Tada, I have read two asigned books, and now I have read three! I looked around on other people's blogs, but only one review of Ship Breaker. So I was unprepared for this book. When I was reading it, it had the same sort of feel as House Of The Scorpion. It even was similar. Half men=Idjits, Nailer's father=Matt's "father", The guy who helped Matt escape=Tool, The whole clone harvesting, I have to escape= I helped Nita run away from Pyce, I have to escape. But still, it was a good book.
It starts out with a whole bunch of confusing belief systems (the rust saint, the fates, and the scavenger god) and a whole bunch of confusing concepts (half-men, the life cult, and the ship breakers). Nailer is a light crew person, meaning that he crawls into the ships and strips off the wiring and copper, while heavy crew strips off the ship parts from the ship. After escaping from an oil room in a ship, Nailer is considered as Lucky Boy, and his abusive father stays away from him for a while. But when he and Pima find a clipper ship, with a live rich girl in it. Every thing changes. After making her swear a blood oath that Nailer, Pima, and her (Nita) were crew and had each other's back, she tells them her story. She says that she is being chased by her fathers enemies who want her for leverage to make her father smuggle illegal goods for them, or something like that. Then Nailer's father's mostly heavy crew finds the clipper and her. When the find out that the people who came ashore are not her award giving family, they want to kill her, but then when the people (her enemies) offer money, they prepare to sell Nita. Nailer, Nita, and Tool, a Half-man who somehow wasn't loyal to his "master" escape to where her father's loyaler ship crews could help her. When they get to New Orleans, or what was left of it after some city killers or Hurricanes destroyed it and New Orleans II, Nita is lost and Tool refuses to help Nailer take on Nita's father's enemies. His reasoning being that he will not jump into un-winnable battles like any other Half-man. So Nailer and the loyal crew of the Undauntless sail off to find Nita. Soon they get caught in a beggining city killer, while being followed by the ruthless Pole Star. The same ship that Nita was running from when she crashed into the shore. Nailer offers a suggestion that might help them escape. As they near his beach he worked as a Ship Breaker on, he says that they could go through a gap in "The Teeth" (a bunch of drowned buildings that shred up ships like teeth) which the Pole Star cannot get through. Then they could board it and get Nita. They do. But when Nailer finds Nita, she is with his father, who is saying she is now "body scavenge" (a term for dead people who wash up on shore, who are then broken like ships). Nailer then fights with his dad and ends up killing him by turning on the gears for something extendable that will grind up anything in them, in this case, Nailer's father. He then escapes with Nita and is given a reward and so does Pima who then are able to sort of get off the streets, or in this case, beach.
Themes: One prominent one is that killing should hurt. And if it doesn't, there is something wrong with you. There is also another one about loyalty, that sometimes no loyalty is good (Tool betraying his master for a good purpose) and sometimes loyalty can be good (the crew of the Undauntless saving Nita). Themes in there that were in the similar book, House Of The Scorpion: Something about that everyone deserves life, Nita, even though she is rich and none of the Ship Breakers would care about her. And Matt, he's a clone, but he deserves to live even though he is just meant to be harvested. Other than that, I can't think of any others.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Friday, July 1, 2011
The Immortals, by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddel
This is my eighth blog post, and yet, I have only read two of the books I set myself to read. This is the final book in the edge chronicles which I did a post on earlier, and it was a very good ending. I wanted to read it all at once before we had to go to Italy, so I didn't read the first bit for first impressions, which I seem to be doing a lot.
It starts off with our main character in a mine where they mine stormphrax. It is a thing that explodes if hit not in twilight light, and its powder can be used to purify all liquids. But nothing comes without a price, and the phraxmines are very dangerous, because if a twilight lamp is lit too bright and someone hits a crystal of stormphrax, an explosion, too dark or not on at all, the crystal becomes heavier (they get heavier in darkness) and smashes through all the sleeping quarter's and kills everyone. The explosions are taken advantage of by sky-ships which use the explosion to keep their ship in the air. Nate Quarter is the main character who works in the mines until he gets caught in a drunken brawl and has to run away. He finds work in the city of Great Glade and becomes part of their thousandsticks team. The book skips forward a couple of years to when the big game against the other team is happening and the owner of the factory that Nate worked in is disowning his own son and letting Nate inherit the company. Then as it alternates between then (inheritance time) and now (thousandsticks time) and in the now time the disinherited son who was on the other team reveals that he blew up the factory to Nate (caused by an accident with a lamp and stormphrax, which would be blamed on Nate because it was his job to maintain the lamps) and then pushes him off the very high pole where the winning point is. The object of thousandsticks is to shove the other teams out of the way as you climb over hills, and then send your players up the pole hill and reach the top of the pole before anyone else. Then it turns out that the son killed his father by accident with the explosion, so he flees and so does Nate, his friend Slip, a bander bear (very large and intelligent bear), and Eudoxia who was the grand-daughter of the owner of the company who now just wants to find her father in the other city of the hive. When they get there they find her father taken as a political prisoner (they had to dress up as militia officials to see him) and then get swept into a war against the city of Great Glade. While the war is being lost by the Hive, Nate, Slip, the bander bear and Eudoxia manage to escape. Nate leaves Slip and the bear with Eudoxia's father and leaves to Riverrise with a friend they met on the way to the Hive. Eudoxia had a bullet in her ear and now is very sick, so they needed the healing water's of Riverrise to heal her. When they get there,. they realize that the place is a place where even your thoughts are unsafe because it is ruled by a waif (Waifs can read minds) tyrant and his waif followers. The waif, Golderayce, has been ruling Riverrise for thousands of years because only he has access the the very healing waters (which can reverse age) at the top of the waterfall which he hoards jealously, by controlling the flow of the waterfall. But what is needed to cure Eudoxia is the very healing waters, some easily found herbs, and some that are only found up at the top of the water fountain. So with the help of two of Golderayce's servants he manages to get into the garden of life at the top and get the healing waters and the plants. But Golderayce finds him, and he has a instant death poisoned dart ready to be shot. Nate manages to delay him until he collapses into dust for not getting the needed water to stop him from becoming dust. Nate heals Eudoxia and then participates in an expedition to The Edge (where the world just ends in a never ending cliff) and then to a mysteriously returned city of Santraphrax which supposedly floated away in the first books. As Nate, Slip, the banderbear... go on the rock with a lot of other people. They see that it is inhabited. But one person who broke away from the group, finds his brother who was lost on a previous expedition. The brother tells him that the place is not inhabited by people but shape-changing Gloamgozers who live off fear and want to take over the world. He takes him to a laboratory where pre-life organisms, glisters, are turned into Gloamgozers. His brother is killed by the explosion when his brother blew it up, but now there can be no more Gloamgozers. Meanwhile, the Gloamgozers reveal themselves and the fact that the floating rock the city is on is being destroyed by a long ago plague of stone sickness where floating rocks no longer float, and that the city too is ruined. Then they begin to feed off the fear of the expeditionaries jumping off the rock to escape. After that it begins to rain the waters of Riverrise which kill the Gloamgozers and heal the rock. The story ends with Nate descending down on an edge expedition and a picture that the drop off the edge is not bottomless.
What I liked, the characters all were very real and well played out. And so were the themes of injustice and greed, and bad things happening to good people. What I didn't like is why they had to add on the Gloamgozers and how the whole healing rain was a sort of Deus Ex Machina. I did think that it was a good end for the series aside from that and enjoyed it very much. Although, as a small note, there are other themes, but they are small and not easy to describe, although they are present in the other books which I do not remember very well.
It starts off with our main character in a mine where they mine stormphrax. It is a thing that explodes if hit not in twilight light, and its powder can be used to purify all liquids. But nothing comes without a price, and the phraxmines are very dangerous, because if a twilight lamp is lit too bright and someone hits a crystal of stormphrax, an explosion, too dark or not on at all, the crystal becomes heavier (they get heavier in darkness) and smashes through all the sleeping quarter's and kills everyone. The explosions are taken advantage of by sky-ships which use the explosion to keep their ship in the air. Nate Quarter is the main character who works in the mines until he gets caught in a drunken brawl and has to run away. He finds work in the city of Great Glade and becomes part of their thousandsticks team. The book skips forward a couple of years to when the big game against the other team is happening and the owner of the factory that Nate worked in is disowning his own son and letting Nate inherit the company. Then as it alternates between then (inheritance time) and now (thousandsticks time) and in the now time the disinherited son who was on the other team reveals that he blew up the factory to Nate (caused by an accident with a lamp and stormphrax, which would be blamed on Nate because it was his job to maintain the lamps) and then pushes him off the very high pole where the winning point is. The object of thousandsticks is to shove the other teams out of the way as you climb over hills, and then send your players up the pole hill and reach the top of the pole before anyone else. Then it turns out that the son killed his father by accident with the explosion, so he flees and so does Nate, his friend Slip, a bander bear (very large and intelligent bear), and Eudoxia who was the grand-daughter of the owner of the company who now just wants to find her father in the other city of the hive. When they get there they find her father taken as a political prisoner (they had to dress up as militia officials to see him) and then get swept into a war against the city of Great Glade. While the war is being lost by the Hive, Nate, Slip, the bander bear and Eudoxia manage to escape. Nate leaves Slip and the bear with Eudoxia's father and leaves to Riverrise with a friend they met on the way to the Hive. Eudoxia had a bullet in her ear and now is very sick, so they needed the healing water's of Riverrise to heal her. When they get there,. they realize that the place is a place where even your thoughts are unsafe because it is ruled by a waif (Waifs can read minds) tyrant and his waif followers. The waif, Golderayce, has been ruling Riverrise for thousands of years because only he has access the the very healing waters (which can reverse age) at the top of the waterfall which he hoards jealously, by controlling the flow of the waterfall. But what is needed to cure Eudoxia is the very healing waters, some easily found herbs, and some that are only found up at the top of the water fountain. So with the help of two of Golderayce's servants he manages to get into the garden of life at the top and get the healing waters and the plants. But Golderayce finds him, and he has a instant death poisoned dart ready to be shot. Nate manages to delay him until he collapses into dust for not getting the needed water to stop him from becoming dust. Nate heals Eudoxia and then participates in an expedition to The Edge (where the world just ends in a never ending cliff) and then to a mysteriously returned city of Santraphrax which supposedly floated away in the first books. As Nate, Slip, the banderbear... go on the rock with a lot of other people. They see that it is inhabited. But one person who broke away from the group, finds his brother who was lost on a previous expedition. The brother tells him that the place is not inhabited by people but shape-changing Gloamgozers who live off fear and want to take over the world. He takes him to a laboratory where pre-life organisms, glisters, are turned into Gloamgozers. His brother is killed by the explosion when his brother blew it up, but now there can be no more Gloamgozers. Meanwhile, the Gloamgozers reveal themselves and the fact that the floating rock the city is on is being destroyed by a long ago plague of stone sickness where floating rocks no longer float, and that the city too is ruined. Then they begin to feed off the fear of the expeditionaries jumping off the rock to escape. After that it begins to rain the waters of Riverrise which kill the Gloamgozers and heal the rock. The story ends with Nate descending down on an edge expedition and a picture that the drop off the edge is not bottomless.
What I liked, the characters all were very real and well played out. And so were the themes of injustice and greed, and bad things happening to good people. What I didn't like is why they had to add on the Gloamgozers and how the whole healing rain was a sort of Deus Ex Machina. I did think that it was a good end for the series aside from that and enjoyed it very much. Although, as a small note, there are other themes, but they are small and not easy to describe, although they are present in the other books which I do not remember very well.
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