66. Snuff, Terry Pratchett
Sam Vimes is my favorite character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, so I was excited to find one of his books I hadn't read yet. There's a bit of a template for the books featuring Vimes: he investigates a crime with vigor, typically because no one else will touch it, causing lots of political upheaval because he's Vimes and he has no fucks to give about class hierarchy. Vimes is Pratchett's mouthpiece for exploring classism, racism, and cultural collision, and Snuff is no different from Feet of Clay, The Fifth Elephant, or Thud! in this respect. Instead of golems, dwarves, or trolls, we have goblins, treated like vermin by the rest of the sentient creatures on the Discworld - until Vimes investigates a murder. It's a template book, but Pratchett's writing is so damn good and his characters are so damn fantastic (this one in particular has the chance to develop Vimes' son, who is a typical six-year-old - obsessed with bodily functions and adorably empathetic) that it really doesn't matter. It's a lovely cap to the adventures of Vimes.
67. The Whisperers, John Connolly
Another template author, Connolly's books about Charlie Parker are all pretty similarly mapped out. Like Pratchett, Connolly escapes a lot of criticism because of the strength of his writing and his characters; I particularly loved the way The Whisperers played with perspective and tense. Much of it is told from the first-person perspective of Parker, but Connolly hardly lets this restrict the story, feeling free to bounce between narrators, third-person perspective, and back and forth in the story's timeline. It never loses coherency and provides a neat way of telling the story, wherein the reader has more pieces than Parker but in a way that doesn't spoil the final confrontation.
68. Blackout, Mira Grant
This was a satisfying way to end her zombie trilogy, but I do think that Blackout ends up being the weakest of the three. One of the biggest conflicts in the novel is an existential dilemma that never really convinced me; it might be genre-jadedness, since it's a question that pops up in a lot of science fiction books I've read, but (without spoiling anything) Grant doesn't push it hard enough for it to be effective. Other than that, Blackout is exciting and satisfying, if a little rushed at the conclusion; the final scene seems a bit too easily tied up. I think the problem is that Feed, the first book, was SO strong and SO compelling that, even though Deadline and Blackout are really good reads, they don't quite measure up to the power of the first book. You'll want to finish the story, though, because it's a hell of a ride (and I'd rather read Grant's worst book than the best book from SOME authors, just sayin').
Sam Vimes is my favorite character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, so I was excited to find one of his books I hadn't read yet. There's a bit of a template for the books featuring Vimes: he investigates a crime with vigor, typically because no one else will touch it, causing lots of political upheaval because he's Vimes and he has no fucks to give about class hierarchy. Vimes is Pratchett's mouthpiece for exploring classism, racism, and cultural collision, and Snuff is no different from Feet of Clay, The Fifth Elephant, or Thud! in this respect. Instead of golems, dwarves, or trolls, we have goblins, treated like vermin by the rest of the sentient creatures on the Discworld - until Vimes investigates a murder. It's a template book, but Pratchett's writing is so damn good and his characters are so damn fantastic (this one in particular has the chance to develop Vimes' son, who is a typical six-year-old - obsessed with bodily functions and adorably empathetic) that it really doesn't matter. It's a lovely cap to the adventures of Vimes.
67. The Whisperers, John Connolly
Another template author, Connolly's books about Charlie Parker are all pretty similarly mapped out. Like Pratchett, Connolly escapes a lot of criticism because of the strength of his writing and his characters; I particularly loved the way The Whisperers played with perspective and tense. Much of it is told from the first-person perspective of Parker, but Connolly hardly lets this restrict the story, feeling free to bounce between narrators, third-person perspective, and back and forth in the story's timeline. It never loses coherency and provides a neat way of telling the story, wherein the reader has more pieces than Parker but in a way that doesn't spoil the final confrontation.
68. Blackout, Mira Grant
This was a satisfying way to end her zombie trilogy, but I do think that Blackout ends up being the weakest of the three. One of the biggest conflicts in the novel is an existential dilemma that never really convinced me; it might be genre-jadedness, since it's a question that pops up in a lot of science fiction books I've read, but (without spoiling anything) Grant doesn't push it hard enough for it to be effective. Other than that, Blackout is exciting and satisfying, if a little rushed at the conclusion; the final scene seems a bit too easily tied up. I think the problem is that Feed, the first book, was SO strong and SO compelling that, even though Deadline and Blackout are really good reads, they don't quite measure up to the power of the first book. You'll want to finish the story, though, because it's a hell of a ride (and I'd rather read Grant's worst book than the best book from SOME authors, just sayin').
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