Reading Report :: June

I finished reading The Unknown Soldier by Gerard Seymour. It took me a long time to read. Some 68 days. Why? because I read another book in between, Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey (More about it in a bit).

So, The Unknown Soldier. The book is slow. The premise promises of action. But that's all it does. Promises of action. There is very little action. Couples of camels getting shot, a dude getting sunk in a quicksand, and then a stinger taking down an unmanned airplane. There is lot of character development, of the lead character Caleb and his co travelers who are crossing the desert on camels. What really irritated me was a blurb on the back of the book that said that "the action in the last 150 pages is intense and it won't let you leave your leave the book." For me, last 150 pages were boring. I kept expecting some action and kept reading the book, but none, zilch nada. Even in the end, the book ends as a damp squib. I was not entertained, not disappointed either, because it's not a badly written book, but there is very less good in it.

Now, to Sandman Slim by Richard Kadrey. This book is full of action. There is lot of action, there are lot of cool sequences, there are demons and angels and magic and violence, but, there is something missing. What is that missing thing? The basic idea. The basic premise that what the hell the book is about. The basic theme of revenge keeps the book afloat very thinly and frankly, the lack of justification for the title of the book is kinda intriguing. Why is the lead character called Sandman Slim? I never got it. Richard Kadrey's last book which I read was Butcher Bird, which was awesome in parts, some parts of that book blew my mind, on the whole it was ok too, and there WAS a justification for the book's title. This is the least a book can do, tell the reader why is it called what it is called. It gives the reader an idea how to approach the book.

This is what i felt about the books. In my opinion, no book is outrightly good or bad. It's the reader's perception which gives flavor to a book.

Currently reading  :: The Secret Of Excalibur by Andy McDermottt
Next planned read :: Johnny Gone Down