want to streamline things so you can have more time for the things you most enjoy.  I may do a little bit of cleanup in that regard myself once I get started, but my main objective is to get rid of duplicates.

The Shepherd’s Crown is the last Tiffany Aching book and, published after the author’s death, it’s the last book in the entire Discworld series.  It’s very short, not having been completely fleshed out by Pratchett before his death, but it tells a complete story.  Tiffany, now a full-fledged witch, finds her responsibilities increasing beyond her ability to keep up.  Meanwhile, the elves are getting up to mischief again.

Unlike the last Discworld book I had read, the characters didn’t feel off to me, with one possible exception from a character who was only in the book for a page or two.  I also enjoyed the story pretty well.  It wasn’t one of the best, but it didn’t bore me either.  However, one major aspect of this story was spoiled for me months ago, so the story had much less impact than it would have had otherwise. 

And so here I am, after starting the very first book one year and twenty-one days ago, at the end of the series.  I started it with skepticism, not really expecting to care for it since I don’t normally do well with satirical, wink-at-the-reader type humor.  I love humor in my books, but I’ve always preferred humor that feels like a natural extension of the story and its characters whereas this type of humor tends to pull me out of the story to admire the author’s cleverness and consider the real-world parallels.  Maybe I was in the right frame of mind when I decided to try this series, or maybe Pratchett just did it exceptionally well.  Whatever the reason, I enjoyed this series quite a bit. 

I don’t think I ever rated any of the books higher than four stars, because these aren’t the type of stories that I get completely wrapped up in.  And yet the fact that these books didn’t completely absorb me is one of the things I liked about them.  There were some I liked more than others but, in general, they were light, fun, and usually entertaining.  They were particularly excellent travel books because they didn’t demand my full attention.  I’m not much of a re-reader, but I could see myself picking some of them up again someday, maybe in a few years, as reading material while traveling.  It might also be fun to try them as audio books.

Raising Steam is the third and final book in the Moist Von Lipwig subseries of Discworld, and the second-to-last book in the entire series.  In this book, we meet a new character by the name of Simnel who has invented the steam engine and introduced the concept of fast travel by train.  Meanwhile, there is more unrest between the traditional and modern dwarfs.

This book spends a lot of time talking about trains: building trains and railways, operating trains, the benefits of trains, train safety, and so forth.  This is not, to me, a particularly exciting topic, and sometimes I had trouble pushing through the book.  I was interested enough that I didn’t want to abandon it, especially not so close to the end of the series, but it put me to sleep a few times.  I was also on my second week of business travel and pretty worn out in any case, so maybe this had as much to do with me as it had to do with the book.

Vetinari, a character I’ve greatly enjoyed since his first introduction, gets quite a bit of page time in this book, but for some reason he didn’t seem like Vetinari to me.  Normally he’s more taciturn.  He manipulates and influences people with a few pointed words, with silence and perhaps some intimidating looks, and with visual aids.  That's one of the reasons I enjoy his character so much.  In this book, he had a tendency toward detailed monologues and explanations, and there were one or two weird sections where he sounded like the CEO of a company using corporate buzzwords.

It wasn’t a bad book, and there were parts I enjoyed, but it wasn’t at the level I’ve come to expect from the Discworld books.  Combine that with a topic I wasn’t that interested in, and I just didn’t enjoy this as much as the previous books.

I’ve been curious about the title of this book since I first saw it.  I tend to like the odder titles that make me speculate about the contents of the book.  By the end of the first page, the “Universes” part is clear.  The story is about two alternate universes that, as a result of a scientific experiment that happened several years before the book began, have become linked together.  It’s even possible for people to travel between the universes.  The “Ducks” part of the title doesn’t really become clear until maybe halfway through the book, so I won't talk about that.

I think I’m somewhat predisposed to like alternate universe stories, and it’s been a while since I’ve read one.  I was a little iffy on the main character, Felix, who seemed a bit contradictory.  On the one hand, we begin the book with him essentially taking a vacation to the other universe with the intent of breaking the law.  On the other hand, he seems a little too passive as events unfold. 

I thought the author could have done more with this interesting setting than she did.  For example, we have two universes that, over time, have developed some significant differences.  There could have been many interesting differences to explore, but guess which one got the most page time?  E-books versus paper books.  Although I find it easy to get drawn into a conversation on the subject, because I have definite opinions on the matter, it’s not really something I want to read about in a book, especially when it doesn’t add anything new to the many discussions I’ve already seen over and over.

At the beginning of the book, Felix’s main motivation is to spy on his “alter” (the version of himself in the alternate universe) who he’s afraid might become a successful author before he does.  I found it difficult to connect with his attitude, but it was fun to consider how I might react to my own alter and her failures or successes as compared to my own.  It couldn't really relate to Felix’s fear that his alter might be “better” than him.  Any rational person goes through life knowing that, however good they are at something, there will always be somebody else out there who is better at it.  If you can’t handle that…??  I would love the chance to collaborate with somebody who was so similar to me, with similar aptitudes but possibly different experiences and skill sets that we could share and learn from to improve both of ourselves.  Who better to learn from than somebody who shares your communication and learning style, and somebody who can understand better than anybody else what motivates you?

Overall, I liked the premise and the book was a quick read.  The story was light and uncomplicated, but it did make me think a little bit.  However, sometimes the story got tedious, and I was never very attached to the characters.  Although the main premise was interesting, the story was stretched a little thin and could have taken better advantage of the interesting setting.

This was definitely one of the stranger things I’ve read in recent years.  The World of Poo is a Discworld-based children’s book that is referenced quite a bit in the previous Discworld book I just finished, Snuff.  The main character, Geoffrey, develops a fascination with poo and starts collecting samples from various creatures he encounters, some of which are fictional Discworld creatures.

The Amazon product page lists it as being geared toward ages 8 through 12.  12 seems a little old to me, but I guess 8 sounds about right in terms of the simplicity of the story and language.  On the other hand, there are a few snide comments aimed more at adults that seem likely to raise some questions.  I’m also not sure the average younger child would fully appreciate the Discworld setting and be able to confidently sort through the mish-mash of real and fake facts, unless they’ve read some of the novels.

Anyway, it was a cute and very quick read, and it was a fun little tie-in to the main books.  I may even have learned a thing or two from it, although I don’t expect those things to have any major impact on my life...

Snuff was the 8th and final novel in the Watch subseries of Discworld.  Vimes reluctantly goes off on a “vacation” to the country with his family.  His impressions of the country, having spent all his life in the city of Ankh-Morpork, are amusing, and naturally he manages to find a mystery to solve which leads to very little relaxation.

I enjoyed the book, but I had hoped it might be more of an ensemble story.  This was mostly a Vimes story and there was very, very little page time given to the other members of the Watch or any of the other Ankh-Morpork characters.  It was still entertaining though, and it made a couple of boring flights seem to pass more quickly.

I Shall Wear Midnight is the fourth book in the Tiffany Aching subseries of Discworld. 

In this story, there is an entity that is causing an increase of bigotry against witches, and naturally its prime target is Tiffany.  The story was ok, but very short and the plot was pretty thin.  The book was carried by the characters, who are all still a lot of fun.  I liked that we got to spend a short amount of time in Ankh-Morpork, which isn’t a normal setting for the Tiffany books, and I especially liked that we finally got a tie back to the first Witches book, Equal Rites.  The timeline is rather questionable, but I was just happy to see some reference to it.

The Lions of Al-Rassan is the second book I’ve read by Guy Gavriel Kay, the first being Tigana.  I really enjoy his writing style.  One thing in particular that I’ve enjoyed about both books is that they each managed to satisfy my epic fantasy cravings within a single, standalone novel.  I enjoy a good epic fantasy series, but a standalone does have the advantage of being easier to fit into my reading schedule.

The story involves the cultural and religious conflicts between various factions in a peninsula on a fictional world.  We follow some of the more influential characters from those different cultures, most of whom are very likeable, as their goals coincide and conflict with each other.  The author writes characters and camaraderie very well.  Sometimes I thought there was a little too much melodrama, and sometimes events were a bit too coincidental, but mostly it was a well-written and engaging story. 

It’s probably arguable whether this book really counts as fantasy.  It definitely has a solid epic fantasy feel, depending I guess on what you think of when you hear “epic fantasy”, and it’s clearly set on a fictional world with two moons.  However, there weren’t really any actual fantastical elements aside from one secondary character with an unexplained special ability.  The story and setting are inspired by and have some parallels in real-world history.

It was easy to decide on a 4.5 star rating on the sites where I can give half stars, but it was much, much harder to decide whether to round up or down on Goodreads.  In the end, I decided to round down.  There was just a little too much bitter in the bittersweet ending, however much I expected it.  I also felt frustrated with some of the characters’ choices, and there was the aforementioned melodrama and coincidences.  Overall, though, I really enjoyed reading this book and I was completely engrossed by it while I was reading it.  I’ll likely try to fit Kay’s work back into my reading schedule sooner rather than later.

This was cute and a little bit funny, but it was also very short and it didn’t really have any substance.  It was basically a meeting of the Wizards of Unseen University in which they discuss an inspection report for their university.  Alas, Rincewind was nowhere to be found, nor was he even mentioned.

This short story can be read for free here.

This book was semi-entertaining, but it definitely won’t be one of my favorites from Discworld.  I also think I was a little misled by the Discworld chart I’ve been referencing.  The chart lists this as part of the Rincewind series, but he hardly appears in the book at all and has very little to do with the story.  He’s a fun character; I was looking forward to one last book about him.

Our main characters are four non-wizards who work on the staff at Unseen University.  The other wizards who often feature in the Rincewind books also get a fair amount of page time, more than Rincewind himself does.  The basic story is that the wizards of Unseen University, to avoid the travesty of a reduced cheese selection, must form up a team and participate in a football competition.  (Soccer to us Americans.) 

It wasn’t a bad book, and I liked the main characters, but it was an easy book to put down.  Part of that wasn’t the book’s fault; it was my week to be on call for work, and month end is never the calmest time to be on call, so I was distracted and tired.  It took me most of the week to get through the first half of the book, and then it started to pick up and I was able to finish the second half more quickly.

Making Money is the second book in the Moist von Lipwig subseries of Discworld.  I’m enjoying this subseries quite a bit; I’m sorry it only has three books.

In this book, Moist von Lipwig finds himself unexpectedly involved in banking.  The way in which this happens is pretty amusing, and the situation provides many chuckles throughout the book.  I’m still really enjoying the character, and I also love that Lord Vetinari gets some decent page time in this subseries.  The story itself wasn’t super exciting, and I was never in any great suspense about what would happen next, but it was funny and held my attention throughout.

The City & the City is essentially a police procedural in a strange and interesting setting.  The book opens up with our main character, Inspector Tyador Borlú, arriving onto the scene where a dead woman has been found.  The story follows him as he attempts to solve the mystery. 

The setting intrigued me from the moment we were given the first hint of it at the end of the first chapter.  The story itself was ok.  It held my interest, but I wasn’t completely absorbed by it.  What made the story interesting to me was its setting and the way the setting affected the murder investigation.  The problem for me was that the story wasn’t about the setting, and that was the part I was most interested in reading about.  There was very little background given about it, and very few tangible explanations.  It still played a huge role in the story, and was still fun to read about, but I wanted more meat.

I had a heck of a time deciding how to shelve this.  I don’t like to get too complicated with my shelving.  If a book crosses genres, I try to pick whichever general genre seems to fit it the best.  If a book tells a mystery story in a science fiction or fantasy setting, then I’ll shelve it as either science fiction or fantasy.  But this book?  I don’t know.  On Goodreads, the majority of members have shelved it as fantasy.  That surprises me, but maybe most people took certain aspects of this story a lot more literally than I did.  Science fiction doesn’t really fit either, although I’d buy into that more readily than I’d buy into the fantasy label.  In the end, I decided to just stick with the one thing I was sure of and shelve it as “mystery”.  :)

I have some more comments about the setting, but I’ll have to put them behind spoiler tags: