The 47th Samurai (completed)

I have decided to try out a new genre for once: MYSTERY. I was looking for a science fiction book at the local libary when I came across The 47th Samurai by Stephen Hunter. The book starts out with a look in the past on Iwo Jima in 1945, when the Americans started their campaign to take over the Pacific area of Japan. Major Earl Swagger is enlisted as commander of a platoon of soldiers to eliminate the remaining Japanese soldiers on the island, under the command of Captain Yano. The the Japanese are pinned down, Captain Yano commands his soldier to be samurai, proud and vigorous warriors who embrace death. Just as the battle begins, the prologue ends and the reader jumps ahead sixty years into the future to Bob Lee Swagger, Earl Swagger's son. Bob is an ex-marine and a Vietnam veteran, who is now retired on his farm in Idaho. One day, Philip Yano, the son of Captain Yano from Iwo Jima, approaches Bob to ask him if he knows the location of the katana, or japanese sword, that Captain Yano used during the heroic battle of Iwo Jima. Accepting Philip's request, Bob locates the sword and travels to Tokyo, Japan to hand it over to Philip. Upon delivery, Philip inspects the sword to discover the fact that his father's sword is more than just a WWII standard military sword: it's a shin-shinto, a national treasure to the country of samurai. It's a priceless artifact that Bob will soon discover that it is indeed worth killing for. Bob arrives at a Japanese airport to suddenly get drunk on sake, Japan's national drink, and misses his flight. However, this is both a blessing and a curse on his part. The next morning when he wakes up, he discovers on the news that the Yanos' house has been burned to the ground. Bob later finds out that it was the doing of a Shinsengumi, a yakuza mafia group under Kondo Isumi, an infamous samurai that will kill anyone who gets in his business. In order to avenge the Yano family, Bob has to dive deep into Japanese culture and master the art of the samurai to survive in the yakuza world. Of course, he can't do this alone. He asks for the help of American-born Susan Okada and the cocaine-dealing journalist Nick Yamamoto in this fight of government corruption. But for now, I don't want to give away any major details on the story. The significance of the sword and why even the government would turn to the yakuza to retrieve it are all revealed in the story to provide a sense of excitement for the reader as he/she puts the pieces together to solve the mystery of the shin-shinto. This factor makes the book very enjoyable and I strongly recommend it to anyone looking for an amazing triller

The Year's Best Science Fiction (completed)

As a sci-fi fan, this was one of the most enjoyable reading experiences, not to mention challenging as well. I found this book randomly in the adult section of my libary, so I gave it a shot and it was definitely worth it. While I enjoyed it, I am aware that there are some people who are quite skeptical about science fiction, such as this one English teacher that I know, and I don't blame them. When people hear the words, "sci-fi", the first images that pop up in their heads is aliens battling humans, human expansion to planets, the apocolpyse and if we'll survive, etc, and that is some of the ideas in this collection of sci-fi short stories but it goes far beyond that. Fans of the sci-fi genre, will be able to distinguish this book as an impressive tome of philosophy. What I mean in philsophy is that this book incorperates sci-fi into the one topic that no one will ever understand: human nature. In many of the planets in space that the main characters of each story go to, they find out the hard way that no matter where they are, they can never escape their nature. For example, in one short story, a team of space explorers come across a single under-developed planet in which they send out undetectable "drones" to survey the alien race that inhabits the planet and come to like these strange creatures. However, another alien race from space as well comes into contact into the alien race from the planet. From the perspective of their drone cameras, they can distinguish this as a conquest in the making as more corpses appear in the civilization on the planet. Most of the team wants to go down onto the planet to save the civilization but only being armed with three laser pistols against a whole army, the captain of the team has no choice but to order the team to stand down and retreat back to Earth. As they escape the space zone above the planet and are ready for take off, they witness a complete genocide as the civilization falls under superior fire power. Unable to do anything, the team grits and close the warp gate that brought them there in the first place and recording it as if nothing happened. This story is a scientific way of expressing that human nature is mostly distinguishable as carrying about one's self and ignoring helping others. The other aspects of human nature, both positive and negative, are explored in each of the different short stories. Like mentioned earlier, this is a long collection ideal for sci-fi fans but people who aren't into sci-fi shouldn't touch this book, for they won't be able to understand what is happening from page one.

Poisonwood Bible (complete)

Eh, it was an okay book. I mean, I can't say it was a favorite considering the fact that I'm a die hard fantasy fan, but I still liked it.

So, starting from where I left off last time, the Price family is trying their best to fit into Congo life, espeacially the girls (Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May). Fortunately, they get to know the locals, especially Nelson and Antalone, Nelson being their servant, and Antalone is the teacher of the only school in the village, who also gets to be Leahs best friend. But, like any good story, there is always a turning point for the worst. Just as the Price family gets accustomed to Congo life and their time in the Congo is just a few months from leaving the continent, political leader Lamamba decides to unite the provinces of the Congo and rise as an independent nation. In retaliation, the U.N sends troops to surpress the uprising since they had control of the precious diamond mines located in the Congo. With a miniture war occuring, with violent agressions occuring all over the country, all of the white settlers, priests and all, are evacuating. But do the Price family leave? No, sir, Nathan Price (father) is more than happy to stay with his dismayed family, claiming that running away from God's sacred mission to baptize the Congo children would bring them eternal shame. Just as when things have seemed to hit rock bottom, fate just keeps on digging. One morning, when the girls heard a rickis going on in their chicken coop, they rush over to see a green snake killing their chickens. Then, in a blink of a second, the snake takes a leap and kills Ruth May with its poison fangs. Dismayed over the lost of their youngest child, Orleanna (the mother) enters a fragile state between grief and sudden brakedown while the only words Nathan could mutter were, "she wasn't even baptized". When hearing these words, in just a few days, Orleanna takes her children and leave the house, abondoning her stubborn husband in hopes of a better future, away from this tempest of insanity and violence.
In a way, that's exactly what happens, except for the fact that each of the children take their seperate paths. Rachel marries a man, gets a divorce, and marries a more wealthy hotel owner who dies and wills the hotel business to her and lives the rest of her life in luxury, just like the snobby little girl she was when she first stepped into the Congo. Leah, however, decides to marry Anatole and has four of his children. (I felt kinda awkward when I read this chapter). Orleanna decides to take Adah and go back to the states, where Adah finally cures her condition of walking crooked and is more social when exposed to a more educated enviroment in one of the top medical universities. It's kind of interesting to see how their futures were connected to their personalities: Rachel being the rich snobby girl, Leah being stubborn enough to make Anatole finally agree to the message, and Adah, the quiet yet silent one, being a doctor to help others.
So, around the time where the girls turn close to their fifties, the have one last reunion in the Congo where they share information and catch up. Leah informs them that their old father, good old Nathan, was treated as a demon, since he tried to baptize a whole boat of children when it tipped over and all the children died of either drowning or getting devoured by crocidiles. When villagers finally caught Nathan, he was on a wooden tower, which they set on fire and killed him. The ladies found it ironic that not only how Nathan died for his "sacred duty" of baptizism but also because he rehearsed the Bible's verse pertaining about the "end of the world" or whatever (yeah, I'm not much of a biblical person, as you can see). After their reunion, they take their dying mother to go visit the village they first came to when they ask a local for directions. The funny part is that the woman claimed that the place didn't exist and she didn't recall any village in the area they mentioned, since the war most likely lead to the destruction of it.

To be honest, I enjoyed the ending of the book. I interpreted the ending as a message to the girls, saying that after all of the suffering they went through and all of their efforts to try to make life better in the Congo, the only result is nothing and that all of their efforts were for nought, which humored me in a sick sense of humor. Kingsolver incorperates more human lessons in her novel as well. For example, in a chapter where all of the residents of the village, including the Price family, participate in a hunt where they burn the forest and kill fleeing animals. While this is going on, Rachel describes what she saw as barbaric, saying that men were jumping at the sight of blood and that they fought amoungst themselves for meat, showing the negative sides of human nature.

Overall, not my favorite but certainly an enjoyable book to read. If this is coming from me, who is strongly against historical fiction, it just goes to show the skill of Barbara Kingsolver's narration.

Crusades (finished)

The crusades: the series of wars that took the lives of millions of civilians and warriors alike. The Crusades, by Robyn Young, is a stimulating historical fiction novel from the viewpoint of Will Campell, a respected Christan templar, who has a dream of establishing peace in the religous world, where Muslims and Christans gets along with each other as efficently as oil mixes with water. Fortunately, Will isn't the only one with this dream. The Anima Templi, latin for "the Soul of the Temple", is a secret organization of templars whose goal is to establish and maintain peace in this harsh world of religous conflicts and chaos. The Anima Templi was actually established near the end of the first book in the series, The Bretheren. I accidently picked up The Crusades and started reading it, confused at first but that quickly changed. After reading the first few pages, I quickly adjusted and got comfortable with the book, since the writing style Young uses makes it seem that the second book of the series is the first story, since she does such a great job on explaining current events in the book. She also connects to the previous novel in the series by writing about Will's flashbacks on events back in the first book. After giving information about the first novel, those events in the past book lead to significant events in the second story. For example, Will spends and afternoon thinking back to when Will lost his father in a Muslim assault on a Christian fort and spared no one in it. This is just one of the countless factors that contribute to everyone's bloddlust for another Crusade to occur and eliminate the opposing religon. To make it even worse, there is treason occuring in both sides of the war: traitors in the Muslim court are trying to coax king sultan Baybars, ruler of the Islam empire, into eliminating the Christans and Christan merchants are pulling strings to start a crusade, which would imporve their failing businesses with the high demand of weapons. With all of this suspense occuring with just the prevention of a single crusade, it's frightening to think what people had to go through to survive the crusades and even more terrifying to think how difficult the struggle is for Will and the Anima Templi, who have to prevent the intentions of hundreds of political figures of getting through and starting mass blood shed. It just goes to show how amazing Robyn Young is by using her fanatastic narrative skills to make you feel and experience all of the emotions of the characters. Lastly, as a side note, she also includes a glossary filled with characters' names, positions and places, which is helpful when trying to comprehend the viewpoints of different people as a new chapter begins.

Angelmass (completed)

This is really rare. I have actually found another book where it kept me up till three in the morning to read more of the book. Only other books that have done so before is City at the End of Time. Yep, with this, I can certainly cliam that Greg Bear and Timothy Zahn have become my two favorite authors. But enough of the babbling, on with the summary.



Over the course of about four days of reading, everything turned upside down. At first, I believed that Kosta and Chrandris are in a team but instead, Kosta is the offical spy while Chrandris is just running away from her psycho lover/killer and just happens to go to the same planet as Kosta. In addition, both Chrandis and Kosta are actually forced to dive into Emphryean culture and blend in with the civilains in order to know more about the angels. In the beginning, I thought that angels were an alien species where in fact they were really entites that are as small as a little gemstone and are inserted into the necklaces that political leaders of the Emphryean empire wear to make it impossible for them to lie. Amoung these leaders, however, is a soon-to-be politician named Forcystus who's father was famous because he resigned his position as a political leader due to his belief that the angels were slowly taking over the Emphyreans, these beliefs being passed onto his son, so it's pretty obvious not everyone is happy with the angels. Another key aspect in this story is that Kosta is accepted in the Institute of Angelmass Studies (Angelmass being the small blackhole that ejects the angels) and learns that many scientists have applied numerous theories onto what the angels are and how they affect humans. That's the thing that I found so attractive in this story: Zahn has managed to take a fanatasy universe and inserted his own list of space physics that make this fantasy universe feel like that it actually exists and that he is simpy doing an autobiography about this universe. Chrandis, on the other hand, has managed to become a member of one of the the hunterships (the ships that are constantly going to Angelmass to collect angels), even though she is highly suspcious. This is expalined by the fact that the owners of the ship have a secret angel they kept on board in order to change the hearts and lives of thiefs and criminals alike by turning them into good citizens plus the fact that Chrandis has a natural talent for spaceships. After all introductions are made and the characters get comfortable with their new lives, the Pax, the Earth force that wants to retake the Emphryean empire, starts their invasion on the Emphyrean system. Adding onto the list of problems Kosta has, he has also confirmed that the angels are actually living beings inside the little gems and they are controlling the Angelmass black hole to eject dangerous amounts of gamma rays and can also move by itself. If this were to continue, Angelmass would pick up enough speed to swallow the whole planet. Being the hero, of course he succeeds in stopping Angelmass' movement and saves the day and all but the story doesn't end there. When all of this confusion is over, Kosta gives up on his duty as a spy and decides to stay with the Emphryeans because he still has one more duty to complete: he must oversee the return of all of the angels to Angelmass. The reason behind this is that Kosta concludes that the only reason that Angelmass has been dangerous recently is because the number of angels is decreasing, reulting in the angels being scared and forced to fight for in self-defense. In order for Angelmass to calm down, Kosta proposed that all of the angels be returned to the black hole. When a character argued that without the angels, peace would be broken amoung the leaders but Forcystus told him otherwise, claiming that in reality, the angels are the ones who enable to calm down the leaders and said that humans should be able to look after themselves, not rely on some unknown force. Not only was this book fantastic, Zahn was able to bring in a little moral into this epic adventure, which is nice compared to common books such as Eragon and Harry Potter, where the point is all like "hey, hero, learn this cool ability and you can beat the bad guy!" An enjoyable book, one that shows why Timothy Zahn is one of the greatest sci-fi wirters of all time.

Angelmass (continuing)

I've made enough progress in the book to answer some of my questions from last week. Apparently, the book doesn't kick off with some random narrator coming from the middle of nowhere and saying, "It's the year ---- AD and humanity has to fight against blah blah blah." It actually starts off with Kosta boarding the Kotamdiji, a grand space battleship that is the pride of the Pax space force. he describes the trip as a honor for someone who barely got eight weeks of military training and that his nerves seem to be shot. He meets the captain of the ship, Commander Lleshi and Adjutor Corps representative Telthorst. In my mind, these two officiers play the popular two military figures of the military hero who can think rationally, Lleshi, and the high ranking political figure who cares nothing more than to get the job done, or realpolitiks in other words, Telthorst. Anyway, the two officers remind Kosta about the situation in the Emphryean empire is critical due to the influence of the angels' strange powers to subdue any tpye of lying what-so-ever, and that his role in the mission is to secretly land on Seraph, the empire's home planet, and gather as much data as possible about these strange entities. Apparently, I was wrong about the whole Pax/Emphryean connection: the whole human empire was known as the Pax but then there was a schism between the colonies that discovered the angels and created the Empyrean empire. In addition, I also cleared up that Chrandis is not an offcial companion of Kosta: the government gave her a fake ID card to get her onto a spaceship that was departing for Seraph. In the spaceport, she metions that she feels like that she's being followed by a man called Trillings and that she can't detect him because he's that good, so I'm assuming that it's the one who taught her how to be a thief. Timothy Zahn has been added to my list of favorite authors, along with Greg Bear, thanks to his amazing indirect method of explaining the plot, which most sci-fi artists tend to fail at. Now I'm even more curious as to how Kosta will proceed with this mission and if he'll manage to meet up with Chrandis.

Angelmass (new book)

I had to return Poisonwood Bible to the libary. Due to the inability to renew it twice, I was forced to choose a new independent reading book. So, I chose Angelmass, by Timothy Zahn. This novel is another sci-fi novel where humans have expanded their borders to space. Now, I am assume that the moment you read the words "sci-fi", you assumed that this would be another story where humans battle against an unknown race, right? Well, it is true humans meet an unknown force, but it doesn't seem to be hostile. Humans in the late future have established an empire called Empyrean empire, where colonies have settled across the stars. In the colony of the planet "Seraph", scientists have recovered a strange being from a black hole under the identification of an "angel". People in close proximity of these strange creatures find themeslves calm, reasonable, and seem to find it impossible to lie (wish we could do the same). The Empyreans then distributed these creatures throughout their government in hopes of turning political leaders into trustworthy leaders and establishing peace amoung the Empire. (Boy, we need that kind of stuff now, don't we?) However, the top leaders of the empire, the Pax, suspect that there is more than meets the eye and that the angels are a danger to mankind. To confirm their suspicions, they send out academic Jereko Kostas and petty theif Chandris on a ship to ventrue out and uncover the truth about these so-called "angels". The book summary also mentions that tension between the Empyreans and the Pax increase. Just to clear this up, it seems that the Empyreans view themselves as an independent society from the empire, so that explains why these two forces look at each other as rivals. Now, I only just started the book, so I really don't know why Chandris is of any significance in this. Perphaps they need her to demostrate the powers of the angels. Hopefully, I'll read far enough to answer my questions next week.