The Dragon Quintet

My second recent foray into short stories was not a successful as the first. Not only did I have the same difficulties as I did when I read Wizards but there were more difficulties as well. Basically none of the stories really seemed that worth reading. Again this time the only reason I picked up this book was because of the Orson Scott Card story but that one didn't thrill me and none of the other four were much better. It will probably be a while before I try short stories again.

The Hunger Games

Man did this book catch me off gaurd. I was recommended this by my sister in-law who seems to enjoy the same books that I do and man am I glad that she recommended it (Thanks Kate). The premise sounds interesting in the setting up of a battle to the death amongst teenagers. Though I have heard of this plot in various forms especially in movies I have never actually read anything like this.

The premise of how these games came to be seemed very far fetched (like many of the distopian societies that are created for YA books, i.e. The Uglies) and I was put off by the First person present tense styule in which the book was written. Even as I think back at the story there is nothing very catching or new about it.

What blew me away about this book was both the characterizations and dialogue presented in the writing. The main characters were real and the relationships rang true througout the story. Even the periffrial characters who were little more than characitures are entertaining and even real. The dialogue is very entertaining and also funny in many spots.

This book was very entertaining and I would highly recommend it. I also look forward to finding more of Susanne Collins books to read.

Wizards

It has been a long time since I have read a short story collection and I remember why. Because there is no long term investment in the book it takes me a long time to get through. I can read one story at a time and it does not matter when I come back to it. This can be a pain especially when there are other books that I would like to read.

The only reason that I did pick this one up was because there is a story included in here by Orson Scott Card that he is using to launch a new series of books, and I wanted to get a glimpse of this world. This book also included stories from several authors that I have read as well including Neal Gaiman, Garth Nix and Eoin Colfer. Apart from Card's "Stonefather" there were a couple of other stories that stuck out to me including Colfer's "A Fowl Tale" and Nix's "Holly and Iron." I really enjoyed the latter and would have really liked to see a full novel set in this milieu. Mostly the other stories were unremarkable and the vast differences in writing style was jarring. Especially when I read several in a row.

It might be worth picking a choosing the stories that you read but not to read the whole thing.