One Hundred Years of Solitude

One Hundred Years of Solitude.  Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Harper Publishing. Originally published in June of 1967.  457 pages. Source: Audio Library

First sentence: Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonial Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.

Plot: The brilliant, bestselling, landmark novel that tells the story of the Buendia family, and chronicles the irreconcilable conflict between the desire for solitude and the need for love—in rich, imaginative prose that has come to define an entire genre known as "magical realism.

My thoughts:  My mind is numb from this one.  It was the longest most drawn out nothing that I can ever remember reading.  I know I have vowed not to continue reading a book I didn't like but I thought at some point it had to get better.  IT didn't.  

Generations and generations, seven I believe, in a town founded by patriarch Jose Arcadio Buendia, live really messed up lives. This story didn't really seem to have much purpose.  I wasn't sure what I was supposed to take away from it.  

The Great Convergence

The Great Convergence (The Book of Deacon #2). Joseph R. Lallo. Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. July 31, 2012. 314 pages. Source: audio library book.

First sentence: A story half told is a crime, and there is no crime greater.

Plot:  The Great Convergence continues the tale of young Myranda Celeste. With fresh knowledge of magic and steadfast resolve to see the end of the war that plagues her land, Myranda sets out to find and unite the five fated heroes, the Chosen. Each new warrior brings her world a step closer to peace, but does she have the strength to survive the trials ahead. (Goodreads). 

My thoughts: I feel that this book went on and on.  It could have been 100 pages shorter than it really was.

That being said I did feel like the story continued well albeit too long, was left with an ending preparing for the next book.  Which I probably will not seek out right away as I have a lot of reading to get done from my 2018 reading plan.  

Myranda has to learn to use and control her magic in order to help combat the enemy.  The hardest part I felt of this  mission is getting the Chosen to work together.  Each having their own powers and they feel the greatest and best and nobody will work together.  

This is a good read for middle readers to young adults.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.  Douglas Adams. October 12, 1979.  Del Rey. Source: Audio Library.

First sentence: Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

Plot: Seconds before Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor.

Together, this dynamic pair began a journey through space aided by a galaxyful of fellow travelers: Zaphod Beeblebrox, the two-headed, three-armed, ex-hippie and totally out-to-lunch president of the galaxy; Trillian (formerly Tricia McMillan), Zaphod’s girlfriend, whom Arthur tried to pick up at a cocktail party once upon a time zone; Marvin, a paranoid, brilliant, and chronically depressed robot; and Veet Voojagig, a former graduate student obsessed with the disappearance of all the ballpoint pens he’s bought over the years.

Where are these pens? Why are we born? Why do we die? For all the answers, stick your thumb to the stars! (Goodreads)

My thoughts: I have to say that I am glad this one is behind me.  Checked off my list and never to be thought of again.  I had a hard time staying with this one because from the beginning it just did not appeal to me.  I finished it because it was on my Classics Challenge for six years now.
Earth is destroyed with only two that escape.  They travel through the galaxy meeting other, ummm, beings...
I guess if you are really into science fiction you would like this one.  I'm struggling with this genre.

The Chosen

The Chosen. Ted Dekker. December 15, 2007. Thomas Nelson. 260 pages. Source: Audio library

First sentence: Our story begins in a world totally like our own, yet completely different.

Plot: Think with your heart and prepare to die for you have been chosen.

The land of the Forest Dwellers has been decimated by the Horde under the watchful eye of the vilest of all creatures, Teeleh. Thomas Hunter, supreme commander of the Forest Guard, is forced to lower the recruitment age of his army from 18 to 16. From among thousands, four new recruits are chosen to lead--and perhaps die--for the greater good.

The chosen four are sent on a quest to prove their character, but their mission takes a dramatic turn when they are intercepted, sworn to secrecy, and redirected to a different endgame. Now they must find the seven lost Books of History. Books that have power over the past, present, and future. Books whose words are alive. Books sought by the Dark One that control not only the destiny of their world...but that of ours as well. (Goodreads)

My thoughts: These types of stories are all starting to sound the same.  These four young warriors are sent on a mission to prove their leadership ability only to be derailed from their mission by an alternate task for the Chosen one of them.  It was a good read and recommended for young adults and teens.  But I won't be continuing with the series.

The Book of Deacon

The Book of Deacon.  Joseph R. Lallo. Createspace. 322 pages (Source: Audio book)

First sentence: The end of an era is always a time of great importance. 

Plot: The tale of Myranda Celeste, a young woman orphaned by a century long war, and her chance discovery of a fallen soldier's priceless cargo. The find will change her life, sending her on an adventure of soldiers and rebels, wizards and warriors, and beasts both noble and monstrous. Each step will bring her closer to the truth of her potential, of the war, and of the fate of her world. (Goodreads)

My thoughts:  I have a hard time describing these fantasy books but here goes...  Myranda is a wizard but doesn't know it.  If that's possible.  She has powers that weren't ever developed.  But while running from the people who are trying to capture her for what reason she doesn't know she escapes to a land that is full of wizards of various types.  Because her powers are exceptional, without much effort, each wizard wants to train her first.  She passes each test with flying colors, she must be one of the chosen!  The Chosen have the abilit to stop the war that has raged for 150 years but refuses to do so because he makes his money as an assascin.

Deacon... The reasoning to this title didn't hit until Myranda arrived in the land that the wizards resided in.  Deacon was a record keeper of sorts.  The ending left us hearing from Deacon as he had been writing all these events and leading us into the next book.

It was good and I am looking forward to The Great Convergence (The Book of Deacon #2).

The Witching Hour

The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches #1). Anne Rice. Alfred A. Knopf. 1990. 965 pages (Source: Kindle Library)

First sentence: The doctor woke up afraid.

Plot: On the veranda of a great New Orleans house, now faded, a mute and fragile woman sits rocking... and The Witching Hour begins.

It begins in our time with a rescue at sea.  Rowan Mayfair, a beautiful woman, a brilliant practitioner of neurosurgery - aware that she has special powers but unaware that she comes from an ancient line of witches - finds the drowned body of a man off the coast of California and brings him to life.  He is Michael Curry, who was born in New Orleans and orphaned in childhood by fire on Christmas Eve, who pulled himself up from poverty, and who now, in his brief interval of death, has acquired a sensory power that mystifies and frightens him.

As these two, fiercely drawn to each other, fall in love and - in passionate alliance - set out to solve the mystery of her past and his unwelcome gift, the novel moves backward and forward in time from today's New Orleans and San Francisco to long ago Amsterdam and a chateau in the France of Louis XIV.  An intricate tale of evil unfolds - an evil unleashed in seventeenth-century Scotland, where the first "witch", Suzanne of the Mayfair, conjures up the spirit she names Lasher... a creation that spells her own destruction and torments each of her descendants in turn.

From the coffee plantation of Port au Prince, where the great Mayfair fortune is made and the legacy of their dark power is almost destroyed, to Civil War New Orleans, as Julien - the clan's only male to be endowed with occult powers - provides for the dynasty its foothold in America, the dark, luminous story encompasses dramas of seduction and death, episodes of tenderness and healing.  And always - through peril and escape, tension and release - there swirl around us the echoes of eternal war: innocence versus the corruption of the spirit, sanity against madness, life against death.  With a dreamlike power, the novel draws us, through circuitous, twilight paths, to the present and Rowan's increasingly inspired and risky moves in the merciless game that binds her to her heritage.  And in New Orleans, on Christmas Eve, this strangest of family sagas is brought to its startling climax.

My thoughts: Though this books genre is horror, it's not really a horror story.  It is the classic good versus evil. I am a huge fan of anything New Orleans though I have never been there and the bulk of this story is in New Orleans.

There is a secret organization called the Talamasca that has been around as long as the witches and they have documented from afar the lives of each generation of the Mayfair witches.  A couple times the current member in charge of the Mayfair files made contact with the witch of their time or the family it ended badly... with death.   The bulk of the story is actually a person in present times reading the entries on the Mayfair witches in order to help the current unaware witch whom he loves.  Yes, a love story too!

The current witch, Rowan Mayfair, was adopted out to a family member to be kept away from the home where the spirit Lasher resided with Rowan's mother.  When her mother died Lasher appeared to Rowan.  Rowan discovers where she is from and heads back to learn more of her family and history.  She reads the files and decides it's time to make a change.  Lasher is going to face a battle.  Rowan is a very strong witch and very determined to end this cycle with the aide of her lover and future husband Michael Curry. But a twist towards the end... she must fight this battle to save those whom she loves from harm at the hand of Lasher.

It's been a suspensful read and yes, there is a sequel...